Satisfy me with your wit
Tell me tales of grime and grit
Birds fly high to catch the sun
We can try it when were done
Congregate the fools you know
With your heart and with your soul
Go get lost and feel at home
Makes more sense when you’re alone
I wanted to create a space where surveillance was concentrated to such a point, you felt saturated by the impact of the cameras. The space was set up and I was ready to hang the cameras, I laid the cameras on the floor to try and work out some sort of order, there seemed to be so many more cameras than I remembered making. Now… do I lay them out in a way that makes them symmetrical, or do I place them randomly?
What I have learnt… it’s a pain in the arse to try and make things random as your eye constantly wants to follow a pattern. I found a third option, planned randomness, just a few little tweaks and I had it laid out in a way that I thought it would work.
Hanging the cameras was very simple, drill a hole, place a plug in, add a screw and hang, it really took no time at all and what was, up to that point, a wasted week had now become a worthwhile fight as the display looks awesome. Every now and again during the hanging I would step back just to make sure the constellation of cameras was still visually working and apart from a couple of minor adjustments at the end, all went smoothly.
I was very much taken back at the amount of interest I had received whilst hanging them, students and tutors from other courses were going out of their way to talk to me about my work, taking a real interest in their meaning and telling me how it made them feel. The work is meant to make the viewer feel unease, I have captured these cameras from their wild environment and chosen to hang them as trophies, mirroring the traditional display of the classic hunting lodge, but we know these objects, we know they record our every movement and in placing them in an enclosed environment, where the cameras are clustered together, the viewer is faced with the idea that they could still be recording, taking away their freedom to look at the work and show what they perhaps really think, not wanting to reveal their true feelings.
Passing comments of ‘creepy’ and ‘you feel like you are constantly being watched’ by other students only cemented my intended meaning for these works and I am very proud of what it has so far achieved just throughout the limited amount of people that have seen the works, I think it’s a great addition to the degree show and should get the masses talking come opening night.
And to answer the question of the people who asked… Yes, they are for sale.
I need the Dollar, Dollar, Dollar that’s what i need.
