15 June 2015

Another another Update: Skills Project 'My Voice is an Instrument'.

Clearly these hiatuses are getting a common factor as the years have gone by, and again more and more apologies. I hope that from now on I won't have to be as apologetic, as I should have both material and time to blog about! I hope you all haven't felt too much in the dark.

Since my last posts, it has been a real rollercoaster ride for me, not quite the ideal to reach assessment and ultimately degree show but maybe expected. I decided after an emotional FMP that for my Skills project, I would make something else. Along similar themes, I decided on the subject of the female voice in its different forms, in spoken word, in song, in rhyme. I wanted to compare this expression to music as a fluid and powerful form, and as a real passion that I miss from my singing days in school, I wanted to encapsulate it visually in a truly interactive format. In my research, I found this incredible poem 'Honest Speech' by Erin Schick on Button Poetry which you can see here. It really brought me to tears and I felt like I could relate to the silencing by others because of you, something that is integral to your identity. I may not stutter, but what I love about her poem is that in her performance of 'Honest Speech' she herself is defying those who are exactly trying to shut her up and shut her out. I wanted to celebrate her voice, a voice that needs listening to, a voice that wants and is being heard.


This did not go down well... it became quite apparent that the qualms from FMP were going to emerge again, and well to put a long story short... I concluded that the tutors that I had were not prepared to support me as a student, and I was not going to give up again on a project that I needed to do. I knew I could do it well and do Erin Schick's poem justice, and my work would have a reason for existing.

I decided to go ahead with the project on my own, and from there I felt so much more liberated and excited by it. I wanted to make an interactive print that would perform Schick's poem. Using the HackSpace, and the help of Alice Stewart, I found out that I could make a print 'talk' using conductive ink and a cool gadget called a TouchBoard (more info here at Bare Conductive - it's very exciting!). What I was attempting to make is actually a pretty simple process so after talking through the idea with Alice, I went with making a series of large prints for an exhibition that HackSpace was hosting in collaboration with our local gallery, The Stanley Picker Gallery, called TECHNO. The conductive paint is supposed to be designed to print on larger scales but...it comes with a cost! And at the moment it is still a lot like tar in its final form so it does have to be diluted a little. At first I had planned 3 prints, but that didn't work out so well so I ended up with one.

I was dying to use words. After working on YIN and YANG, and looking at endless amounts of beautiful typography, I really wanted to use it in my image making. I am after all, working with words for the next two years in my life. I treated it like 'notation' as opposed to an alphabet. I wasn't really seeking to make a typeface as such, but to manipulate what was already there, just like how notation on a page works. Perhaps later on I would love to design a typeface that reflects a stutter, but for now I really wanted to put across the ideas and ideals in the poem. And so I went with a mechanical manipulation, which I hoped would reflect the defiance of the 'normal'. I chose Times New Roman, the default serif, and distorted them using a photocopier. The outcome was surprisingly fluid and lyrical and yet simultaneously disjointed.


Using the words from Schick's poem, I tried to visualise particular parts of each section of the poem that moved me most using different ways of manipulating type. I really strongly wanted to stick to the  themes within the poem, and I was really drawn to a particular line in 'Honest Speech':

'My voice is an instrument, my stutter
it's greatest symphony, my speech
composed
by God.'

Her speech was so strongly linked with the voice as music that I couldn't not link it somehow. I researched into John Cage and Fluxus and Dieter Schnebel, who's intent was to turn the discipline of music upside down in not only a sonic but physical way, pushing instruments and in Schnebel's case, the human body to extreme limits to create sound, to create music. The visual language of their music also was often totally different to traditional sheet music, created out of seemingly random lines, lists of instructions, rules, colours and beautiful shapes (an awesome example performance here). I read a lot on stutters and it's social and sonic perception, and this project really solidifies just how much I love to research on content. It just makes me so excited to link all of these themes and topics together, and Alice then suggested I should write an essay to go alongside my print for the TECHNO show... so I did. 


After my crit for the Skills project, which again didn't go too well, I decided this was what was going to represent me at my degree show. I reworked the images to become more reliable, interactive and spectacular. I photocopied a series of Ss, creating new identities for the letter S. The forms are beautiful and solid, and in some ways, also looking like classic notes.




I then arranged it to become a three metre long wallpaper. Rosa and I hand painted the staves with the conductive paint so that it would definitely be reactive. And this is it:




I also reworked my book which contained my essay, which I had laid out to reflect the subject of each chapter:




At first, I was dubious about my outcome. I think by the end of this university experience, especially with such huge amounts of negativity towards the end, I was totally knackered, and every decision I made felt like a bad one. In hindsight, I feel really relieved and proud of this work and I'm so glad that I made it to the end, and made it to the end with this project. It is my own defiance, and totally my own and I love it. The poem still makes me cry, it still makes me think and this project makes me like myself. I'm glad to put these issues somewhere where people can't hide. We all are responsible for our actions. We all need to start listening and thinking and engaging. 

I'm sorry for another long and winding, and a little non-sensical, blog post. After some time away from university, tutors and work relating to my course in general, revisiting such a shit time feels like a blizzard and I think I'm still trying to get to grips with how I feel about university in general. As you can tell, a lot of feels going on. But all in all, I'm just thankful that I have been able to pull something out of the bag that is relevant to me and relevant to many. I am trying to come to terms with the fact I won't get the grade I want, and haven't been appreciated much for working hard, for being dedicated, and thus it's been a bit of time to give myself recognition and commitment to drive me forward. I swear to God, if I ever end up teaching (which I would love to) the first thing I would express is real commitment to them and their intent. But in the end, my time has university has given me the opportunity to meet other incredible mentors, some of which live just in the next rooms to me. I would really love to continue this project into some other formats as well, maybe an animation or moving image. I am so glad to have found Erin Schick's poem and I hope one day that she sees this and I hope she likes it. I'm so glad that all these young people around me, my friends and classmates, are so awesome and have stepped in where my teachers have failed me. They have inspired me beyond belief, and I really wish the best for all of our futures!