THE NEUROSIS OF CHOICE = by chris bradshaw Mf

When we come to this institution, the greater portion of us are
naive to art; ''visually illiterate'', to coin a phrase. There is
much to be said for this state Of being. At least once a day, |!
long for that naivet@ which | clung to so tightly on my arrival
(that is not to say that | am any more 'learned' now).

The element of choice has not entered tnto our visual vocab-
ulary at this time, for we exist in an atmosphere which is totally
our own; everything we produce in those first few months is a
direct result of our own personal experience. Then, over a period
of time we are educated, expesed to historical precedent; the
logical, chronological progression of Man's expressionistic past.
With this knowlege comes what some call a ‘broadening of scope’,
the enlargement of our personal repetoire of experience to a
global perspective, of which we are now only an insignificant
speck.

No longer are we the incredibly individual entities we once
thought ourselves to be; suddenly we find ourselves and our work
in a context with an astounding variety of visual imagery. | don't
know if | speak for others, but the effect of this experience

for me, was to make my work seem incredibly insignificant and
'jmmature' (so to speak); and so it may be on a historical level,
but not necessarily on a personal one.

This factor brings on the first elements of choice; now we have
the choice, whether to continue exploring personal venues or to
wade into that incredibly complex maze of ideologies which we
call history, and take our chances. With that choice aside, we
find that the cards are inevitably stacked against us in any
case, for if we choose to explore our original path of express-
ion, we are still inundated with this historical. input and are
affected by it, whether we choose to be or not.

Next, we come to the second element of choice, an extension of
the first, which is the schizophrenic, perpetual problem of '‘objec-
tifying' our work. With the system of critiques, as we have come
to know them and the constant input of critical analysis by way of
literary exploration, we find ourselves in a constant push/pul |
situation. | constantly find myself stepping outside my personal
subjectivity and viewing the product of my endeavours with a cold,

discerning eye. \eond...,}

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