like always i will start by talking about this weeks class!
we started this weeks class by mentioning a box we felt like at that moment. people being everything from shipping boxes to deceptive storage boxes all the way to those Russian dolls. personally i said i was a recyclable box as i was finally starting to get my projects together, but like most recycled objects it takes a lot of work to get fully refreshed. so yes i am still in a low period, but im getting there. noe that my painting projects are falling to place its mostly just this module that i need to get sorted and planned and voila i am on track.
as we are now starting the group project, we spent the start of class writing words on our own cardboard box relating to last weeks cooking class. to make it interesting we also wrote in our native language, mine being Norwegian. we then read those words out and translated. after this each of us had to start planning a group project that we pitch to class in week 7. honestly i got very stuck here.
my first plan was to work around sound. having people be different colours and make a character they have to act according to that colour. i also thought of cleaning. how we create waste faster then we are able to recycle/dispose of it. this is currently the main idea i have as of now, but im not fully set on it as it is very similar to our unsighted drawing lectures. i will have to make a good plan during the next week.
personal project developement:
this week i managed to get some serious audio recoding done! all 6 objects have been found either from the bin at home, the art school or in a skip by Tescos.
this first object was from the bin in my kitchen. such an odd object. sturdy, yet the lid was so fragile it came off whilst making the sounds. this object had the most to say as i got the widest range of sounds from it. everything from its lid bouncing to my finger scraping the inside ridges of the can to rotating it on a hard surface. this was a pleasure to work with.
as always. play it with headset/earbuds on and somewhat of a high volume. i have increased the volume of the recordings so they should be louder anyways.
this object was the trickiest. it had so much to say, yet too shy to speak loud enough for my microphone to pic up. objects like this really make me want to see if performance is a possibility as i could hear the different sounds so clearly in the studio compared to what the microphone picked up. most of the sounds i record are easily picked up, but this was a tricky one.
anyway. enjoy.
ah. the wooden fork. some of you might recognise this as the form from our cooking class. i decided to take this with me and see what stories it wanted to tell. surprisingly, the fork had a lot on its mind as it kept giving me sounds to record.
the cork is another tricky one. yes it has a lot of sound to it, but yet again it wasn’t being picked up by the mic. but it had a very different sound to it, much like the plastic bag.
a trusty soap box. the smell of all these object would be a different experience in it self as some objects, like this one has a very pleasant smell. others however, if not cleaned would have a very unpleasant smell to then. anyways. this soap box was found on my way to uni as everyone had placed their bin bags out for collection. one person however had just thrown out an open bin bag…
ah. the lovely receipt. this might be one of the objects i really felt attracted towards. although it is a symbol of money spent it was really comforting to work with. i get why Oscar started his project with them now.
every time i record an object i really try to feel what emotion each sound is triggering. emotion is something i really try to get in everything i make as it often leads to a more impactful artwork. i really hope you as the listener/reader attempt to isolate one or two sounds from the recordings and really focus on that. what does it tell you?
i didnt have the time to combine and play around with the different audios as much as i would like, but you are free to play multiple recordings at once to see how that sounds.
for this week i mainly wanted to focus on these questions asked by Miranda. i don’t really know how my fascination for the binned objects came about, but i think it started with me really relating to the paper cup from week 3 and i guess a part of me saw myself in them? feeling alone, vunerable, worthless. these are things i have long felt about myself and so i think a big part of me just really feels empathy for them in a way? i havent gotten myself to bin any of the objects after the recordings and honestly i dont think i will. at least not for a while i guess. the cup has now been repurposed as a lamp once i put some fairy-lights in to it.
another part of me that gets really triggered by listening to them is my fear of rejection and abandonment. my childhood was very hard for me where i often felt like a mistake. growing up gay in a muslim Pakistani family came with the constant fear of loosing everything familiar (although i didnt have the best relationship with my parents to begin with). i think where i relate to these objects really stems here. i think im so afraid of ending up like one of these objects that i feel a strong sence of compassion towards them.
giving them a voice and listening to “all they have to say” just made my compassion for these objects even more prevalent. sounds of chaos, pain, hurt, anger, sadness etc. so many emotions coming from an inanimate object that had been discarded. yes the sounds i record and combined create a stressful environment, but isn’t that what we feel when we think of rejection? a sense of dread and overwhelming emotion? this is where i want to go with this project. I am still letting the process guide me, but i need to continue in a direction rather then everywhere at once.
i wanted to keep some of the process like where i found them more of a secret as i dont think the location is important to the project. the objects are all in fact someones waste found in a bin or on the street. i just simply cleaned them off at home. i might post more of the editing next week to show more of that, but it would be more to see the tracks rather then anything that effects the project overall.
for next week i am experimenting a little with display and also performance to see if that is a suitable direction for this work. something i am finding difficult is having the new element of sound in my art. ive always worked visually, so having another sense involved is really opening my mind to possible ways of exhibiting the artwork. although that is a good thing, it is also stopping me from making it into something more.
do i make it purely sound? if so how will i display it? will the objects be visible or are they only represented through their voice? will having them on display change the viewers perception of the piece? should i mix the sounds with performance? should i be visible or will it take away from the objects? i still have so many questions im asking myself, but i just need some more time to experiment and play around until i find what feels natural to me. a huge part of my artistic practice is following my intuition. i like to get emotionally engaged in the process something i am finally starting to do with this project. so lets see where the projects goes from here.