Today I had my one to one with Wendy, the first in some time. I had elected not to meet with her sooner as I had set myself to task gathering as many audio recordings and stills/video pieces as I could. The aim was to get an objective overview of what sort of likely project outcome I possessed.

The meeting was very positive but quickly identified that I had much work to do in order to meet the deadline of the 13th December submission. I also had to more effectively quantify what sort of stories I was going to use for my FMP.

It was agreed that some ideas worked well, while others did not fit the remit of the project as effectively. It was noted in the meeting that poetry in general, for example, risked not working as well when represented by a single stills image, as did some of the other submissions.

This means that for a live audience, such productions could work, but for the FMP submission, these same options may not be as appropriate.

This concept reinforced my idea that I was now looking at my practice from different angles. In the one hand as a creator of the work and other, as the audience.

Thus it became more clear of the importance to identify what audiences were going to view the projects images and video. This also indicated that the resulting exhibition shown to an audience would most likely not be the same exhibition submitted for my FMP.

I felt I was finally starting to understand the complex relationships between the creator and the audience/observer. The notion that the creator wishes the observer to view a piece of work in one way, knowing that the observers own experiences and ways of seeing would take this view to a different place.

However, I can now start to understand that the creator’s role is actually to guide the observer on a journey of their own. So long as the creator can direct the observer along a path the creator wishes them to go – the observer would go on to create their emotive reaction to the works – this for me confirms Barthes Signifier and Signified approach.

I now feel more in control of my project and can now see two connected pieces of work emerging – one being Riparian in its public exhibition form and another Riparian in its FMP submission form. This now gives me a much better understanding of how to weave these works together.