The Nottingham Trent Fine Art degree show, went incredibly well. The whole show was curated and executed professionally.
My degree piece, was similar my earler piece at the Surface Gallery piece Purest Possible Experience.
A small room to myself; all walls and ceiling painted pure white. The ultimate white cube. A simple desk and chair. A computer screen linked to a large projector.
For one hour, each and every day of the show, I entered the room, sat down and my fingers took their place.
Each letter and word, pause and flashing cursor was transcribed through the machines and onto the lit square on the wall behind me.
From here, the story began to unfold. A narrative of a freewriting, the rewriting of memorized previous writings and writing in response to the people and environment around me. No names, just you, I, she, he and they. No names of places, just descriptions. Complete ambiguity; only hints of the possible. Attempts to keep the viewer hooked… wanting to read on, yet alongside this, the atmosphere that maybe they are not supposed to be there reading.
I found doing this everyday for a week good to push myself, but it was hardwork and quite tiring and time consuming. Throughout the whole performance, I never once looked back and re-read what I had written. And at the end, I didn’t have it in myself to read through it for about a week. It had become too important and too intriguing to take lightly…I had to pick the perfect moment. But in the end… it was just one of those days…the rain pouring and hours to waste… and it was then, that I just sat at my laptop screen and read and kept reading. It was strange how much I could see within the piece. Just like a dream. One where you can see yourself relating your past day’s activities, events and the people you saw or thought about, seem to just seep through into your fantastical imagination. My life. My friends’ lives…. characters from books and the movies… places I have never been to and experiences I have only ever dreamt about. The performance made me fall into a complete trance… I could hear the words around me…I could sense the people…but my mind… my mind was somewhere else…
This trance is an amazing feeling… yet it still scares me about what I might say or feel during the performance, and who will read it!
Anyway, I was happy with the piece… and when it came to a quarter to midnight the day before I thought the results came online… i received a text saying they were already there. I wasn’t ready….already in my pjs, no one around… and I logged in… 75 first class honours… just couldn’t believe it! So called my parents… and then went out with my bearded best mate to celebrate… what a good night!
