When Helen and I started throwing about ideas for our collaboration the first and most obvious starting point for us, seeing as it is a process we both use, were components.  As we progressed the components idea became clouded by other concerns, and as all artwork should in its making, the idea shifted into something that appeared to be completely void of components, like they had been removed from the equation. I became so transfixed by the imagined outcome and how I would get it to materialize that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. Components were still the most poignant part of our process. Componentry is so ingrained in both of our methods of making that it was intrinsically there all along.

Leftovers from cutting components

The Skype conversations Helen and I have are another integral component, a linguistic component. It is reassuring to have these face to face interactions as they allow us a deeper understanding of what the other is thinking, albeit comprehension through talking is another matter that has my interest generally. After cooking up emails, images, Dropbox sharing, videos and texts, our Skype conversations are like icing on the cake because the physicality of the conversations allows us to address our progress directly. The emails and alike are fantastic, an unreal reality of our era, as they speed up communication to an unprecedented level, when all you knew up to becoming middle age, was the postal system, landlines, telegraphs and faxes. But, communication through this advanced visual technology does not eliminate flaws in communicating and although the visual part of technology allows us an efficient, linear way of documenting and sharing, I also find it quite lateral and disjointed. Maybe it’s just me but composing transcripts, plans and diagrams feels fragmented and leaves me wondering, after sharing it, how you can ultimately communicate everything like you’re sharing brain tissue, so as you don’t miss anything. It has been a massive learning curve. Communicating an idea at the best of times is problematic as no two people visualize the same thing through words alone, everything is subject to misinterpretation and then you add 18146.79 Kilometers [so google tells me] into the mix. So considering the potential snags, I have become more mindful of communication and I think so far we have conversed tremendously – some people can communicate instinctively, like it’s a sixth sense.