I feel that the Dada project has come at a great time in the course, it feels like a bit of a breather to invest some time in an art form which is slightly out of my comfort zone. Initially I wanted to create a Dada poem, I enjoy the thought of creating something in an haphazard method without decision making. Yet, when I cut out all of the words and put them in a bag I was getting uninteresting sentences. This was a set back but I thought in true Dada fashion I would film these mistakes and see if I could get anything to develop from it. I’m really glad I did this, it was encouraging to see my process visually and be able to reflect on it again and again. It was also motivating as it felt like the mistakes weren’t time wasted but time gained in doing something differently.

After making this step I felt like maybe I would make video work which helped to describe this process I was going through. I had recently gone to see an video exhibition at the Tate Britain by Elizabeth Price: The Woolworths Choir of 1979 (below are some images taken by myself, unfortunately they aren’t brilliant due to low light).

Here is a snippet from the video by Price.

The Tate describes Price’s work as “Elizabeth Price describes her films as moving ‘from something that looks like a PowerPoint lecture, to something that looks like an infomercial to something that feels like a cinematic melodrama’. For the Turner Prize exhibition, Price is presenting her video installation THE WOOLWORTHS CHOIR OF 1979 2012. Comprising three parts, the video brings together distinct bodies of material into a dissonant assembly; photographs of church architecture, internet clips of pop performances and news footage of a notorious fire in a Woolworths furniture department in 1979. The film weaves together existing archives of text, image and sound to create video installations that drift between social history and fantasy.”

I like how she compare her work to a PowerPoint lecture as well as an informercial, while watching her work it does have this feel about it. Price only slightly alludes to what her work is really about – personally I felt like the video was an insight into her brain making connections between thoughts, some were tenuous others were elaborate. This insight into her process is what I would like to combine into my own work, I think it shows the artist as sensitive and vulnerable presenting a side to themselves that isn’t always seen in something final. This is not to call Price’s work ill formed, it is actually a video piece that has been on my mind since I saw it. I felt it was provocative and intriguing, I wanted to uncover more – this is what I would like viewers to see in my own work.