The Self-Isolation Residency 30th March 2020: Day 1

Portrait of the artist as Schrodinger's Cat: Self-Isolation Residency Day 1
One small cardboard box containing (or not) a silver pendent on a leather strap.

So let me begin by saying welcome to my new residency and blog, I firmly expect the unexpected from this process, as I say I've taken part in many residencies before, but never in times and under circumstances as we currently face now in 2020. For me residencies are always time to make new work, and indeed I will probably post images and write about the work I've created during past residences as part of this process to help to put things into context.

One of the best ways I find to stimulate my own creativity is to put myself under a little pressure and to that end I will begin this residency in a similar way to previous ones: by giving myself two simple rules.

Rule 1, if I run a blog I must post on it every day whether in be a couple of lines or a whole essay.

Rule 2, I must make at least one piece of new work every day, again this maybe a couple of lines or a whole essay. What I mean by this is it could just be a quick sketch that I post or a totally finished painting or sculpture. Sometimes I might post small experiments that go onto becomes more complete pieces as the period of the residencies progresses. 

For me the thing that is obviously at the forefront of my thoughts  is my/our current situation and I intend to use this as the beginning for my new work. There are many aspects of the Corvid-19 that I may possibly explore during this residency but the first one that I want to think about is the one that for me began today; self-isolation. What does self-isolation mean for me? Well in some ways it could be though of as just another day at the studio, but I'm sure that over the coming days and weeks it will probably come to mean something very different.

As I think about the idea of self-isolation I inevitably begin to think about the two separate ideas that the phrase is comprised of:  the idea of self and the idea of isolation. Philosophically it could be argued that we are all self-isolated all of the time within out own minds, that is certainly a potential starting point for this project. But perhaps for now I should consider a more literal interpretation of the idea. The idea of embodiment of (my)self...isolated: so what am I? How do I represent myself? The obvious thing that comes to mind is the pendent that I constantly wear around my neck, its something that I have had and worn for decades for and I rarely take it off at all, for anyone who knows me it would be a good symbol of 'me'.

But what about Isolation? I could simply put it in a box, but does that make me Schrodinger's Cat? I initially wrote the previous line as a kind of joke, but perhaps at his stage that is as good a place to start as any? Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment and in many ways so is what I am doing here and now.  If the experiment were actually to take place the cat in question would be both simultaneously alive and dead until the box is opened at which point the quantum superposition ends when the cats actual fate is determined.  This makes me consider my isolation from outside the box? Outside my studio, outside Athole House. If I am truly isolated in here and nobody sees me the question could be asked as to whether I am truly in the box?