Ana: This is probably the first time I’m googling someone on command, like an assignment.
I don’t know what to expect, I enter the search open-mindedly armed only with my personal experience of Max, albeit zoom-mediated. It feels weird in a way, like I’m intruding – a voyeur; I feel the need to divulge to him everything that I “discover”, so that it is shared, less sneaky…
Maximilian Lehner. First of course – the Instagram account, I don’t open it, I already have it in my phone, we all keep sending each other memes. I run into some fake LinkedIn profiles, wrong Maxes, lots of people in finance; then I recognize his face, serious but gentle, a flicker of a smile. Max has nothing to worry about, his online persona seems very polished, his bio consistent and deliberate, just as one might want to be discovered online.
A bit of a surprise – there is a SoundCloud profile – curator/philosopher/musician? I really like how he thinks, so the ‘philosopher’ role suits him well. Unfortunately, everything has been removed, and now Max’s music-making skills remain hidden to me, for now…
There is a nice balance of academic references and curation, workshops and articles, I lose track of time exploring his writing on Artforum, and sending him inadvertently an Academia.edu notification (now he knows I’ve been snooping). Considering we are exploring the notion of anomaly and failure, Max seems to have a really successful professional trajectory – maybe that is how it always is, what we perceive as faulty and illogical, appears as success to outside observers.
Feeling sorry for Barbara who has to weave a semi-coherent narrative of google-searching me… I am impressed and somewhat intimidated by Max’s professionality and refined seriousness. I feel closer to him when I discover the badcurating Instagram account – a hint of playfulness, it feels more personal. Now I feel like I recognize him among all the intimidating professional search results, I press follow.
Adrijana: Interesting position we got ourselves in through this question. To look at ourselves online. These traces of our past activities, and biographies that mostly start from the years of productive/professional life want to establish some kind of image, a projection of success or a lifestyle. A source of anxiety, which we shook off in our video calls, googling each other together and sharing anecdotes and background stories related to these searches. We then changed the question and instead of looking at our own image, we decided to look at one another. I got to search for Barbara. This was a very nice experience. To read about Barbara’s work and to go over her texts that I have found online will be probably also helpful for our future work on the project. So maybe, this was an interesting question to work with as a group, but it is a bit of an ungrateful position to write from :). But, I will try something:
She (who is I in the role of a stalker or perhaps a dedicated follower) was completely absorbed in Barbara’s texts, the ones she wrote in her early twenties until today. She allowed herself to be guided by feelings of admiration and identification, knowing that this creates the illusion of closeness and possibly some false interpretations. There is a gap there in her knowledge of references from popular culture, but nevertheless, they have so much in common! They are interested in affective perspectives, new formats of togetherness, emotions — especially those of uncertainties and insecurities — and what should not be disregarded as unimportant: they both like to change hairstyles.
Dunja: I googled Adrijana for this mini project of ours and was immediately kind of struck by several things. First, I realized that her artistic practice deals with notions of archive, (the “stickiness” of) emotions, embodiment, etc., which resonated a lot with the things I love working on, and what I’m interested in, in my own writing. Second, her website is the first hit that I got on Google, and I was immediately mesmerized by the photo she has on her website of (her?) hand in a tropical forest covered in something that could be either a tropical plant or fruit or fungi or some other organism. It made me think of aliens and alienation, detachment, bodies merging and creating anomalous new creatures, and I really loved that. I think this photo is a great example of her work and artistic practice. I was also struck by another example of “stickiness” in her work which is a photo of her with elfish ears, and I loved the silliness and playfulness of that. For me it shows the wonder we can feel when we don’t take ourselves too seriously. ✨
What is an anomaly for you?
Dunja:
Barb: Thanks to our talks, I’m currently see anomaly as average, mediocre, tasteless, populist … Here’s a moodboard of screenshots from my phone that I’m hoping will make sense.
Max: I googled Dunja – several times because I always get distracted before starting to write this. Always, those photos from an online magazine stand out from the other search results. I always checked the article which I knew was by Dunja. But this time, the “Ice Fairy Tale” just caught my attention. Dunja is not in the photo herself, but a visit to the page tells me that she took these Disney-fan alluring photos. Between trying to get a grasp on her theoretical stuff and smart texts and also seeing that she bridges the interest of pop culture and theory, it is nice to see another part of her personality showing. Sometimes it becomes an anomaly in academia and arts to also do unrelated things, things you maybe don’t even perfectionate. Most probably it was never the intention to create this public image. But it is comforting to me that others don’t have these linear biographies pointing to one target.Talking through our mutual googling, I noticed that the search engine revealed what we would prefer to hide. Maybe this emphasizes the point that it makes me happy to see the things that don’t match the polished public image. I have to apologize to Dunja for digging into that magazine that always pops up. It is nice that she does other things, but I only emphasize this because I got to know her with all her knowledge (I also found her publications that sound really good. I need to read her take on an archive of feelings, and the paper on relationships.. 😊 ).
