To answer Ethan, in what I mean by ‘surface’ you are correct.

I believe that there are times and places for both process driven and final outcome work. ‘Creativity’ should be a broad church able to accommodate a wide range of MO’s.

I find no problem with anyone show there process or not. But sometime it can be limiting to the creative process if there is an expectation of it being seen as part of the work. So final outcomes are reduced by a failure to truly experiment without fear of failure and what may turn out, if everything produced is to be seen there can be the worry of experiments looking amateur.

I feel this fear of not showing ‘quality process’ is rooted in the notion that process driven work is more ‘authentic’, ‘valid’ and ‘creative’ than other solutions.

It’s worth remembering both ‘process’ and ‘final outcome’ work gains value through intertextuality explicitly declared or not. How someone chooses to do this is up to them.

i have just come home ...drunk....and my creative process has just begun here, infact it has its own life it kind of begins when it feels fit to, and end when it feels its finished although i always want more,

i might just be talking sh*t but my creativ eprocess happens to be its own entity onto its self

de Neit,
Can you explain to me some more by what you mean by your last statement about intertextuality?

Are you refering to the work (both/either 'process' and/or 'final outcome') as a text? and the intertextuality coming from the 'reading' of that text by an audience, ie a poststructuralist viewpoint?

I agree with most of your ideas in your post, however i tend to think that there is an overwhelming bias towards what you called 'surface' in terms of an audiences expectation and reading of work. (which is maybe what you are alluding to in your earlier post... that 'finished work' could be seen or 'read' as 'surface'...

I like to think that work that celebrates some sort of process might somehow challenge that (more general audience) reading and a-priori 'surface' expectation (OF ALL WORK)... rather than polarise and steal the value (authenticity) from 'finished work' so that perhaps 'finished work' mightn't need to run this 'surface' gauntlet?

I read your post as suggesting that work that includes 'process' overtly, actually just shifts the presentation of 'finished work' to include the process. But does it have to be that way?

I also like the idea of presenting 'finished work' that is purely 'surface' (abandining notions of authenticity and value). of course i would personally read a lot of contemporary artists work that way myself.

Thanks for the compliment about my 1st post Ethan. Sorry about the waffly 2nd one... I think I still had in mind the way this conversation started in another thread, where you said:

"It is interesting for me to reflect on (Sebastion's) statements in the context of my own creative decisions and viewpoint and think of my general outlook that underpins my work... What is my "creative persona" the outcome of? and could it have been different? How does it influence and effect my work at the most basic level? (i think of this as trying to see the back of my own head and i attempt it often) It's actually a process as artists or creators i think we owe ourselves and our audience... Illustrating and expressing those ideas i feel IS the artistic/creative process."

I interpreted your 'see the back of your own head' approach perhaps differently to how you intended? For me, it's more about the sense of catching glimpses of things, even when you might be looking at them straight on, which is why I refered to the french book I'm reading. I'm now thinking more about the Diane Arbus retrospective at the V&A recently. It didn't strike me so much at the time, but I now realise there was a lot of emphasis placed on showing her processes - thedetailed biography, notebooks, contact sheets, reconstruction of her darkroom - as well as prints of familiar works etc. It didn't seem to detract, even though I half wondered if it was really necessary. For me, Arbus' work has a density I doubt very much could be deconstructed, and which is why is so fascinates?

I know the discussion has evolved in previous posts, and I'm not ashamed to admit I'm struggling to keep up. Not that I don't understand the ideas, just have reached the stage where it might be helpful to have some specific references or examples - something a little more tangible to illustrate, assist the visualisation of arguments? Thanks!

Hi Ethan, What I hoped i razing as an issue with intertextuality within this topic was, how the amassed work we see before anything helps to shape our understanding. I hope I have no bias to either ‘process’ and ‘final outcome’ work, as I value and employ within my work. What I was trying to deal with, was the issue that I like you like to abandining notions of authenticity and value sometimes and let work stand as is. But I feel that there is within the visually literate community a bias towards work which reveals its process and this is held in greater regard. My view is it’s of the same value not more or less.

To answer “that work that includes 'process' overtly, actually just shifts the presentation of 'finished work' to include the process. But does it have to be that way?”

I don’t think is has to be that way, but often does, sometimes to great effect and at other times as to act as a coverall to hide flaws and unresolved problems.

I’d like to think you are right in what a ‘more general audience’ might get from work which celebrates. I hope that a more general audience wont follow many of the visually literate into a arrogant belief that some methods and processes have greater merit than others.

Also to comment on f:lux’s deeply interesting first post “hard to show anything less than the best I think I can do because that have-to-be-perfect way of thinking is so deeply ingrained.” I think things have changed now where there is a bias towards “have-to-be-expansive and contextulising” for work. Located within that can be blandness. As with all of these things there are exceptions to the rule and in generally I am talking about the visually literate community. Where my hopes and efforts lay are for work tailored to content and audience. Not as f:lux so rightly put work as “guarentee of respect”

I hope this doesn’t sound glib, but to go back to the opening title, rather than ‘Seeing the back of your own head’ I’d rather ‘See through the eye’s of another’ as the might be a bit better.

I agree with you De Niet, I still think it is to easy to get bogged down with the creative, issue. It would be interesting to get feed back from the top creative people. Nick Knight. Willi V, Rankin,Baily Jean Paul, Vivian Westward,etc ( I should think that Hirst and Tracy Ermin would have an answer to this one)

This is really starting to go over my head now. I'm truly flattered to have made a useful contribution to this discussion, but citing extracts of my first post back and forth to each other is making me feel a bit pig-in-the-middle. I already know what it's like to look through my eyes so it's yours, Ethan and de Niet, that I'm interested in. I'm obviously not academic enough but, rightly or wrongly, I like to think I'm fairly visually literate, and it would help me to better grasp what your references are if you could give me something to 'look' at. Any examples of the kinds of works in which "both ‘process’ and ‘final outcome’ (...) gain value through intertextuality" gratefully received!

When formulating responses you must have in mind (back or front) some reference(s)? Be they experiences of you own or works by other designer/artists etc, surely you have something in mind, that in some way exemplifies the points you're trying to make? Would it be too much of an aside to perhaps share them with me? I'm dying to know! Otherwise the discussion seems to be in danger of taking place in a vacuum, which is not a creative space at all.

Please. Just a hint will do. After that I promise I'll leave it be.

You're hilarious f:lux. that's the best post yet.

I'm working on it! ha ha! Im no academic either, just trying to sort these musings out.

and I dont think i am visually literate! so you've both got one up on me.

Now I'm really intrigued Ethan! How can you select images from contact sheets and not be visually literate? And it's not about any kind of one-upmanship, or whatever - I'm desperately trying to understand your's and de Niet's points of view, so I thought I'd ask outright for some pointers.

Oh well. If nothing else I've made you laugh?

What is an academic anyway Ethan? its swings and roundabouts.Some may be better at the written skills whilst others at the creative,I think that interlectual snobberry or Emporers new clothes quite often comes in to it.
Surly this is not a place for people to be trying to up stage each other, we can do that at the Theatre Royal