Newspapers have become a huge influence in my work, taking the printed stories of tabloids and using their pun filled headlines to explore the more in depth, conflict stricken stories provided by the broad sheet newspapers. Using the paper itself as a medium I have previously produced works that mirrored the tabloids shallow headlines, but also recognised their transient and ephemeral nature, ‘today’s headlines will be tomorrows chip paper’ and that is where I feel my work has taken its biggest transition. Words are forgotten, the images spread over the papers are disposed of and we move on to the next ‘big’ story. The media constantly provides endless buzz words that describe political stances and it has been these buzz words that have led me to creating a larger scale work than I have previously been used to.
The idea for my final degree show entry is about exploring not only these ‘buzz words’ but also the properties of the printed word, how fragile it can become, with a sudden change in the weather for example, the pages become wet, it starts to break up and the desire to read it is replaced with the desire to use it as shelter. The fragility of this object is in danger of becoming obsolete, as we reach a modern way of reading the news, technology is increasingly allowing us to view the news on PC’s, laptops, tablets and phones, newspaper companies produce online versions that the reader can interact with, choosing the specific stories they read but selecting it from a drop down menu and it seems that a physical connection to a paper that you once held, glancing through pages of text that transfer to fingers, is quickly being replaced with a version where the viewer has choice over the stories read.
Does this mean we will end up with people skipping over and ignoring the important news headlines?
In a way that already happens, but in the structure of a newspaper the story is in front of you already, you have to physically turn a page to ignore the story, but you will always grab a glimpse of it. True, the story is still available online but you see less of it in a drop down menu.
So my piece will encourage the attendees of our degree show to interact with it; walking freely over it, slowly wearing away the words printed and perhaps leaving the words that they are more selective over or interested in. My piece very much relies on the participation of the public; they will be the ones who choose how the work will turn out over the duration of the show. Weather will also be a part of the process, if it rains and the paint is washed away then it may be that I have to go back and create a new piece of work the next day.