Barb: The first thought that crossed my mind when the Secret Santa Online Tool assigned Ana as my Googlee was: ‘Phew, this shouldn’t be too hard.’ So far, Ana has struck me as a person who is professionally focused, thorough, and hardworking—essentially, easily searchable online.
I remember meeting her a while ago, online, when we were both part of the jury committee for an artist residency. I recall Ana as the only person from the group I completely agreed with. She articulated everything I intended to express, yet unlike me, she didn’t engage in passionate stream-of-consciousness-style monologues. She articulated her thoughts clearly, (respected syntax!), provided intelligent insights, and was very kind while doing so.
I took her seriously and really wanted her to like me.
My Google search confirmed my suspicions. Ana maintains a consistent and accomplished professional profile. She has been involved with many respectable local and international organizations, institutions, and events. I discovered her enduring interest in architecture, art history, and publishing. Everything she did seemed well-done, and I was impressed!
Hoping to find surprises, oddities, or cute excesses, I embarked on a stalking mission of her hobbies, interests, personal life. Her Facebook page didn’t turn out to be a valuable resource. Like every millennial working within the cultural field, Ana seemed to use it only to inform her friends of the events she organizes or takes part in. Most of the posts are tags, though, so I assumed that Ana approves, but secretly might despise self-promotion. Cheers to that. 🥂
I learned about Ana’s taste in film—mostly classics and indies, which made perfect sense. I did find it interesting to find ‘Easy A’ among them, as it was the only classic teen film I would rate as a hard C. I made a mental note to ask Ana about it.
I discovered that Ana enjoys horseback riding, indie music, and medieval art. This was too much random information that ended up blending weirdly in my mind, leaving me imagining Ana as a sort of cowgirl, listening to popular YT medieval versions of indie classics as she rides into the sunset. Not to deviate too much from the topics we are collectively exploring, here is my suggestion for a soundtrack:
Ana’s profiles on social media also revealed that she’s an Aries. This seemed a bit off, knowing a few more melodramatic Aries. However, with nothing better to do with this information, and since we spent some time discussing work & leisure, I decided to check which White Lotus character Ana is, based on her zodiac sign. Surprisingly, she’s matched with Cameron Sullivan, a cocky investment manager and self-appointed leader during the couples’ vacation.
This prompts me to predict two possible outcomes for our working group: a) Ana exposing herself as a complete jerk and taking over our collective working process, or b) Ana’s chart revealing a more complex set of star constellations and character traits. I’m rooting for the second option, but honestly, the first would be far more anomalous!
Ana:
Can the anxiety stemming from the lack of control over one’s trajectory and the fear of mediocrity and aimlessness be reframed as a unique kind of freedom? Turning the fear of not being perceived or read clearly/easily into the question – would you want that?
Max: Talking about the idea of the mediocre so much, I now tend to think about the appearance of something that everybody is okay with as an anomaly. Always when the need to be special is avoided, it now becomes an anomaly to me…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BS4KktbBbq4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=NTYzOWQzNmJjMA==
Is there a professional failure or misjudgment of yours that significantly influenced later decisions, and are you willing to talk about it?
Ana: I have a sort of an issue with this question, i.e. I struggle to find a way to approach it, it implies this notion that somehow you screw up, make a terrible mistake, and then you learn from it never repeating it again. There is a lot of finality in it, as if everything is about correct or incorrect answers and moves in lives, it consequently also involves the notion of regret, which I struggle with often, and would love to shut out. So much responsibility and pressure is involved; this line of thinking doesn’t allow for the idea of failure to evolve, it doesn’t allow us to define the anomaly or failure for ourselves without necessarily forcing each decision, moment or action into these binary categories. It doesn’t mean that we should ignore past events or disappointments, and learn nothing, but we could learn to treat them as experiences, live with them without constant friction and hyper-analysis, the potential to fail is also the potential for anything else, it’s just potential, and a process. I like this reflection by Heather Havrilesky: “…your stated goals in pursuing your passions might end up being a sideshow to the real satisfactions of process: immersing yourself in borderline absurd practices, habits, and behaviors that don’t achieve much, that look laughable or foolish to others, that appear as a burden or an unnecessary hassle on the calendar, but that bring you mysterious peace and calm…”
Barb: I faced some difficulty with this question as well. While I do perceive failure as either an external judgment or an internalized feeling shaped by external factors or prejudices, there are projects I’ve worked on that I’m not entirely satisfied with, situations where I wish I had acted differently, and decisions I wouldn’t make today. Overall, I refuse to accept this view of my work; embracing it would mean nullifying my efforts, denying myself the chance to reconsider, build upon, or even let go of them in a “healthy” way. However, resisting this perception can be incredibly draining. Despite my desire to see my professional failures as (un)intentional pushbacks against capitalist productivity ideals, at times, dwelling in self-pity seems equally cathartic.
