In the past two years of the course the creative process I enjoyed the most was working on a mixed-media gallery installation, and going into 3rd year this is a practice I want to expand further on. For my prototype portfolio piece I will be documenting and handing in at the end of this unit, I will aim to make an installation that challenges me to build further on the skills I picked up last year whilst also making sure it is relevant to wider discourse around sound arts.
Topics that have particularly inspired me to create over the summer are fame, conspiracy and para-social relationships between celebrities and fans. I’ve never thought of myself as particularly talented at drawing, however this summer I decided I would draw as a kind of therapy and way of feeling at peace with myself, and wouldn’t try to hold myself to any standards. I started drawing mildly grotesque alien-style characters, who I would then give the names of celebrities I thought they resembled afterwards. I was doing this for fun and I realised there was something in it I really enjoyed – even though the drawings may look slightly child-like, I found pleasure in giving these celebrities strange ‘caricatures’. I suppose subconsciously this tapped into a perverse obsession I’ve always had with bizarre conspiracy theories and fringe cultures – think David Icke claiming that the royals and various celebrities are actually shape-shifting lizards(1). I try and do one of these drawings a week, just for fun, as a kind of therapy.
I suppose there is also an element of pop art inspiration as well. Irony and parody are themes that I enjoy working with and have used for previous projects on the course (see my fuzz pedal built into a rainbow-poo-emoji plushie(2)).
I’d like to take some of the ideas and concepts I have used whilst doing these drawings to inform and inspire the installation I produce, whilst also doing more academic research around the topics I am interested in and finding works I can relate my work to. I obviously want it to be a lot more refined than these drawings I just do for fun, but I am happy that simple creativity out of boredom and relaxation have inspired me to make something larger.
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