Time Off & Moving Forward

After taking a week off of studio time last week to complete my audio portfolio for Bath Spa university, I am now in my second week of having time away from Uni as I am staying in Oxford for the week. It has been hugely inspirational for me, as although I have had ideas on the kind of work that inspires me by visiting various galleries and exhibitions across the city. However it has not only been the dedicated 'art' spaces that have fueled my imagination. By living in such a bustling and vibrant location for a week and stepping out of the visually repetitive environment of the studio at AUB, I have been massively influenced by the fashion, architecture, 'sights and smells', and way of life in Oxford, which has coincidentally helped me to finally realize what kind of an artist I am. An example of this was when I was walking across the top floor of Westgate Shopping Center in Oxford, I looked out over the balcony onto the expanse of the skyline and really thought about the lives of the people who live in the houses I was looking at. How does their day start? What do they get up for in the mornings? What is their drive/passion? What memories do they have (that they'd like to forget?). It just made me think of the word HEADSPACE, causing me to think about the splendor that is the human brain. i find it absolutely fascinating that such a tiny space can turn chemical impulses into thoughts, actions and emotions. I think this would be really interesting to explore visually, perhaps through text or if I wanted to take it more down a memories route I could look into photography, as it seems to be the easiest way of recording memories today. 

However not only is photography the easiest way  of recording memories, alongside video and sound it is the most easily accessible, relevant and readily available method to the majority of the human race today to document the HERE and NOW around them. Whether this be for personal use to document places they've been to/people they've met, or to display it on a social media platform to show other people/family and friends their day to day antics, which also acts as a way of documenting their daily journey. I think as a side note it would be interesting to delve further into the obsession surrounding social media, and the pressure one feels to be up to date and constantly posting, almost like the addiction to the app/platform that compares to a drug addiction (one study showed mobile phone addiction compares to cocaine?). This realization led me to think about myself, and how I use photography as a means of recording and presenting myself online, and I realized that photography for me is the driving force behind pretty much all of my artwork, whether the art I produce physically begins as a photograph or I work from photographs I've taken to produce artwork. Therefore by taking a step back and observing this process, I think I should experiment in this project (HERE and NOW) by eliminating that step of moving the photography into physical artwork (e.g with paint, ink, etc.) and see how the photography itself can act as the artwork. There are so many different experiments to be done inside the bracket of 'photography' and therefore I will not be short of ideas, which means it will be interesting to experiment and see the outcomes without having preconceived ideas of what I want the final piece to look like. I think the easiest way to star this would be to collect my photos that I like the most from the last few weeks and see what I like about them visually - their composition, the aesthetic, etc - and perhaps work from there, maybe even in-cooperating aspects of the previous project into my work. 

Moving forwards with this idea, I have brought a polaroid camera and film camera with me to Oxford, and currently have filled one role of 35mm Black and White with photos from oxfrod and random moments from the weeks leading up to it. However once I had loaded it up and tried to wind it back into the canister, I ripped the film. I think this will be interesting to have developed to see how manipulation of the film effects the picture. We’ll just have to see if the people in boots will develop the areas of the film that have been affected. 

Reflecting upon my previous ideas in my sketchbook, I think it is important to continue my ideas that I previously had with the sound scapes and video ideas, alongside the Polaroids and studio space set up. To continue this, after being inspired  by a recent Instagram post from the AUB foundation page, I would really like to make a mock up/maquette of the space I want to create with the Polaroids and soundpieces. However this is only one idea I have with the soundpieces, as I would also like to experiment with visuals of videos and zoomed in areas of people’s faces, or blurred videos hinting at memories. If they are blurred this can be a nod towards the headspace idea I have previously spoken about. 

I also visited the Oxford museum of modern art, where I saw an exhibition by Nicholas Party called “speakers” which really stretched the possibilities of art forms for me, and while I was a bit confused as to the actual instillation itself, I think it was important to see how art can be stretched and shaped.