Max: This question and all the ways of circumventing it actually brought me to think about the question: Do we have an appropriate narrative form for failure? How to talk about when we really fail? Somehow, as soon as we approach this issue, it is always disguised in a story of success. We might have learned from all the positivity spread throughout series and films of our childhood (and adulthood) where we are used to seeing that there is always something to learn from a failure, there is a good element in it, or that we even become better or stronger or whatever growth you might want to insert in this formula.
But maybe it is very simple: we are not used to publicly admitting and sharing failures and mistakes. Most of the time, we don’t even notice our mistakes. We are way better at identifying them in others. And even when it becomes really obvious that we did something wrong, we are inclined to blame someone else or the circumstances. It is good to think about failures, and also the perspective we have on others’ and our own failure. Oftentimes we are so generous with the mistakes of others, other times so harsh with judging what our shortcomings are, and we want to see it as their mistake. To find ways of addressing this for ourselves, to find also paradigmatic forms for narration of failure is what I am lacking to overcome this idea that I would expose too much in answering this question publicly – even though, I really love to talk about failures.
Dunja: I’ve been thinking about this question for a while now and it’s taken me along some very dark personal paths, which goes to show that I ultimately cannot separate my professional and personal lives. Some would consider this a failure, but my feminist work teaches me that this is a great success. Simply put, some of my professional trajectories could be considered failures, some successes, and these positions have shifted and changed over time, making the seemingly clear line between these notions of “failure” and “success” very blurry and porous. Usually, I try not to attach feelings of guilt, regret, or shame to my “failures” or “successes” because that would mean relinquishing personal and professional change, growth, reevaluation, etc. In that case, what I would be left with is hyperproductivity (of successes), and I know I would blissfully/miserably fail at being hyperproductive. And honestly, I would be really cool with that.
Adrijana: Yes, my practice is about creating situations and spaces where these experiences can be shared, where one can talk about their work not through assurances but through doubts. So, here we can talk about ‘professional failure’ as an opportunity to imagine working otherwise.
Let’s say that there are two ways to practice being an artist, and this is in relation to the conditions for creating: one is to embody the image of an artist as a creative individual, working to prove that you can develop a proper artistic production (this idea of what is proper is (self)imposed by the system of evaluation). You practice being consistent, with clear vision and strong opinions. The promise of success is what makes this path so seductive. Another one would be to work with the conditions, not to celebrate or fetishize them, just to think of how specifically ‘yours’ those are and to practice being curious about what else they can create other than the image that appeared when you thought of the first artist. Sounds easy, but from the moment you start doing it, your anxieties are kicking in: from the outside, you can look as if you are not capable of delivering results, as if you ‘just didn’t get there yet’, as if it is just another step to get to the ‘proper’ place. And you internalize these views, being yourself often not sure if your motives are real. To stay on this path, trying to operate “otherwise” one can not be alone, she needs to create and look for environments where successful delivery is not the final goal and this implies that formats of publicness and modes of visibility have to be reconsidered and reinvented.
What textual or audiovisual content would you highlight as an important source for initial reflection and communication on the topics you deal with?
Over the past few months, we’ve explored numerous topics together; we talked about time, and not having any, especially in terms of hyperproductivity, precarious work, freelancing, being an artist, curator, or writer, and how we used time in our daily lives and while juggling multiple jobs.
We all kind of have similar interests or starting points, and those topics organically started evolving and branching out into various subjects; we took it from there, and were quite spontaneous, just letting ourselves be guided by the topic/interest – based on those we explored various sources and content, examining the whole time if this type of working can even be considered ‘work’ (so far it doesn’t feel like it, but maybe that’s the point), and often struggling with harmonizing our ideas and habits of hyper productivity with a less structured and more easy-going and spontaneous way of collaborating, learning how to work when there are no usual constraints and expectations.
Sometimes it felt like some of our meetings, especially as we started getting to know each other more and as we were getting closer and more open, were experiments in playful work – we allowed ourselves to be “quiet” about some things we discussed, in terms of taking time to think things through, we had some “silly” homework and group assignments, we discussed the ideas of “being basic” or “norm”, and were very playful when it came to ideas for that mini project.
In order to stay focused, we gave ourselves little tasks and homework to explore and then discussed it together in our meetings. It was nice seeing how natural and easy the collaborative process has been, considering we all met for the first time
In our conversations, we’ve talked about Jack Halberstam, Lauren Berlant, Jenny Odell, Ane Hjort Guttu, Shumon Basar, Martine Syms, Alina Popa, Pamela M. Lee, Lee Edelman, Sara Ahmed…
