What can I say the reading week was a READING week for real. Plus it was probably the worst week in this semester so far, but let’s not care about it. Now it is a little bit better.
You know what? Fuck it I need to complain a little bit. Firstly – 5 fucking shiftssssss at wooooork AAAHHHHHH :’)))))))))))))))))))))). Am I even doing part-time now cause it does not feel like it. Second thing – Scenography group project. We could not properly meet cause one of the members were out of the country. And we had some ideas but then we changed it but then I made a storyboard by myself but then we wanted to change it again and again and again. My mind is a mess. Thirdly, me and developing films for Photography classes are not a good combination. I am gonna run out of money cause I spent so much cash on films and paper. Like I am so dumb and I’ve made every possible mistake, like I used maybe 7 films and only 2 of them were developed well (and one of those two was on a verge of being “okay”). I know it is not the place to complain but I had to you know.
Okay, feel better now, so back to the subject.
Let me explain further my idea for the final project. I want it to represent a bad trip after the drugs. It has to be psychedelic, creepy, weird, distressing, overstimulating. I wrote in the previous post that I was filming a video using GoPro borrowed from Miranda, but I do not have any material, just two photos. This week I borrowed a GoPro from a friend of mine and I tried to do it again. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time at first take so I went only to the Old College. The next thing I am going to do is record some short videos of me for example screaming, crying, maybe just staying, scenes with still objects in them, with dead mice in my garden, with worms, with everything that will come to my mind.
Why do I want to do it in that way? What do I want to show through this video? I want to compare childhood and adulthood. The car toy symbolises the way how kids are playing, how they enjoy their time, how innocent it was in the past. The video tho will show how some adults like to play, how rough it is compared to children plays. How during all of these years they lost the fragility and purity of young themselves.
Why do I want to fill it on Aberystwyth’s shore? I like the concept of the visible line on the map which shows the way I have travelled. It connects the point where water and land meets. Water is a border for travelling for a person without a boat, and if I am travelling only by my foot, one of the directions where I can go has been cut off for me. Something was taken from me, I lost it, just I like people lost their childhood when they grow up. Of course, there are still memories, but they will never be able to relive them, to experience that joy and worry-free life again. Maybe that is why people seek happiness and escape from the reality in psychedelics and drugs? Just to say, it is not always a bad thing, sometimes it can help you to find true yourself or let you just chill, but there are cases when the above-mentioned bad trip can happen and its effects can be even tragic. Panic attacks caused by traumatic experiences on a bad trip are one of them. This is serious damage to mental health. So when someone is trying to go back to the lost childhood they can also lose their mind and piece of themselves think that this video might be a warning for people who would like to try drugs. They need to know the consequences of using those substances.
I did some research this week. I started to read some books which are The Door of Perception by Aldous Huxley and Czy Psychodeliki Uratują Świat? (eng. Will psychedelics save the world?) by Maciej Lorenc. Both books bring up the topic of psychedelics, but they are completely different from each other.
The first one is an account of the author’s vision during being under the influence of mescaline – a hallucinogenic substance found in nature inside certain species of cacti. The British novelist decided to go on a journey deep inside his own mind and experience visions caused by this psychedelic. The second book is a collection of descriptions of scientific research about different kinds of psychedelics – mainly Acid. The author addresses issues from different fields – neuroscience, psychopharmacology, psychology, anthropology, religious studies and drug policy.
I also was doing research in art field. I watched Sans Soleil movie and I really like it. The movie presents a colletion of letters wrotten by a fictional character (but it can be said that this person is a Chris Marker’s alter ego). The movie shows the chaotic journey by presenting us, at first sight – documentary-like type of film. The letters are a collection of thoughts and experiences that author gathered during travelling throught distant places in the world – Island, Japan and even many countries of Africa. I do not want to pwrite here a whole movie review, so if you are interested in watching it I can honestly recommend it to you.
“Horror has a face and a name… you must make a friend of horror.” To cast out the horror that has a name and a face you must give it another name and another face. Sans Soleil (1983)
Moreover, I was checking books in the library with contemporary art, to just find nice artist that could be potentialy interesting. I found some works that were nice.
