Currently reading and researching the topic of digital culture and its influence on behaviour/our psyche as part of my FOCI dissertation. 

 For my work in the studio, I see parallels in terms of what is seen as a positive reworking and re-imaging of identity, particularly in postfeminist discourse that can be counter-balanced by the distortion of an authentic self and essentially, escapism into an inhuman age. Lanier is fascinating in that he really pinpoints the problems with using technology to think, in that, we no longer have to. He focusses on trying to rebalance the way we interact with technology, but barely touches on the implications of this interaction - are we using online spaces and the Web 2.0 in order to perform ideal selves and overcome the fear and isolation of our bodily existence?

This is not a new theory, I doubt.  In 1911, Russian scientist Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky-Kaluga predicted,  

"Mankind will not remain bound to the earth forever."

I worry about this a lot. in a recent crit, a student commented (in response to a video piece I made in which a girl pulls leaves and plant life from her mouth repeatedly) "It could be anything coming from her mouth but it would still be disturbing" but I fully disagreed. We are not plant matter. The symbolic ties that plants have (life force, nurture etc.), we do not co-exist with.

 I think that is one of the main reasons I am so preoccupied with natural, pastoral imagery, maybe I'm nostalgic or desiring a different era but this type of imagery is vital for my practise. 

The Glasgow Girls

Rare find in a charity shop, a story based on sisters studying at Glasgow School of Art - love and romance in the art world...



Bibliophile

A friend recommended this (disturbing) book to me, it’s a very perverse take on adolescent innocence with elements of the grotesque. My work focusses a lot on identity and how it is shaped and formed, as well as observation of development/the body. It’s the story of four children and how they cope with losing their father and dealing with a depressed mother who eventually dies as well. The children decide to bury their mother in cement in the basement. Some of the ideas and imagery are quite repulsive - the oldest boy remembers playing a ’game’ in which he and his sister touch their younger sister as if two doctors examining an alien and despite growing up and knowing that the game is inappropriate - he wonders why they cant play it anymore. He obsesses over his older sister’s body and masturbates to her. The youngest girl becomes mute and isolated with her journal, the youngest boy regresses and becomes a baby (coddled by the oldest sister) as well as attempting gender swapping. I think the whole book is clouded in mystery, we know that they all have a rather incestuous relationship yet they don’t seem to hold any affection for each other. The oddest thing is they are so detached and numb in regards to their actions and thoughts that it normalises the situation and almost makes it seem like a natural progression. The description of the surrounding suburban landscape is also quite haunting, their environment becomes alienating and deadening, as if they are the only people left on earth. You get a sense of emptiness, that the characters are disconnected from life. In a way this mood and atmosphere is something I’m trying to capture photographically.


Reading it I was reminded of The Story of the Eye by Georges Batailles, they both hold pornographic, perverted and voyeuristic parallels.