Immersed

For my recent venture I am undertaking a variety of different approaches to research. Whilst, ordinarily, I would collect information from the widely available and easily accessible Internet, this isn't appropriate. Whilst it may hold relevant information that is easy to transfer into my work, I find myself asking questions as to where the information comes from. Hungry for who said it, where it has been validated. A good twitter friend of mine recently discussed the topic of reliability of information from unconfirmed sources (http://jemimahknight.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/ask-without-influence/). This has led me to not just stopping at the information found but also the origin of where it came from. Was the source bathing in bias, is it credible because they were there or because they listened to someone who was? All of these questions are making my research undertaking somewhat a little distracted. In order for me to collate the information I need I'm taking a route, which I hope will help me absorb it better. It may not be good journalism but it's definitely keeping my inspirations afloat and my aspiration a reality.

I'm currently researching Soho, and when I penned what my project would entail around this particular subject I decided that I didn't want to be just a reader of facts and reference but I also needed to be an observer of reality, as if sitting in the seat of the gentleman who watched Soho's emotions spill onto the streets of one of my favourite districts. I wished to gather information from the eyes of the experienced, facts from the historians as well as stories from the lived (and died?). I wanted to be immersed into the sea of Soho and as my research progresses, so does my ambition. Whilst my project has a clear aim and objective, my mind is now racing with thoughts, ideas, stories, love, fear, crime, sex, choreography, artistry, paintings, characters, plots, historians, architecture and much more besides. My research is taking me down a rocky path of emotional imagination and vivd paintings. As the stories unfold around me, so do my own beliefs and opinions. I'm concerned that the person going into this project may not be the same one coming out.

I'm starting backwards. Present to past. The future is tomorrow and I will discover it tomorrow. What I hope to gain from my research is an insight into the Soho character, it's development and ever changing world. Maybe I can see where the future of Soho is going and let that guide my project to be successful. By starting with the present I'm hoping the fact will help neutralise my emotional rollercoaster by laying out opinion with fact and justify or null my feelings with validation.

I started with a book by Clayton Littlewood – Dirty White Boy...