“Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.
A rustling in the leaves drives him away.”
- Walter Benjamin
The Fertile Void
The past month or so has been a time of in-between activities for me. A pause. A deep breath. Things in the past have the dust finally settling. Solid things on the horizon seem at a comfortable distance. Now has been a time of tinkering, playing, testing out new ideas. Trying different formats to shoot with, new ways of presenting my work, new methods for making photographs.
I have a disposition to get bored easily. When given just a small amount of "too much time on my hands" I can easily slide into ennui. I become impatient, I think that I'm wasting time, squandering a precious resource. I am trying to be at ease with these moments, to embrace the lower hum of obligations and expectations. In regards to my personal artwork, I am using this time to try new things that may or may not inform future projects.
There are a variety of interpretations or definitions for the idea of "The Fertile Void." I like to think of it as that time in between, when nothing can become something. When the "pause" is an undefined first step in the "next thing."