Prompt #5

I find this assignment difficult because one of the idiosyncratic things I love so much is a deeper exploration and explanation of the things in my life, which according to Annie Dillard’s Write Til You Drop is directly contradictory. However, I will still try to analyze these inexplicable fascinations. I have been told I feel the need to fully explain information to a fault. As such, my list will endeavor to explain, not just state, the fascinations I have and their artistic relevance.

1.     Sometimes when I listen to music I pretend that I am snapping in and out of my body as if possessed by some alien or demon. I also do this, more subtly, in class, just to freak people out. I don’t entirely want to scare or mildly confuse people, just incite in them the notion of a narrative that doesn’t fit with their reality. I think this corresponds to my greater interest in art as a storytelling platform, though I don’t consider these movements art. In a sense, I want the things I create to introduce to people an alien way of looking at something, and a cohesive view of the world. I want to shape this view of the world.

2.     My interest in the intersection of sound, dialogue, and visuals is propelled forward by my desire to create an entire experience. I prefer art, like life, to use multiple senses, even if I am primarily focused on the visual.

3.     The all consuming need to create and the ability to do so would probably result in some type of larger image, environment, or story on my part. I would want to either place people in a surreal environment, as I have already discussed in previous posts on ideal gallery shows, or create a narrative that explores not just a place, but a history. My interest in anthropology, I think, carries over here, as I would be most interested in allowing a space or set of objects to be interpreted in different ways and explored by different people. It seems that I am primarily concerned with how different histories and relationships to space can be created, even just in a single carefully created room or environment.

4.     From this exploration it appears I am interested in how I can control a narrative and open it up to control by others.

5.     My primary drive at all times is to make something: a painting, a mask, bread. The act of creation and execution, and how the world interacts with it afterward, is the key.

Psychic Atlas

1. Explain, make, interact, not necessarily in that order