Seeing the Invisible in the Everyday/Manifesto (draft)

(This text is a draft of our "manifesto" as a group, therefore  I use the pronoun 'we' often in the text, it is an attempt to summarise the ideas which we had in our meeting, but it also  still constitutes a proposal for our project,based on my interpretation of what we seemed to have agreed on, and should be treated as open to counter-ideas and criticism. 
Apologies for the late submission which might not give all of you time to respond. Towards the end is a practical-break down of the project.
Parts 1 and 2 outline the theoretical foundation of the project and what we will be doing in our own everyday lives (manifesto draft). Part 3 is about possible practical ways of handling it. Part 4 is a short version of the action plan we have so far. ) 


1.
In our last meeting Jody mentioned the idea that blindness and seeing are not necessarily antonyms.
Seeing involves structuring visual information into a coherent pattern, and applying an already existing way of 'filtering' and 'connecting up' of information to form a whole.
This is why we are able to see shapes in clouds, or why random bits of paint appear to have the shape of an old man. The brain picks out the most prominent elements and then 'fills in the gaps'. In that sense an inherent part of seeing is also ignoring irrelevant information, filtering out. 

In our everyday we do an enormous amount of filtering out. It is part of our way of structuring a coherent reality for ourselves. 
But we have to question what is left out if we want to understand what kind of reality we have created for ourselves. 

Our world is: capitalist, individualist, it relies on the assumption of privacy, individuality, self-creation, ownership and property. 

What is 'filtered out' to create that reality? What do we choose to ignore to maintain our version of reality which makes us see ourselves as special individuals, living the capitalist dream of 'self creation',  confined to our rooms, to our partner, each room fitted with their own kettle, each one meant to be a mini-replica of the ideal, modern 'couple living their life the way they want to'. 

The suggestion I have made was that this construct ignores the fact that our perception of privacy is an illusion, that we share our flats, our streets and our underground trains with others, strangers, that we constantly blank them out to maintain a sense of control over our lives and that we can do exactly what we wish. The suggestion was to challenge this illusion by acknowledging the people who are invisible the most in our society and on campus. 

In our meeting our group has raised some concerns about not being fully comfortable with the social aspect of the idea, so we have decided to modify it to address the hidden and invisible reality of objects and spaces. 

2.
Just as the idea of privacy and individuality is a capitalist ideal that in practice is not attained and which consequently  necessitates 'blanking out' of others from our immediate sphere of seeing and acknowledging, our relation to objects relies on the idea of ownership and possession as being permanent and tangible. We treat the assemblages of objects that help us to perform a social or professional role as part of our identity, and we see our identity as structured by functioning through them. 

We also see items of technology, things and objects which mediate our reality and structure our identities as technologically enhanced humans- cyborgs, as in our possession. But we do not question the possession aspect of those objects, we blank out the fact that they often are not ours to begin with (such as loaned instruments used in orchestras by musicians for example).

In our project we want to challenge that and make it apparent that possession is temporary and that objects have a life outside of our temporary ownership of them, that they exist in a world of their own. The concept of property implies  an object or a quality belonging inherently to the owner. In reality the owner is never immortal and the property, object gets passed on. Which implies that even property is also temporary. 

By drawing on Cain's initial idea of a meditative  approach to the everyday, we want to focus on being fully aware of the reality of the objects surrounding us, recognise that the objects which we see as 'ours' because they are part of our everyday assemblages of 'home' or 'study space' are in fact rented, were owned by somebody else at some point, and even though they contribute to creating our temporary consciousness, they are not ours. 


We also want to contextualise where we can the temporary nature of our relation to objects and spaces, Cain suggested creating a record and history of a space either through visual or audio-recording. 

The blank hotel room is a perfect example of this 'blanking out' of history of previous temporary homes. 

(I was thinking of Kris and his experience when he visited the student accommodation where he used to live last year, maybe it would be a good idea for his part of the project to do a  text and photo comparison between his everyday experience and the experience of the person who move into his room?)

So the second part of the project, the actual intervention would be for us to create a particular visual/textual record/ juxtaposition of the hidden reality and life, history of an object/space with its immediate  perception arising from our everyday, mechanical, uncritical pattern of vision and experience and somehow bring it out to the world. 


3.
We have the practical option of having an exhibition of our project in the atrium of the NAB, or we could also produce some kind of leaflet etc. as Cain suggested before. 

I was thinking that we could each create a little individual project, and this would be included in an exhibition maybe? Not sure. (needs to be discussed!)




Below are some ideas of the 'sub- projects' done by each person individually or in groups of convenience.
 They can also be expanded into the main project if we decide that the exhibition is not the way forward: 

• Poems: Spending some time in one place, best outdoors, taking time and trying to really become aware of the space, and objects and then writing a poem about it. 

The poem could be then printed and handed out in the same location to passers by. It kind of plays on the ephemeral aspect of it, as well as on 'giving (intellectual) property away '.

• Contrasting the virtual and physical nature of London:  London is a physical projection space for our ideas, and our ways of viewing it. A group, or one of us could do a 'random walk' through the city, taking photos of the underlying reality of objects, the physical skeleton used to project the imaginary London, and contrasting it with the pattern of vision usually overlaid on this particular area of the city. I would be then presented in the exhibition (if we have one)

• Kris could do a photo/story project in his old room and interview the person who now lives in it. 

• Cain's idea of a historical record of a space and objects, etc, made available to passers by. (I think we did not manage to talk about specifics yet).

4. 

Action Plan:

• Each of us takes a meditative and observant approach towards objects and spaces in our everyday lives, trying to see and acknowledge our  usual patterns of relating to them. To try to break  out of  our visual habits. The underlying thought is criticism of  capitalist understanding of property and possession through acknowledging that possession is temporary and that objects exist outside of our ownership. We will try to think about the history of our everyday objects. 

• Each of us will contribute 1 or more  journal entry (short) per week describing their experiences and thoughts. 

• We need to discuss if we prefer to each do an individual project and then present it in a joined exhibition, or if we want to pick one of the projects outlined here (or similar) and concentrate on that. Time, essays, other stuff is to be taken into account. 

• So far we have a conceptual framework and a few ideas, we need trim it down a little bit and see what we want to focus on. 

A.