Tomorrow is when I am rostered on to exhibit my work. So today, I went through in fine detail and unpacked all the reasoning and thinking behind each of my chosen sounds, videos and images for my four selected phrases.

1. Finding Excitement in Boredom

• Mundane actions traced from something that is natural
• Luxury of boredom – home being the centre of boredom
• The struggles of enjoying boredom, or even recognising it – are we ever really bored?
• Plain wall – finding the detail

PHOTOS:

1. White wall

• Marks and smudges on it
• Tells a story, memories
• Traces of human action that is now gone but remains are still there
• Marks are all different sizes, shapes and shades from each other
• The texture of the wall – small bumps, almost grainy, slight traces of light blue in amongst the white

2. Back fence

• Finding the beauty in the rustic texture of it,
• Black, brown and white all intertwined
• Spider web
• Visually being able to see it’s purpose – the action of opening a door – interesting to note how there are visually two ways of opening and closing it, but only one in operation — old vs new.
• Green outline of the different colour and textured wood of the gate

3. Chopping board

• Attention to detail – Knife markings
• Very distinct and obvious texture and pattern in the wood
• Traces of food left behind

4. Window

• Creates such a beautiful light from the outside – naturally filling the inside space
• Spider webs
• Smudges all over that is only showing through the light hitting it at certain angles and certain ways
• Physical barrier between the outside world and inside

SOUNDS:

• Fridge
• Laptop typing
• Heater
• Stove top

VIDEOS:

• Stove top flames
• Fascinated with all the colours
• How gas works with fire to create it
• The need for oxygen fills the space – without it it would be physically dead
• Picture frame
• Reflection of trees outside moving in the breeze
• Sort of serves as a double purpose – to display art and as a mirror
• The idea of looking beyond what you can see, diving deeper into it and seeing that there’s more to offer
• Plant
• Ordinary plant from the outside
• Seeing the natural beauty within the soil – evidence of living
• Wall
• Lots of shadows casted upon the white wall
• Providing the blandness with a level of excitement, story and character

 

2. An Empty Full Space

• Do you need human body and sound to make something have a sense of fullness when it is vacated as empty?
• Emptiness tied to selfishness, humanity is key to emptiness
• Turning the TV on to fill the space, visually and sonically
• Challenging emptiness

PHOTOS:

1. Ceiling of house

• Very high, seems as though there is so much space to vertically fill
• Creatures living in the top crevices – it’s home to them, they technically fill the space

2. Living room

• TV on to visually fill the space
• Some people turn on their TV to fill a space both visually and sonically, particularly when home alone – to have the feeling of human connection

3. Chair and table

• Empty space because no humans are in it – is this selfishness? Do humans need to be present in a space in order for it to feel full?

4. Speaker/radio

• Sonically filling up a space (same reason as the TV)

SOUNDS:

1. TV, changing channels
2. Radio

• Having it on for human contact
• As if someone is there actually talking, filling up the space

3. Eating brekky

• The echoes
• Sound of spoon hitting the bowl fills up kitchen, echoes in it’s chambers

4. Kettle boiling and making a cup of tea

VIDEOS:

• