FAQ

FAQ: What is HAVE YOU SEEN OUR WORK?

HAVE YOU SEEN OUR WORK is an online, on-going compendium of material, bits & pieces and stuff that people who are not us (LOW PROFILE) are making (have made/have pledged to make) in response to having ‘seen our work’.

FAQ: Whose 'WORK' are you talking about?


LOW PROFILE's work - the live artworks, performances, bookworks, videos, gallery exhibitions, badges, nametapes or other interventions and 'stuff' that they have made.

FAQ: Who are LOW PROFILE?

LOW PROFILE are Rachel Dobbs & Hannah Jones. They have been working in collaboration since 2003 to make live art and performances. They are currently based in Plymouth, UK. You can see the kind of things they make at www.we-are-low-profile.co.uk

 

FAQ: Why is this site so crappy?

Our aim is to set up www.have-you-seen-our-work.co.uk as an ever-growing compendium of these responses to the work that we have put out into the world. As the weeks, months (and years) go by, the site will get more and more sophisticated, easier to use and more intuitive – at the moment, what you see is just a first draft. We are still working out how to make our ideas a reality and making the best of what we have got, right now. We thought it would be better to just give it a go, to just start, to make something rather than nothing.

Your contributions will become part of something bigger and bigger as more people become involved.

FAQ: I don’t know if I can really remember the work I saw. Should I still contribute?

It may well have been some time ago that you saw the work you’d like to respond to – don’t worry about ‘getting it wrong’ or ‘not remembering’ – recording the general gist of “what went on” is more important. You can acknowledge that you are remembering something that happened a long time ago, and maybe even make this part of your contribution.

FAQ: I don’t know where to start. Any ideas?

The type of response that you may make could range from writing a comment about something you saw, making a drawing, writing a review, uploading the picture you took on your mobile phone, making your own ‘cover version’ / ‘remix’ of a piece or much much more… You could also take a look at the growing collection of existing contributions for ideas. Recording yourself telling someone else about “what went on” might be an easy way to start?

FAQ: I’m not sure if I have time to make something right now, but I am interested. What should I do?

If you don’t have time to make a contribution straight away, we are also collecting pledges for contributions to be made in the future. Just go to the website and add your pledge.

FAQ: Who can contribute to the collection?

We are inviting ANYONE who has seen our work (live, published, documented etc) or any part of it (performances, installations, bookworks, ‘merchandise’ etc) to contribute. If you are one of these people, we’d like you to think about what you could make in response to what you saw - something that would help to shed some light on “what went on”.

FAQ: Where can I find out more?

If you have looked through www.have-you-seen-our-work.co.uk and these FAQs, and you still have more questions about the project, please do get in touch. Send us an email: lowprofilepresents | at | hotmail | dot | com

FAQ: How can I contribute to HAVE YOU SEEN OUR WORK?

Use whatever you've got to hand - paper and pens, your webcam, stills camera, mobile phone, existing footage, text, photos, whatever...

Get help from wherever you can - enlist your friends, the IT helpdesk folk at work, your mum, your local cheerleading team, whoever you can rope in to help you...

Include the following information - your name (or the name you would like your contribution to be published under) and what part / artwork from LOW PROFILE's practice you are responding to (if applicable). Each of the contributions to the website are labeled, so it is also useful if you could provide some labels with which to tag your work. You can look at existing categories (that record things like the year or city the work was 'seen' in, or a memorable detail from it), or invent your own.

Don't wait - like the bad people from Nike say, Just Do It. The longer you leave it, the less likely you will be to do it. You can always make a second, third or fourth one if you don't like the first one. Think about something achievable that you could make in less than one day. Try and get it done and posted in the next two weeks.

THE PROCEDURE:

1. MAKE your contribution into a format that can be posted online (eg a digital image, video clip, audio clip, text etc). This might involve scanning it in, photographing or videoing it, exporting it from whatever programme you've been using or recording it in another way.

2. POST it online - either on a blog, onto YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, Flickr (or other photo/video/audio sharing website) or on another publicly accessible website.

3. EMAIL the link to us at lowprofilepresents | at | hotmail | dot | com and we will add it to the collection ASAP.

FAQ: I don’t quite know whether I have seen your work, or not. Can you help me out or maybe refresh my memory?

If you are anything like us, you end up seeing, doing, reading, hearing, watching and going to so many things that it can become quite difficult to remember what was what. Sometimes, the work we make as LOW PROFILE can also seem relatively ‘small’, ’quiet’ or ’insignificant’ (not much fanfare or flourish). It might have been going on at the same time as something else. Or it might have just happened unannounced.

We are currently producing a series of posters to help out with exactly this dilemma. Click on the images below to see versions for LIVERPOOL, PLYMOUTH, EXETER, ROTTERDAM and BRISTOL. (coming soon)

You could also have a look at our website http://www.we-are-low-profile.co.uk, where you can find documentation on the majority of things we have made and shown. Other people’s contributions here on HAVE YOU SEEN OUR WORK? might also help to jog your memory.

FAQ: Why is this HAVE YOU SEEN OUR WORK project important (to you)?

For a long time now, we have struggled with how to document our art work and art practice.

Sometimes we need to show people what our work ‘looks like’, sometimes we need to convince other’s to take the risk of programming us/our work and sometimes we need to evidence what we have done. Sometimes we know that if we didn’t have some kind of ‘aides memoir’ WE would completely forget about things we have made/done ourselves.

We realise that not everyone can always make it to see our work when it happens but might like to see some documentation that captures something of what it was like to be there/be part of it/see it.

We are always curious to see what the work (particularly our live work) might have looked like from the audience’s perspective and what people thought of it.

We wonder in what ways documents of our work can be generated. We often call on favours and ask friends to photograph and film our performances. Sometimes we are even able to pay them to do this. From time to time, people decide to write about our work and sometimes people get in touch to tell us what they thought - but not very often.

Until recently, when eagerly looking through the photographs that have been captured of our work, we often felt a sense of disappointment. The photos captured scenes that looked pretty shoddy, a long yellow mic lead, or a bowl of crisps would be in the way of the shot. Rachel would have her eyes closed or would be doing her bad posture ‘man stance’, Hannah would have warn something that made her look pregnant or would be bending over, offering yet another shot of her backside. We have since come to understand that the specific qualities that our work holds, its untidiness, unwieldiness and unphotogenicness, requires documentation that unapologetically retains these qualities.

It is with this realisation that we look to develop alternative strategies for documenting our art work – strategies that embrace these qualities with open arms rather than attempt to ‘tidy’ it up, make it more wieldy or photogenic.

We realise that when we make or show something in public, it doesn’t belong to just us anymore. For the people who come in contact with this work, it becomes part of their day. They might take pictures of it on their phone or they might take home a bookwork (which they find days/weeks/moths/years later in the back of a drawer somewhere). They might tell someone about it later in the pub or remember it the next time they hear someone say the phrase “Just In Case”.

HAVE YOU SEEN OUR WORK? is our attempt at setting up a way to collect some of this stuff - the stuff that is impossible to photograph, that is difficult to describe, that might not seem to fit in some kind of ‘official’ document. As the ‘collection’ of contributions is collected/published simultaneously, it will never be definitive. It will always be incomplete, provisional and in-progress. This suits us just fine. It also provides an archive or collection of documents that are not one-sided and instead celebrates its (dispersed) subjectivity, rather than appearing to be objective.

FAQ: What will convince me to spend my time making something to contribute to HAVE YOU SEEN OUR WORK?

1.    It will give you something to post on facebook.

2.    It will significantly enhance your attractiveness to creative types.

3.    It will give you a momentary feeling of pride in a job well done.

4.    It will allow people to see the sort of thing you like to make (and will, if relevant, link to your own website, Vimeo/Flickr/YouTube page etc)

5.    Working on your contribution for HYSOW is an excellent procrastination activity for those days where you need to find excuses to do something else.

6.    You will be part of something wonderful.

We want to make it easy for you. We hope it will be fun and that you will enjoy making something in response to what you have seen/experienced.

We want to show our appreciation for your hard work, so we are developing a new ‘blue peter badge’ style scheme. (coming soon)

FAQ: What exactly is a ‘contribution’?

A ‘contribution’ is the term we are using for the creative responses that people are gifting to this project/website. A contribution can take many shapes and forms. So far, contributions have included video work, writing, audio recordings and the content from a blog. We don’t want to proscribe what a contribution might/could be, but would prefer instead to leave that to you to decide.

If you are stuck for ideas/formats then here is a list to get you started:

Drawings/badges/a sign/photograph/interview/maquette/animation/book/a banner/a poster/a flyer/a flick book/t shirt/a proposal/an instruction …