Mia Eley

I’m inspired by the postal service itself and love sending hand drawn postcards and packages through the mail. I like the idea of all the stages your message goes through to get to it’s destination and the hands it travels through. It’s a network you have to trust for it to work, you have to give over control to those that run it, a lot like I feel about the internet and all kinds of social networks built on interactions between individuals and groups of people. The underlying structure invariably needs trust.

There is much we can’t observe and we have to invariably trust in so much of life without really knowing how it works. I see so many layers to life, networks like the postal service and the internet are ones that cut through these layers and offer a fluid transfer not only of physical goods but ideas and knowledge.

I feel there are eye’s all along the journey of a postcard or packet but we trust these eye’s to facilitate the distribution of those messages and ideas rather than to interfere. We live in an interconnected society where everything is recorded and snoops are on every wire, we have learned to accept constantly being watched and listened to, being tracked and traced.

Like any trade the tools and semiotics of transportation are unique but ultimately postal workers see the same type of mail or data every day and probably process it in their minds unconsciously, it becoming almost a reflex or a habit. I think there is knowledge and wisdom in repeating any pattern. Patterns can become unconscious but pattern recognition is much sought after and represents a higher form of processing of our environment.

The ability to notice and see patterns and test their application and possible exploitation is a large part of what drives the world. Recognising the beauty in patterns of repetition, like the petals of a flower, is something very human. Science looks to repeatedly test multiple variables to allow for the exploitation of unique biases in the balance of all things. Science looks to the limits of our reality and tests it for repeatable, discernible patterns often transcribed into mathematics and written languages.

Like the beat of the drum, repetition creates hypnotic beauty and through the variation of the smallest variable an infinite variation of patterns presents itself. I try to have the confidence to document these patterns guided by the socially constructed sense of beauty I have learned is mine.

We all look for meaning in our actions and hope that they bring us pleasure and joy. I feel our planet has a sole purpose to find, create and experience pleasure. Pleasure drives almost every creature here and moulds us into diverse patterns of behaviour.

I feel I’m ultimately trying to find patterns of pleasure whether they are aesthetic and resonate with the patterns of beauty we may share, or weather they are sensual and processed through the body. I think both are an intrinsic human search.

Some people are gifted with finding pleasure in the act of being themselves and indulging with the activities that are societies defaults for the variables for that person and their socialisation.

When you fall through the cracks of reality and loose the ability to find pleasure in being and doing, you rely on the networks of knowledge to try and find representations of your experience of the world.

Networks allow us to communicate across great distances and although they help us in accessing knowledge, sometimes the interactions and the path you take can falsely begin to define who you are.

When you wonder lost in the desert only your pain and perseverance is represented by the path you tread in circles. Finding your way back to common ground and enjoying the experiences that resonate with you whether they are of beauty or pleasure is comforting and makes the struggle worthwhile. I think we all want pleasure to define us more than our pain.

We all have to work within a set of constraints and limits, be it the chemistry that defines the stardust we and everything is composed of, or the abstract representations of tangible things like mathematics or language. Limits often define the patterns we can form in our experience of life. Every decision and action presented to us creates a different fork for our lives, a different out come. Our journey, meanwhile, creates discernible patterns of habit. 

Recording and documenting patterns of aesthetic beauty and recognisable pleasure is an interest of mine. While some works are unique, reproduction provides the means to distribute recordings evenly but in a society saturated with so many things vying for our attention it is the social, academic, political and business networks that provide artwork with a possibility of a meaningful path for its journey through life.

The postal network is one such network and it gives you a targeted model of distribution. Because of this you need a destination for your work, an address to set you on your path. You have to know your destination to be able to start on your journey.

I felt lost in my life because I felt defined by what options were presented to me and the inescapable nature of my flesh. I had no direction and no destination, I wasn’t happy with any of the patterns and paths through life enough to commit to any single journey. I was scared to define myself through my own actions. I didn’t realise I could take pride in who I was, to demand better options, to take control of my journey into the unknown and define myself not by what society expected of me but my own resonance of pleasure.

To make decisions you often need a guide to show you the options you have available, to help you define your destination through an unconscious action of repetition. My guides were networks of all kinds, like the internet, the phone network and the social networks that I traverse on my journey through life. Although I documented life and created art I never thought of sharing it and let it take it’s own journey through the networks that intersect our world.

Attention is limited so I try to scrawl my mark on everything that passes within my grasp. At first I relied on unconscious markmaking and accidental observation. I had no clear message but tried to remain productive. Later I would be overwhelmed by the weight, responsibility and meaning of my observations. I would eventually try to turn the lens and pen on myself. I felt the weight of an audience and felt the need to start defining myself and caring about who I was and what my existence meant.

At first I just wanted to share beauty not define it but now I try to use the networks that intersect through our lives to strike up a dialogue with anyone who will listen, to facilitate the mutual appreciation of beauty and pleasure.

All I want is to find patterns of beauty and enjoy their pleasure. One day I hope to share them with those that are interested. and provide a safe and sustainable living for myself through the creation, recording, documenting, curating and sharing of beauty in all mediums.

That is when you begin to need networks, to spread your message and expression through the world. The postal service provides one such network. I’m just glad these networks exist at all. The free spread of ideas, knowledge and beauty is crucial for our progress as humans.

Trying to create beauty that unfolds over time is harder than lazily spending time to capture just one moment (Taken with instagram)