Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on images for the 2021 series of Open Studio sessions that my co-creative partner FireHawk Hulin and I host as real-time accompaniments to our growing suite of evergreen courses on online hosting.

We use visuals consciously in the courses themselves, where they serve a variety of purposes, not least to anchor us and our participants in sense-based language and remind us that we are embodied beings, whether onsite or online. I’m sure I’m mangling the science here, but I understand that the act of seeing a visual image – of nature, say – affects our physiology in unexpected ways, and simulates an experience of being with what we are seeing. Our breathing stops for a second in response to beauty and slows when viewing peaceful scenes; we relax a bit, our heart expands. Images trigger sense-memories and we experience what we are seeing or hearing from ‘inside”. It seems that on some level, our minds cannot really separate memory or even imagination from reality. This is powerful magic when working online, where imagination is our medium and we can create whatever we can evoke for ourselves and each other.

The aesthetic I’ve been using for these session images over the last year has been entirely intuitive but this year I’m noticing the pattern that’s emerged with more awareness. The images are mostly simple composites with two parts – one an image of natural beauty; the other an image that expresses some sort of electronic energy flow, or digital reference – interconnected points in space, a field of 1s & 0s, etc.

Working online can be likened to choreographing a complex dance between these two energies – one grounded in our bodies – the environment, the natural, physical world – and one (no less natural) that exists in the ether, the invisible but unmistakable current of electronic connection, of imagination. To be aware of them both, Mind AND Body, and consciously activate the relationship between them, is what our work is all about. So, of course, a composite visual of these two energies would be a fitting way to give voice to (synesthesia!) the way of “being” online we are exploring.

I create the composites in Photoshop and use transparency and “blend modes” to merge the two images into one. With this creative expression, I see a form that can encompass seemingly polar opposites at the same time and reveal the earth-connected internet I feel intuitively and seek to make visible & tangible for others.