Project 2– Box of Uncertainties: Digital Diary
Tutor Diana Donaldson
Student Sofia Restrepo
MAAI, 2023, CSM

Prologue ?
I’m starting this diary to understand what’s the first part of this ‘uncertainty’. Where does it come from? When did it begin? I was going to begin non-fiction this story by taking the ‘objects’ to the first tutor session with Diana, but when thinking about it all, I realised it goes far back.

What’s appropriate though to include here though?

From when on does it become ‘irrelevant’ or ‘not appropriate’?

And what do those adjectives; irrelevant and appropiate even mean?

Hm..

So many possible beginnings, as many possible endings.

I wonder if I chose a certain beginning/starting point, will it push the research somewhere different? and hence the scope of the diary entries? I guess it would. And certainly the research will affect the ‘conclusion’, so I must take that into consideration as-well.

Well, without further a due… I believe i have found a moment that feels just about the right weight to keep me oscilating between confusion, insight and motivation.

Thursday 26, 2023.
Introducing the ‘box’

My box of uncertainties is made up of something called How to create great things in the physical world?

With a question mark.

Because I don’t know how to create / exist in it sometimes, but mostly create. That is my current concern.

Inside the box I put two objects that represent my existence in it:

My Moon Ball and Spizzy Ball
Two Playhouse sticker sets (two because one was first iteration in a digital printing house and second was the next iteration with a different company, but both results where disappointing)

The bouncy balls were made by a company called Waboba and the stickers were made by me [Playhouse]. The bouncy balls are the best in their field, and my stickers are underwhelming in quality (this appreciation is based on color accuracy, material durability and overall weight).

So I picked these objects, as they are both things that I would want to use as merch for my studio, Playhouse, and hence hold the symbol of a ‘starting point’ in the translation of Playhouse into the real world.

What is Playhouse? [You can skip this part, it’s just for reference since it will be frequently mentioned]
Playhouse is my non-disciplinary production / creative studio . I founded it 3 years ago after graduating with Hons from a bachelors in the Science of Management, with the hopes of creating a company that would find solutions -through art- to many of the problems I experienced in society. For example, the fact that the majority of entertainment we consumer has severe violence and makes us feel inadecuate or not enough with ourselves in general, ie. the kardashians. What once started as a creative studio ran by a 19 year old girl is now turning into an artist representation & production company, but regardless of that transformation, Playhouse still only exists in the virtual world. Ever since I started it, everything has been digital: our deliverables, our meetings/Playdates (the team all works remotely and spread around the world), the connections created, the people met, the emotions shared, everything.

Things weren’t always like this though. Before Playhouse became Playhouse, it started off as a physical house-party in Madrid, that I would host sporadically with random groups of friends from all around the world. Here’s the first invite ever:
{image 3 scale="49" icon-mode caption="First ever invite to Playhouse @ Madrid"}
Madrid, January 2019

playlist - for reference; this is what we listened to.

My living room would be filled with intellectually stimulating conversations being held by young, curious young adults. I would play music (my first times djing) and do some pretty interesting light arrangements around the flat. This happened throughout 6 months in my second year of the bachelors, while I was living in Spain.

{image 6} {image 7} {image 5}

Eventually the parties stopped as I had to move to Berlin to finish my third year of university, but the energy was channeled in a different way. At the end of my year in Madrid, I went to a festival (Primavera Sound) where I met a person, Alejandro Adler, who inspired and pushed me to turn Playhouse into a creative studio. Berlin is where Playhouse transformed into a not-so-imaginary studio, as I didn’t do parties but instead worked on building a first working iteration of the studio’s website.
I attached a picture below:

{image 4 scale="13"}
Berlin, 2019

I made a mind map of the story for some context.

[note: I am revising the diary right now and this is related to the entry but it might be too long so I wrote that it was optional in the title]

Sunday 29, 2023.
I just made a Playlist of the songs I listened to while writing this- I was on Soundcloud.

Ok, continuing. What to do now?

Research.

1 GAME

Take the objects to school, show them in the first meeting.
@ CSM 23 Jan 2023. Monday afternoon.
My tutor is Diana Donaldson*.

To observe: Emotional & Verbal Reaction

*My reaction when I found out my tutor was Diana Donaldson: I was really happy. She seemed interesting from the first class, asked some pretty real questions.

I arrived 1h10mins hour late to that lecture. I thought class started at 2pm and it actually began at 1pm, so there was that. I was quite embarrassed but smoothed quickly into the group.

We spoke about the brief, dissecting it in detail for better comprehension and then we spoke about our ideas for the box– I took out the stickers and the moonballs and introduced them to the group.

