This session happened a little while ago and so I have had time to reduce detail to concept, although the detail I had requested – whether OCA used an absolute measure for essay word count or the more usual +/- 10% (it’s the latter) – was a welcome one that needed no reduction.

Some points, the matter of ethics in research for instance, have become redundant for now as I have decided against running a survey at the forthcoming art trail. My sense is that the logistics of the setting may not be conducive. Another, relating to a discussion about what level 3 might entail and my thoughts about content, has a caution attached to it in terms of maybe getting ahead of myself. That’s a possibility but given that level 3 is the degree year, I would argue that an element of planning ahead, for me anyway, is essential because I need a sense of the framework for that final and critical module as it’s new. I presented an idea based on my current mantra about my reason for being on this course, which is closing the circle – a reference to my having started out in art at Brighton college of Art in 1967 but getting no further than the Foundation year. I’d been seeing level 3 as a completely separate entity from the current module and hadn’t intended to expand on the personal painting I have been doing so I was surprised to see ‘Rift’ mentioned.

Further points include finding reading involving the expansion of physical art with the use of digital content; investigating the way in which, for me, digital interacts with the physical work; and considering what’s described as my sense of a hierarchy of exclusion/inclusivity for art with galleries being the least accessible. I think the recommendation is to find other artists who may see things the same way but I’m not sure how feasible that is. I can though, draw on constructs from social psychology that, in conjunction with the 2013 doctoral dissertation by Jozwiak, may address aspects of that impression.

Finally, looking through the requirements for Assignment 3, I would seem to have completed much of the necessary work. This applies also to Assignment 4, so my plan now is to mull over the guidance, consider my essay outline in the previous post, and make some more of the physical/digital hybrid work in the Rift series.

Oddly, I find myself pleased with my progress but simultaneously slightly alarmed at how quickly this is happening. I enjoy getting the work done, but I don’t want it finished because then what, astrophysics? Do they do that at GCSE?!