who am I

Everyone want’s a blog, right?…well, me too, but this is my first post and it’s June 2013, so I am not exactly setting a trend here. Don’t get me wrong, I am generally quite net and media savvy and have actually set up and written for a few blogs, but they were not mine. So, this post, published at 09:29:56 (BST) on the 21st of June 2013, is my first own blog post ever. And therefore I feel compelled to talk a bit about myself, what I do and what I intend to blog about. And this, I hope, will help you, my audience, to make a judgment on whether this blog is worth a regular read.

Let me begin:

Who Am I?

I am one of those ‘creative individuals’ who’s been trying to find a place somewhere in the spectrum between true artistic expression and commercial succes. In other words,  I am floating between living the life of a penniless artist and selling my soul to the devil.
Sounds familiar? I know, there is a whole army of us out there, a generation of people who grew up with the desire to express our individuality and fulfil our true creative potential, only to end up pushing pixels for Beelzebub.
Gadzooks, I am being extreme! Of course it’s not all that bad, but I do feel sometimes as if I have fallen prey to a clever ploy to establish a new type of slavery. We work for free, without contracts, benefits or any sense of security, all in the name of expressing our creativity.
I wonder how many of us will be able to afford a dentist when our teeth start falling out.

What Do I Do?

Now let me elaborate how the above abstract analysis translates into the particular reality of my existence:
I make a living as Head of Communications for an international architecture firm, which builds properties, mostly large shopping centre complexes all around the globe. It can be pretty exciting work, I get around quite a bit, helping to find new clients and projects, winning awards and expanding the business in general. What’s on the other end of our operations is too far removed from my job for me to really make a judgement on whether the results of my work are for the good or detriment of humankind.
In stark contrast to that are my artistic ambitions and the life and social environment that come with it. I live in a warehouse community in North London, sharing my existence with artists,  left-wing liberals and hippies. My artistic practice revolves around issues of history, cities, places of memory and the reflection of those through images as objects. The two obsessions of my life are the concept of time and America. My preferred media are photography, film/video and writing, usually brought together in some kind of narrative.
Add to all of that an interest in politics and economics, in particular the state of Europe at this moment in time, and you might understand next time you see me walking around Finsbury Park with a can of cider in my hand.

Is This Worth A Read?

I’ll leave that to you to decide, but if my brief introduction made you just a little curious, then do come back, because I intend to create regular posts that draw inspiration from my somewhat contradictory life and the experiences around it. And of course I’ll present  my art to you, keep you posted on exhibitions, events and happenings, and last but not least, I’ll let you in on on a little secret of mine.
© by Rupert Jaeger, all rights reserved