One thing that I had never thought of before I started working on this site, is
the way in which we (as a society) consume art. We live in a very fast-moving
society that seems to want to do everything at the speed of light. This
includes 'consuming' art. Until now, I recorded my thoughts on the films,
books etc. that I read/watched/experienced in the order that I encountered
them. I read a mixture of 'classics' and modern literature from all corners of
the globe depending on my mood and interests and the contents of my
library at home. I watched films as I encountered them in the same way: I went
(and still go) to see the latest productions at the local multiplex and wrote
about them just as easily as a film produced ten years ago that I borrowed
from someone on DVD.
Whilst I did not need to 'explain' why I wrote about one film or book rather
than another (after all I was the only person that could read what I wrote),
when I started thinking about which film to pick for the 'the book, the film'
page, I realised that, if I chose to write about 'The Talented Mr Ripley' (as I
have done), it would not be a completely obvious choice in the sense that the
film was realised some time ago (in 1999 to be exact) and has not (yet)
attained the status of 'classic' either. I thought about the fact that if my site
happened to be a commercial site about film-adaptations, the actual
news-value of an article about the adaptation of 'The Talented Mr Ripley'
from book to screen written in August 2003 would be very low. As you might
have guessed from the fact that I wrote that page anyway, I have decided
that since it is my personal cultural diary put onto the web, I need not
consider the actual news-value of the things I write about. Thus, I am afraid
you will not find any categories such as 'next month in a bookshop/cinema
near you', though I will obviously write about 'new' art/cultural things if I
encounter them while they are still fresh.
diary'. This diary was not of the 'personal kind' in a sense that most diaries
are; I never kept a personal diary, writing down my experiences and feelings
about people and things which happened in my everyday life ( I doubt that
would make for interesting reading).
As you perhaps imagined, given the added adjective of 'cultural', I wrote
about my experiences and encounters with 'things cultural'. This diary by now
represents several little black cardboard bound books ('bibloi') full of
scribbles, and I started to get behind somewhat in writing since (this is
embarassing) I am not really used to writing by hand anymore. I thought
about typing it up in Word, printing it and sticking it in my little black bibloi,
but that did not make any sense either. Then I figured that if I typed them up,
I might as well publish them... and the idea for this website was born.
So you are now browsing through my cultural-diary-become-website. How did
all this begin? It started when I went off to Wales, to the United World College
of the Atlantic to be exact, where one of my subjects studied was Art and
Design. This subject required you to write down your experiences with art
whilst doing your research on past art, whilst looking at art and whilst
creating your own art. Although slightly at a loss at first, I soon became used
to penning down my reactions to art and making art and indeed started to
enjoy it. I enjoyed it so much that I have continued to write down my
reflections on art and experiencing art even though I graduated in 1998.
My reflections are exactly that: reflections. They are not and are not meant to
be reviews or essays in the proper journalistic or academic sense. I only write
about what has struck me as weird, funny or interesting and I jot everything
down as it pops into my brain, hoping that my typing keeps up with my
thoughts and vice versa.
I hope you will find my ramblings interesting. Please do give me feedback on
both my writing and the website in general, either by e-mailing me at here or
by leaving a message in my guestbook (see link below).
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