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Around the time I was buying my very first Mac in 1997, a friend and designer showed me the entropy8.com website. I began my fascination with not only the work of Auriea Harvey - but the sense of how a website could actually seduce and draw you in to an entirely encompassing world. When I was alone
at a computer high above the Old City in the Arab Quarter in Jerusalem, I found a connection
of the ancient world with the contemporary world through Auriea's webcam. There I was --five
minutes from the Wall and the Church Of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome Of the Rock---watching
Auriea at her monitor late at night in Manhattan looking tired but beautiful in what appearred
to be a party dress still worn after a late night out in the noisy urban rush...
To me, groundbreaking
designers like Auriea are the new rockstars and I am thrilled to share our dialogue.
I asked Auriea to
conduct an experiment with me, a sort of 'what pops into your mind when I say this' dialogue
rather than the traditional Q & A.
COMMERCE
JARBOE :
getting the basics covered -utilizing commercial work to develop /promote /nurture the obscure/artistic
independent projects- those of your own and others...
AURIEA : means always having trouble telling the difference between public and private. giving others
your vision so that they may see things their own way.
JARBOE :
the challenge of the designer to pay the bills by these means and still be energetic enough
to create so the mind can dance
AURIEA :
the challenge of the designer to satisfy a desire. every designer pushes the world in a direction
she sees. Not doing what has been done to death finding new ways to build the world.
JARBOE
: making $ BY creating as you like ...in
other words YOUR style is sought
after and therefore becomes what
the client comes to you for in the first
place...
The ways to establish your style...
AURIEA :
seeing $ as a double edged sword sometimes i myself am afraid of sucess. sometimes it feels
better to fail but at least to fail on my own terms. and not because i've given in. the client
may come for what you have done but ... with every thing i make a new idea is generated. who
wants to spend life spinning in circles. you want to take what you have done and evlove it give
the client a next generation vision. often they just want carbon copies. the challenge is to
establish a style but then to not remain stagnant. reinvention, experimentation.
JARBOE
: clients- the 3 types (if we have to limit
it to three)
AURIEA : the client i must take by the hand and guide the client who wants me to work for free the client who wants me to kiss his ass the client who asssumes i am his slave the client is rare who gives trust and freedom but they do exists and that is who i will work for happily.
ART AURIEA
: inability to "SEE" presentation AURIEA :
A life in this network. and seeing it as such. computers are not just tools but a way of achieving
enlightened existence. run your fingertips over the element. use this collective brain, this
organism of human interaction to inspire you. The intimacy that is achieved with a creation
and a person who experiences that creation. meditate on that. what do you want them to feel.
how does it feel to be one with the network. how does it feel to slip through the screen and
into an environment behind the glass. how can our inner circutry be touched by this network
of wires and lives. in this network its not art... more than text beyond the image. a living,
breathing, beast awaits. come into my domain see me see my works, thoughts, nothing more than
thoughts and desires, fears but see me. i am here for those who wish to contend with.. a woman
. a black woman. a telepresence. an undefined network dweller.
A WOMAN'S LIFE
JARBOE : I realized I had to create my SELF.
AURIEA :
don't look back or you will turn into a pillar of salt.
AURIEA
: I had to REMEMBER who I was and my own
power and dignity.
AURIEA :
it is too easy to forget.
AURIEA
: I cannot depend on ANYONE but myself.
AURIEA :
and yet I had to realize that I cannot do everything myself in this world.
always been one to want to know
everthing be everywhere. and i try but i
haven't got the time.
AURIEA
: I get my own food and wine.
I don't expect a man to do it.
AURIEA :
to expect anything would be foolish.
AURIEA :
Exercise/meditation...
aloofness/peacefulness/gracefulness...
Unattached//strong mind.
AURIEA :
knowledge is when you can accept the way things go up and down and are able to be calm when the 360
degres go round again. it all cycles.
AURIEA :
Do not let a man take your power: Do not let love cloud your drive/focus.
AURIEA : I have been accused of thinking with my clitoris. OTHER STUFF
AURIEA
: I really want to know what you do to keep
your vision unclouded and expansive. How do you personally keep cynicism from closing your mind?
AURIEA :
I guess I don't keep it from clouding my mind on the contrary I let it. Ups and downs are a
part of life, no. If I am cynical then I take that as a starting point but turn it around...
if my mind is closed the fun/hard part is opening it back up again.
Then there is also this... It is very important for me to be honest in my work. The work must not just be done it must be meant. This is difficult as it puts me in uncomfortable places inside myself but if I am too comfortable, if something feels too perfect, then I know it is not honest. AURIEA
: Was the move to Belgium in any way a
path to continued self exploration?
AURIEA :
oh yes. New York and the USA in general felt to me a stagnant pool. So much going on but nothing
moving. Espescially with design it seemed to be ecommerce shopping carts selling souls and
dropping bombs on countries I'd never seen.I left to get some perspective. Creating for networked
media is a global art and the globe, while dominated by US media, does not only consist of
American tastes... i need to find out more about the way the world works for better or worse.
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