chaos theory with Antonina Mamzenko Hey, In internet culture, shitposting refers to creating any content whose humour derives from its surreal nature, lack of clear context, and an unexpected treatment of an existing form. Originating on underground internet forums like 4chan, shitposting evolved into its own form of content creation - and sometimes it even becomes art in itself. Before I continue, a quick reminder that Words+Pictures starts on 16th of April and I still have a couple of...
7 days ago • 4 min read
chaos theory with Antonina Mamzenko Hi friend, The first rule of improv comedy is that you never say no. “No” is a buzzkill. It robs you and your partner of an opportunity for forward motion. It’s a block, a dead-end of creative pursuit. A betrayal of trust. You can’t do anything with a “no”. “No” stops the creative process. There are no possibilities in a “no”, no new horizons to explore, no new stories to tell. It’s self-evident. Yet, how many times do we say “no” to ourselves in our own...
15 days ago • 2 min read
chaos theory with Antonina Mamzenko Hi Sometimes, as artists, we are too obsessed with making the meaning behind our work clear. But what it we didn’t? What if we left things unsaid? What if we decided to be unapologetically non-sensical? What if our work held conflicting meanings and we didn’t care to clarify our intentions? I love this quote by the American artist John Baldessari: "I’m just interested in fucking people up when they’re looking at my work." So, my question to you is:How can...
19 days ago • 1 min read
chaos theory with Antonina Mamzenko Hi friend, Do you ever think about how so much of the language we casually use is so violent? In photography, we have terms like: Shoot. Take. Capture. Trigger. Subject. Headshot. Master and slave flash (yes, for real). And in the world of business and work, we use words such as: Branding. Targets. Deadlines. Killing it. Tripwire. Conversion rate. It really is everywhere, and it's hard to escape it, even when you try. I’ve been recently reminded (by my...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
chaos theory with Antonina Mamzenko Hi friend, Since Christmas I've been pretty much head-down writing a PhD research proposal. It may feel a bit out of the blue (even to me), but looking back I can see that everything I've done in the past decade - or even longer! - has been quietly leading me up to this decision. My research is focused on family photographic archive, intergenerational postmemory trauma, personal and collective histories, remembering and forgetting, knowing and not knowing,...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
chaos theory with Antonina Mamzenko Hi friends, Want to know my secret formula for getting out of creative rut? Just kidding. There is no recipe to creativity. Even "bibles" of creativity like The Artist's Way don't suit everyone (I never got past the morning pages!) But here’s what tends to work for me. I’m calling them “steps” but they are really in no particular order, mix and match as suits. But before I go on further, this is just a quick heads up that The Soup starts on Friday 13th...
2 months ago • 4 min read
chaos theory with Antonina Mamzenko Hi friend, In a new Green Party ad, Zack Polanski captures the feeling that many of us have felt for a long while now. We are always running, we can’t stop, there’s always something we need to do. Whether you have to work two jobs to make ends meet, or the social pressure makes it so that you need to shuttle your kids from one after school club to another and neither they nor you ever get a break, we are all exhausted. But what if we stopped running?...
2 months ago • 1 min read
chaos theory with Antonina Mamzenko Hi friend, "This is precisely the time when artists go to work" is a quote attributed to Toni Morrison. And she did write it. But the context of why she wrote it is often missed out when it gets whipped up to inspire us in times like these. Toni was having a moment of hopelessness, all the way back in 2004: "Not only am I depressed, I can’t seem to work, to write; it’s as though I am paralyzed... I’ve never felt this way before..." It was her friend - who,...
3 months ago • 2 min read
chaos theory with Antonina Mamzenko Hi friend, This is an invitation. I'm seeking six creative souls to spend four months working on a project of their choosing in a supportive, nurturing and safe environment of The Soup. What is The Soup? The Soup is a group mentoring programme without a curriculum to cook up wonderful things together: you bring the work, I will support you in actually doing it. And you won’t be alone: working alongside your peers will give you much-needed accountability,...
3 months ago • 2 min read