Subject: "Demise of Diary" Subject: "Demise of Diary"
I think it was a good decision to drop the diary. The diary was needed
to get us all on board travelling with you, even if we didn't start until half
way around. Now most people are hooked on it and so I think we need
more considered pieces. You do need somehow to transmit the feeling of
day to day travel and to do that each day but you can probably do that
now in a more obtuse way. The site does have a very unfinished on going
project feel about it and that rawness is a great strength. But it also does
convey the feeling of a lot of good raw material that hasn't been brought
together. To show us the perliminary sketches, not just the slick finished
product is brave and great to see, it makes you work hard to get deeping
meanings from the site, which is no bad thing. NET usually equals instant
gratification. I would like to know your more considered opionions of the
journey through some more pieces. You know all this, it's a real case of
armchair driving, sorry.
Subject: "Demise of Diary"
Please...say it isn't so, "Demise of Diary".
Fortunately, or unfortunately, we have no soul-searching questions to ask of
you, except that your journey continue. We so look forward to coming home
after grueling day's employment in the land of the free and home of the
brave (?), to find your bookmark and search out your day's adventures.
So, pray continue, and in health!
Chris & Shirley Murray
Coupeville, Washington, USA
Ian Bruce sent us some 'probing questions'
this evening for a piece for the Big Issue in Scotland. They
served to aggravate my angst about the project so far to the extent that
we reached the 'ditch the dairies' decision. Whilst they are entertaining
to write and give an account of what we've been up to, they are far too
time consuming. They don't, I feel, really say much about what we could
be making in terms of actual 'pieces', or really challenge any expectations
we/the audience may have about travelling as artists and using the net to
convey the experience. They were initially intended to be one element of
the whole story but have really taken over a bit. They may resurface with
more time but for now they are shelved...who knows what will follow with
5 hours a night in the B&B and no witty stories to hide behind. Just us
a few quick take photos, some raw video, the lap tops and us.
From: user
Subject: diary etc
X-URL: http://194.130.144.195/hypertext/journal/feedback/emailus.html
Hi
its cool its groovey its fabulous
I think you've done exactly the right think in dropping the diary and
emphasising the individual art pieces. Partly because it was a bit too
linear - and to be honest a bit too much like the traditional
travelogue that you are intending to creatively critique. It's hard to
break out of the 'we went here, we went there' letter home type style.
Also because the two different versions of the same days events was
becoming too dominant a comparison; too much of the hers & hers . I
think if yours and Karen's observations are integrated and provided in
a more random way it makes it more in the spirit of the thing. Besides
which, your styles are SO different that there is no danger of having
your individual personalities merged into one!
However, one good thing about the time/diary structure is that it
gives us a sense of your journeying, and it's easier to instantly
check up on. Could you possibly do a webpage for each day or couple of
days as you did last weekend? Nothing complex: it might contain a
paragraph of text, it might contain a link to a sound file, it might
contain a snatch of transcribed dialogue or an email received. It
would give us down here a greater sense of the options from which you
are choosing when you are creating your 'documentation'.
Alternatively, you could just re-use the flashing text you have been
placing at the top of the home page as a list of 'headings'; that
would do the trick and give us a sense of your progression. In fact it
might be better: after all the day by day (literal) time spent is not
what is important, it is where & how you have chosen to go that
defines the journey.
This is just me making suggestions in an overly curatorial kind of way
and you are welcome to tell me to fuck off in seventeenth century
gaelic.
diary page | home