FAULT LINES - I'm in.

So, the secret is out - I've been selected as one of the seven participating artists on FutureEverything's new FAULT LINES programme. It's been a weird (and towards the end quite intense) few weeks, with a lot to think about, and so I though it might be wise to get my thoughts down.

The FAULT LINES programme is the first of it's kind for FutureEverything (if you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, here's the announcement). When the callout started doing the rounds I knew I had to take a shot at it, given my current state of operating somewhere in the conflict zone between doing what I really love versus the feeds-the-kids general digital stuff. While of course there's been technical and creative overlap between these two worlds, my core desire is always to of course tip the balance away from client work and towards a more sustainable model within my arts practice. So, this seemed like a perfectly-timed chance to step up. (Here's the original call-out)

The story of me getting this is a long one. The short version is: I'd actually been told I'd not made it, but that I'd gotten very close. I was obviously disappointed but surprisingly OK about it as the feedback was lovely and very constructive, and so I'd taken it on the chin and moved on - until a few weeks later when my phone rang, with FE asking me to come in for a panel interview the next day. Hot damn. It was a little scary suddenly being cast into something so high intensity without much time to think, but I suppose that's been part of my deal as a person/practitioner for some time... anyway, obviously it went well and I was selected. I actually found out on the day of the interview (I'd just got home when I got the call), the hardest part really was keeping it all a secret until the announcement went out. I'm bad at secrets.

One thing that will be happening imminently is that we've already responded (individually) to the first brief, which we actually received before even finding out who our co-artists were - I get the impression the timing on this one is tight enough that it forced their hand a bit. I don't want to say too much about it yet, but I submitted an honest and instinctive idea that I was quite happy with given the timeframe. We find out fairly soon which (if any) concept has been accepted, I'm also very interested to see how everyone else responded to it too.

I guess the main reason for this post was to set my stall out: I plan on keeping dialogues open about my work and thoughts throughout the programme, even if the dialogue is just me shouting into the void of the internet via blog posts that nobody reads. I have a lot more in my head about all this, but that will come later.

For now, I'm ridiculously excited and hopefully just the right amount of terrified. I can't wait to see where this goes.