DAI final assessments
After two years of hard work, the time had come this week for my final assessment at the DAI. The assessments took the form of four long days in the DAI project room, during which each student would have to speak once for around 25 minutes about their work.
My turn was last of the day on Monday. I had thought a lot about how to make sense of all the things which I have been doing during my time at the DAI, and how to make a coherent presentation of this in such a short time. I had decided, following advice received at the green light meeting in May, to only show a selection of my video works and also the machine which I have been constructing. This proved to be a good decision, since even with this restriction it was still difficult to fit everything into the time available.
I must say that I was very pleased with my presentation, and the feedback that I received was 100% positive; this is the first and only time that this has been the case. Just as well it’s the last time. I must admit that I am not the sort of person to ever feel totally satisfied with anything that I have done, but I was able to allow myself to feel good about things for a few hours at least.
With that out of the way, there remained three further days of listening to the presentations of others. Of course I was very interested to see what everyone has been up to, and it was very nice to see how many people have made very significant progress during the last few months, but all the same it was quite an act of endurance, stuck inside a windowless room in rock-hard seats and with no air conditioning. I also felt quite ill for most of the week, which made things even worse.
Finally though, the week came to an end with the opening of a little exhibition by Manami in her studio, and an enormous Chinese takeaway for everyone. And of course, a party afterwards in the DAI house.
