The instant gratification monkey has been bane of my life in the run up to starting my MA in the Netherlands. Suddenly there’s only 2 weeks to go and the monkey in my brain is presenting me with all kinds of distractions - going for a bike ride, searching for new tracksuits online, watching the clouds roll in on what was a beautiful morning. Fortunately no visits (yet…arrrgggh) from the monkey’s mate - the panic monster.
I’ve known about the requirement to start a blog for months and this, my first post as an art student, has been a task I just couldn’t tick off. I’ve never found myself procrastinating before so Tim Urban’s TEDtalk on the subject was super helpful and its meant that here I am, writing.
Before we start the course, there’s been a summer reading list and lots of re-training my brain to read academic articles. I’m treating the list as a gift, some really interesting/dense stuff and it’s also forced me to practice reading on a screen. I usually need to print out difficult texts and scribble all over them but that’s not practical when you’re studying abroad and you can’t take reams of paper with you. I’ve reflected a lot on my writing and my art practice and am already starting to understand more about what I do and how it fits within a performance framework. Here’s one of the key texts that I’ve stuck with and will post more about that next time.
So just need to press save and publish and I can happily eat an ice cream in the park.
