caro's digital garden

Performing documentation taints intrinsic experience of making

2 min read

<> “junk writing”, the romanticization of annotating and note taking

What do we lose when documentation is required in the process?

https://www.instagram.com/p/DUQyYqICfD_/?img_index=1

Appraisal of documentation is skill that is harder to develop when a picture perfect process is performed

What do we gain by performing documentation?

  • Creating more often
  • Get better at aesthetic-driven creativity

Why does performativity bother people?

  • Older people pov
    • these methods were always around, why is it being rebranded for a vibe? What about the actual purpose of the activity (to remember and cherish as keepsake, to think, to brainstorm, etc.)
    • nostalgia for an older time when none of this was required or even in discussion
  • The time and energy required to perform the act is labor.
    • To pretend like it’s not is to upkeep an illusion that harms others when they struggle to do it.
      • “creative dysmorphia”
    • To accept that it is, publicly, is to also admit that the performance is an integral part of the practice that is not inherently performant.
  • What was previously private is now public
    • Ruins the “sacred” ritual
  • context collapse
    • not every studyblr method is going to translate
    • following someone else’s aesthetic may not work for you

Desired goals of sharing documentation

  • visibility and connection
    • monetary exchange, supporters
    • be a part of a community
  • transparency
    • teaching, paying it forward, tying to artist statement
  • credibility and accountability
    • AI
  • democratization, agency

Solutions while reprieving the self-monitoring required of performance:

  • Digital garden
  • Show process after, not during
  • Have projects just for you

Younger people who grew up only knowing social media may have less of a gap of “doing” and “showing”. Documentation is an essential part of their experience.

Even for millennials who remember life before social media these may be separate streams. Think of difficulty of getting used to reels, documenting in new ways.

Relevant quotes

Documentation is itself a form of content creation that provides satisfaction without requiring the scary work of making things that might fail. Joan Westenberg

⁠Reading flattened from a verb into a coat that a person can wear. A good and joyful life turned into a product.⁠⁠ —Michael Rance

Not because I think beauty is the most important place of moral change, but because I think it is the most accessible one. —Iris Murdoch

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