3. • Creative process
• Part of the artworks
Self
• Organisation of the art
work
• Mediation of the work
• Promotion of work
communication
• Documentation of work
as record
• Creating capital and
legacy.
• Documentation of
Partnerships , projects for co—funders
funding and • Documentation for future
contexts funding and partnerships
• Application contexts
4. • Diaries notebooks – informing
• Essays positioning/ reflecting
Archives • Interviews – exchanging
public and private • Applications – revisit, reuse
• Project proposals -
• Process notes – concepts
Self
• Project start-up.
Development,
management and • Project mapping – tracking.
administrations • Communications etc
Public and private • Methods - blogging, emails,
letters, project statements, PDF
type documents
• Writing becoming an integrated
part of work process, and
collaborative processes.
• Writing – scripts, documentation
Art Process
for publication
• Writing as support to images and
the context of those images
5. Mediation of How is the text supporting the
the work understanding of a context or practice
Is this working to underpin a message
Promotion of Promotional releases – the
work communications through the
Communication stakeholders. Are you aware of what's
happening and how work is being
represented
Documentation
of work as Open access – using blogging and diary
record as a method of access to project and as
a document of record.
How can writing really work for you,
Creating capital particularly with regard to time and
and legacy.
people centred work are you capturing
a good scope and giving yourself time
for this?
6. The needs of project partner, with
their funders and organisational
Documentation
of projects for responsibilities. Writing for
co—funders specific contexts outside of the
arts – education, healthcare etc.
The writing is an act of mediating
value beyond the scope of arts
practices
Documentation
for future Where you might be writing up a
funding and skill sets or approach that is
partnerships specific to an element of practice
that you are honing in on this
aspect of what you do.
Application
contexts Technical information
Articulating beyond art-making
relationships, competencies,
skills, needs and scope of work.
Or presenting as a totality
8. Reasoning
______________________________________________
Why are you writing this statement, document, notice, blog etc.
What are the specific characteristics of the medium in which you are writing.
Focussing on why and what you want to say – you can fix how to say it.
Who will read this - is it for artists, artists and a range of audiences, audiences
or non arts people?
Am I informing about something specific or general - eg something in total or
in process?
Is it clear and your clear.
9. Consideration of context
____________________________________________________________
Is this a public communication, semi-public or private.
Try to be rigorous about your understanding of placement.
Is this an arts council application, a residency application, if its the documentation of a
project - who is this documented for?
Is it necessary to have much text and what text is useful for a particular context?
Be very clear that people read quickly- they will be scanning rather than deep reading.
When reviewing your documents they could be reading between ten and seventy others
over an intense period of time
Are they scanning your document for something that is of specific interest.
When you are deciding what information to include you must consider if it is relevant to
everyone or just some. The most important element is to keep the art to the fore – and
connected to who you are.
Think about how and where to place technical or theory information. This allows those
interested to have it on a close read - but keeps things interesting.
10. In documentation writing – for reports or books……
Think about the writing style and tone; you can have a number of
styles, and can bring in other “voices” with quotes, texts and
references especially in bigger reports, evaluations or documentary
texts.
Think about what this communicates
1. The third person - a formal, factual and reporting tone -
depersonalised
2. First Person Personal - Observational, personal and confidential
3. First Person Participant - Advocates, testifies, objective
11. You control the structure
_______________________________________________________________
When you’ve clarified what you're doing and considered your audience the next
stage is to plan the structure of your document.
There is no convention other than what might work for you, try to gather a set of
documents you like - the layout, the imagery, the use of references, captions,
maps etc . Call it trailing rather than cogging!!
Even an email needs structure. They are often too general leaving the recipients
unsure if they need to do anything in response or not. The example I showed is
over structured so that the crucial information is not to the fore.
First think about what you need to say and then the order in which to say it. From
an arts perspective keep that understand of the practice to the fore, it is the
priority.
Start with a short general intro and then drill down to the detail, linking topics
where possible and clearly showing where new, unrelated topics start.
12. Really good contextual images can work very well, because the context
is often with people or places that read as "every-day" contexts -
captions really support a document or text.
They are really move process ideas along. Mix it up - that can work
well -clustering images.
I really like to keep thing visual things, you may find mind maps useful
to help you plan your document.
Another way is simply to write topics and sub-topics on post-it notes and
stick them on a white board. You can move them around until you’re
happy the structure works and then take a photograph with your mobile
or just write them down. This is a good brainstorming technique if
several people are working on a document together.
I use a programme called Mind Genius and a programme called Dragon
but this might only help to get started
13. Drafting
_____________________________________________
When writing we often spend too much time struggling to get the right
word or phrase and this breaks the ‘flow’. The best way is to write as
quickly as possible - go back later.
The words and sentence structure sound more natural if you do and will
be easier to read. If you get stuck, just mark the spot, skip over it and
continue. Or just highlight - I have started to use the comment post-it's.
It’s often quite hard to write an overview, introduction or summary first
so you might want to leave these until last.
That might go for applications too - maybe get on with the Project
Proposal and then get into the details of forms. Or vice-versa!
14. Polish
_________________________________________________
This is the bit where you get help.
When you’ve written the first draft you can now begin to polish it.
Review for tone - this is especially important, how are your images
working with the text? How is it looking - what's it saying to you. Is it too
formal, too jargonistic, too first person.
Where you have struggled to find words for before will now be easier to
write - you might notice little habits - repeating certain words or over
explaining things - under explaining.
There might be whole bits to delete - more images to add in.
Look at each sentence. Does it say anything useful? Is it too long? Will a
range of people understand it? Could some info go in as footnotes?
15. Look at the words and punctuation. Are there any unnecessary words? Could
you change some of the complex words for more familiar ones?
Have you overdone the passive voice? Have you eliminated common
punctuation errors that would make your document look unprofessional?
Look at each paragraph in turn. Does it describe a single concept or do you
need to break it up with a header. Are the headings appropriate and are they
consistent?
Is there plenty of white space round the text - is they layout working well.
16.
17. Tired Eyes v Fresh Eyes
For formal documents - such as structured project evaluations or
project proposals/ write ups just leave time even if it’s just overnight,
you’ll be amazed what a fresh eye sees and what you notice as not
working well for you.
A trick is to copy the document and change the way it looks – make
the font larger or smaller – and print it if you’re used to viewing it only
on screen. Just by making it look different and reading a printed page
rather than the screen will make it appear fresh.
18. Feedback
Ask.. Find out.. Respond..
There are conventions within organisations, and industries which
may help you to know about, and make life easier in the future.
Feedback helps you to understand a range of conditions.
19. Images Images that are
activated by text for
a context
