Over the weekend, I began plotting the second phase of my project. Last year, I began mapping Fluxus and the artists associated with the movement. Before beginning the second phase of my project, I wanted to “clean up” my pre-existing project. Having spent a year away from my original project, I found many things needed to be revised. I found last year, I focused on plotting pictures, videos and archival documents. Having a collection of images and videos makes for a stimulating project, but looking back I feel it lacked depth. This year, I found that I needed rewrite several biographies and several artist-building relationships. Most of my map I kept, however the revisions were far greater than I expected. I realized my strength from last semester was my ability to reveal a very tight-knit community; my weakness was relying too much on images and videos for my data. This semester, I have tried very hard to create concise and informative descriptions, biographies and histories. I want a project, which is “neater” and easier to understand. Last semester, I developed a strong foundation for my current project. As of now, I have plotted most of my points which are connected to The Club, Abstract Expressionism and Fluxus. My next step is to incorporate photos and paintings into my project. If I am able to complete that, I will then be able to incorporate a couple alternative art organizations, such as Creative Time. As of now, my project is “The History of Artist and Art Production in Lower Manhattan, however my map does feature some uptown galleries and art-related buildings. I want it to be clear, that even though my project focuses primarily on the development of lower Manattan . . . it was necessary to include buildings such as Peggy Guggenheim’s Hale House in order to solidify my arguments. The second phase of my project examines the Club, the teachings of John Cage, the art dealings of Leo Castelli and sets up the context of Fluxus. Instead of thinking of my two-semester project as two separate projects, I found I needed to think of it as one. Both projects overlap and intertwine, much in the way both art movements did.
It’s smart to regard your work as two phases of the same project, rather than two separate projects. Considering how much effort you expended in Fall 2011, it would’ve been tempting to regard this work as “finished.” But you were able to look at the entire map — including past, present, and future layers — as something evolving. Once you had a better sense of what it has evolved into, you were able to think not only about what new content you needed, but also how to better tell your story. As you said, you’ve decided that you need to go beyond image- and video-based argumentation, to include “concise and informative descriptions.”
I really look forward to seeing the product of your tremendous effort!