Strategies and processes

I found the handout I mentioned in the last post, so here it is:

 

Fine Art Level 4 Strategies and processes

Strategies and processes can be used as a way of initially brainstorming around a situation you are faced with. Remember these are not answers to a problem, they are simply ways of opening out possible issues that have not been thought about before and they may therefore lead to innovative solutions.

Typical strategies and processes that can be used:

• Editing.  Filtering, selecting and choosing. Paring away until a new form or structure is revealed.

• Masking. Covering, editing out or selectively obscuring elements in order to change meaning.

• Priority. When dealing with multiple elements, to prioritise certain information over others. Changing expected or accepted priorities.

• Focusing. Zooming in or out in order to pick out previously insignificant details and elevating them to a new status, or loosing details in order to focus on the general.

• Dissolving. Eliminating the differences between concepts or objects so that similarities can be highlighted. Mixing things together so that the original components can’t be identified.

·  Freeze-frame. To stop motion. To examine one particular moment. Time selection.

• Stochastic processes. A scattering of events in a semi-random manner. The use of a random component within a selective process.

• Iteration. Repeating whatever is being done in as many ways as possible and selecting only those outcomes that most closely match the goal. Repeat the process.

• Uncovering. The removal or excavation of layers in order to discover what lies beneath.

• Minimise. Subtracting elements. Condensing. Miniaturise. Shorten, lighten. Omit. Understate.

• Modelling. Create small models of individual elements or a model of the whole thing under investigation. Simplify everything, remove details. Work like a railway modeller or systems analyst, shift focus as new frames of reference are revealed.

• Chop down/destroy. Brutal elimination of everything except the base elements. Destruction can be the start of creation.

• Improvisation. The interaction between intentionality and chance. Exploring the possible permutations of existing relationships. Usually associated with skills derived from jazz and related musical techniques, these can be opened up to any other structured activity.

• Interaction. The interaction between two or more processes or products to create new forms. The ability to transform something by acting upon it with a force or process that is determined by the creator.

• Combination. Simple combination of two different objects, ideas – complex combinations of processes or systems.

• Diffusion. Spreading the object or behaviour out beyond its original territory or accepted domain into new areas.

• Mapping. Identifying connections between two different sets of information. Using symbolic notation to re-visualise complex information. A mind-map would come under this heading.

• Repetition. Looping, creating multiples, changing by force of accumulation.

• Copying. Mimicking, re-producing etc. Working with type and token. Examining the gap between the copy and the original. For example: The gradual degradation of photocopies of photocopies, the impossibility of re-creating nature as seen in the myth of Pygmalion.

• Gameplay. Inventing a set of rules that determines how things will look/operate/behave.

• Adaptation. Adapting one thing to enable it to do or become something else. Modification. Change meaning.

• Substitution. Who or what else instead? Other ingredients, materials, processes, approaches, places etc.

• Apply the rules/language/culture developed for one thing to something else.  For example the logic of football to the development of an exhibition of work. Does the exhibition catalogue become like a football programme? Does the choice of a painting’s colours depend on whether we are playing home or away?

• Linking. Physical investigation of how two or more elements can be linked together. For instance looking at how elastic bands can physically bring together a range of different non related objects, or investigations into the visual properties of knots, seams, tapes, glues, binding materials etc. and what they can join to.

• Metonyms and metaphors. Either making one thing stand in for another or linking something to something else that it is not normally associated with.

• Changing the context. Removing the object or concept from one context and putting it into another. This may change the use value or render original meanings associated with the concept redundant. Alternatively the context itself may be questioned as to its original function/value.

• Artificial restrictions. Restricting the normally available materials, space, people, language, receptors etc., in order to challenge the ability to operate or achieve a goal.

• Real life conflict. Pitching people into a reality shift by forcing them to move out of their comfort zone. Times of severe duress, war, economic meltdown etc. are an extreme example of this. Displacement by moving into another society, to escape the complicity of one’s own culture. Disorientation by removing the ability to use certain senses, the siting of work in controlled environments. Perhaps doing art-work in a busy street that you would normally undertake in a studio environment.

• Interpretation. Changing the ‘reading’ of an event, object or situation. Taking another position in relation to the experience. For example looking at what is missing rather than what is present. A new allegory can alter the way that language represents experience. Applying the ‘reading’ of one situation to a totally different one.

• Establishing a norm. A reference point or set of points that can be used to establish a new set of relationships. For example a grid can be used to rationalise differences and establish a set of hierarchies. Producing a ‘set’ of objects that have a ‘family of resemblance’ and introducing an ‘outsider’. Only working with objects that have a certain quality. (Made of plastic, or blue, or under 10mm tall, or touched by the Pope, or made in Leeds etc.)

• Scale. Changes in scale imply changes in relationship. Also changes in size, numbers and mass may also be used to move from micro to macro readings.

• Shuffling/Randomisation/Permutations. Creating unforeseen juxtapositions. Rearrange.

• Collecting and categorising. Any collection of objects, ideas etc. can be categorised in different ways. Each categorical concept will provide unique associations and unforeseen links.

• Translation or transcription. To represent something in another language. Verbal to visual, or from stone to paper. This may involve interpretation. For example interpreting the structure of a meeting as a music score, saying the same thing in semaphore or Braille. Looking at the way translation changes meaning. For example if we translate an English word into French, the French word into Chinese, the Chinese into Spanish, the Spanish into……. etc. and then finally translate back into English. What will have happened with the shift in meanings?  

• Reversal/Inversion. To identify the opposite of something.  Turn upside down, transpose cause and effect. Start working on something one way up or in a particular manner using certain conventions, then change things. Now work in response to the new situation. A sideways view of a painting of a street may look like a person, a performance using responses to your body could become a film responding to a building.

• Competition. To set up a situation where differing concepts/ideas are put into competition. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses and building on them in order to evolve a winner. Evolutionary theory as strategy.

• Documentation. Recording and storing as a means of ordering and controlling. Surveillance as control. Documentation as a replacement or substitution for art/life.

·    Jokes. To use the strategies of humour to create unforeseen connections. For example the use of parody to invoke a style for ironic intent, or to set up a situation designed to bring out the humour in an apparently ‘serious’ environment. To tell jokes in new ways. To make something so poor, so awful that it becomes funny.

• Collaboration. The use of others to create meaning. An acknowledgement of the role of the observer/receiver of information. Using other people to carry out your instructions, the Chinese whispers approach. Working in a team, rather than as an individual.

• Resistance. Working against the grain. Going the wrong way. Taking a political stance. Writing a manifesto that directs your practice. Writing an anti-manifesto. Doing things in ways that seem totally useless or the worst way of approaching the situation.

There are of course many others. As you gain experience you will find strategies that work for you. Some writers leave half finished sentences on their word processor when they go to bed, knowing the half formed idea will impel them into inventive action as soon as they resume work the next day. As a professional you will never be allowed to say ‘I’ve got no ideas’, it’s your job to be able to come up with something, no matter how you are feeling. Therefore you need to find strategies that will work for you.