The response: was pretty great, everyone seemed somewhat interested and wanted to hold the ball. It bounced out of control and we laughed. They were fun. They did their job. Diana seemed intrigued by the balls, asked a few questions, and said that she didn’t believe in coincidences (neither did I).

Before the session I was still uncertain about what specifically my box was made of but it became clear during the short yet substantial talk with Diana that it was my intrigue to learn how to create great things in the physical world.

Diana suggested I send an email to her with the name of the company that made the moonballs because she wanted to see if she had anyone in common with them, after I told her the story of my unsuccessful attempt to contact them for a Moon Ball x Playhouse collaboration.

At some point also Diana asked me if she could hold the ball for a bit, haha! of course she could!

2 GAME

Emailing Diana
@ Home - Linden Gardens 23 Jan 2023. Monday night.

So I emailed Diana and got a surprising answer back. I think I upset Diana. I’m an idiot. I used the word ‘lie’ instead of ‘I was wrong’ or something that doesn’t mean LIE.

I asked my girlfriend to help me write a clear reply apologizing for the misunderstanding, hoping it would explain to her what had happened.

This exercise has made me realize two things

That Diana looks at dialectics, and rightfully so.
That I could really improve communication skills.

3 GAME

Talking to peers about this project
@ London The last week of January 2023.

At home with my girlfriend, I told her what I was planning on writing about the moonballs and the stickers and she gave me great feedback.

Insights resulting in my conversation with her.

My box of uncertainties is actually: How can Playhouse exist in the physical world? Instead of the previously contemplated; how can I create great things in the real world?
Tell the story behind and tell a story in general.

Tell a story? In what way I wondered… then I remembered my profession includes creating worlds for artists and writing the langugage for the artists of tomorrow. So for this whole project / diary I would create a language for myself aswell. A format, a style, a design. My world of Imagined Applications.

Action

Creating the World of Imagined Applications
I went on the backend of my website and started designing the entrance menu for all my entries in the digital diary for this MA.

So far I have this:
{image 2 scale="47"}
but I don’t like the background too much, it feels very distracting. I’ll see if it grows on me, and you will too. It’s an interactive kaleidoscope of a gradient I made on Photoshop, actually the one at the top of the parage. Blue is my favorite color so that’s why I picked it. The A is falling because somethings things go upside down. The ‘N’ next to the second ‘I’ in ‘Imagined’ is in exponential position for the I, so translate into Imagination to the N power.

Ok now I must worry about the contents of this website. Let’s do some different type of research. “Critical reflection/review on at least two journal articles, book” as the brief puts it.

But wait, first, what am I looking for? What should I read about? Where do I put my attention?
Should I look at physical spaces in London?
Should I look at sticker manufacturers?
Should I write to someone from the Waboba company [the makers of the moon balls]?

Perhaps I should email Diana and ask her?

I will. I just did. I scheduled the send for 8am Monday.

4 GAME

Talking to Richard about my questions
@ CSM 30 Jan 2023. Monday afternoon.

Today I went to class although Diana wasn’t there and had asked to move the session. When Richard and Zuleika asked where our group was they told us we could go home, so before leaving I asked Richard if I could ask for his opinion on my doubts from yesterday. I told him I didn’t know what to research on, where to focus my energy, and he thought that was great news, because I was truly faced by uncertainty. He said it was now up to me to decide within my world of possibilities.

[note: reading this while revising the diary, I realize how much this conversation affected me for the presentation with Diana on Wednesday, as I had grasped from Richard that I should keep all my possibilities open instead of narrowing it down]

Interestingly, when he said that—all of a sudden all my questions from 3 GAME became moreless obsolete. I realised I was trying to find a specific answer to something with no ‘solution’ per-sé.

REWORDING MY QUESTION
My wonders actually all led to: How to create fantastic art in the physical world?

In my talk with Richard he also mentioned some things about his experience in the pandemic going offline to online and then going back to offline when it was over. He shared how for him, going offline again was harder. That makes sense though, the physical world is much more dense.

NEW RESEARCH
+ Living the dream Bvlgari Ddocumentary on the process of their creative director Lucia when making a collection.
+ Alchemy by Rory Sutherland from Ogilvy
+ Rosalia’s live show performances

5 GAME

Talking to Richard after class
@ CSM 31 Jan 2023. Tuesday afternoon.

I arrived to class today and we had really interesting guests come over for an interactive talk & workshop about the future of humanity and it’s information.

After class was over I saw Richard again and he asked if our previous conversation was of any help, to which I replied, “You popped my cherry of thoughts.” We were both startled by my answer.

[note: reading this again I’m wondering whether to delete this last sentence or not]

FEEDBACK SESSION WITH DIANA

Febraury 1, 2023, online

We had the first official feedback session with Diana yesterday. It lasted almost 5 hours. It was fascinating.

Firstly, my other teammate’s topic choices were really unique. We all poured our hearts out in different ways; marriage, job placement, self-esteem… super interesting to see the ‘uncertainties’ other people have, so different to yours, so distant, yet not so much. It was a reminder of the common humanity that unites us all.

My box had the 2 sets of stickers and the moonball. The box I decided to communicate as Rosalia’s live show. Below is the link to the presentation.

https://sofialuna.xyz/Presenting-Project-2

I didn’t know people had made powerpoints, so while carefully listening to my peers present, I created a website that compiled my process with this prompt since it had entered my life. I included the notes, a few sketches, referents...

Diana’s observations
One of the first tings Diana said was along the lines of -you took this very seriously- and indeed, I did and had some very serious findings. Additionally,

The presentation was too long, in general, in life, you don’t have a lot of time to impact people —> be more brief —> you have a few seconds to capture people’s imagination (brilliant feedback!! ) —> include the bare essentials, hook?, show people what’s in it for them.

She told us the story of when she made her MA film and she had to be super concise with her dialectics and know her public really well.

I made generalizations.
Rosalia was not the box. She is a referent, a place to aspire to, part of the research, but not the box.
I was looking to add dimensionality to my work.
How much we learn when doing ‘miss-takes’.
I had great opportunities to improve my communication.
My presentation was an overload of everything. Connects to the first point about being more brief.

Sharing too much.

Is the DJ part inside or outside of the parameters. What are the parameters? Parameters are what is inside a specific area of the larger picture. My approach was too broad.

She asked why I chose the Guerrilla ads approach. Well, because in a way it was like transfering it to The Universe and hoping that he would make whoever had to see it turn his head for a few seconds, since it’s exposed to so many people.

She answered that she also really believed in handing things, giving them, offering them to te universe. Me too.

Actions to take from this feedback:

Words: be brief, lots of opportunity to improve my communication.
Think about what is inside and what is outside.
When completed, come back, read it again and see if you have any new insights.
Ask more questions

Ask: What’s inside, what’s outside?

Inside:

Music
Spirituality

I have always known that these two things make up my core. I thought I would start navigating them professionally and prioritizing them much later in my life, like in my 30s. With this exercise I realized that this has been a primordial slice of my daily existence since some time ago, I just labelled it differently.

How to add dimensionality to those 2 things?

Well MUSIC—> Play in more places, play at house parties, do collaborations with other DJs [Diana’s idea], make music.

SPIRIT —> Playhouse, through the artists in the roster. Right now we are

Alejandro Cuadros- painter, sculptor, creative dir.
Steven Bernhard- photographer, lighting, creative dir, film director.
Loli Laboureau- photographer, creative dir, film director.
Amanda Trossman- producer, creative director, psychologist
And myself

We will continue working with them, but I have to evaluate the way the studio presents itself because our major unique selling point is the way we treat our artists and what we do for them working with the technology of their spirits. For example, the first thing we suggest them to do when they join the roster is write a letter to God, or The Universe, thanking them for everything, past-present-future, as it had already happened.

In general, concluding

I did take the assignment quite seriously, I saw it as an opportunity to explore a side of me I wasn’t sure existed. I am really grateful to have been able to realize all these things. It definitely feels like an advance in some direction. I don’t have a specific conclusion but I am motivated to continue playing and see where this boat sails. I encountered several obstacles hiding behind the uncertainties that made me push my thoughts in new directions. I gathered information to help me indentify what these uncertainties really meant, what was the unifiying thread amongst them. Thus far, this first part of the project has taught me about communication, the polishing / undoing of a research question (in this case the box itself), and shown me a completely new path for my own career as an artist and for my company. 10/10. The biggest findings in research were all definitely in the action research, when discussing this projects with other professionals such as Richard and Diana aswell as my mother, my peers, my girlfriend, and the Playhouse artists. I re-oriented my question 3 times throughout the process and arrived to a new area of thought in the large scheme of things. I guess we will continue exploring the findings in Project 3.

Insights in general about CSM / UAL

This masters works similar to the way Playhouse works for its Players, it gives back as much as you give it.
I am starting to think about the things that have been my your mental sphere from diff perspectives, with new eyes. New thoughts are traveling my skies.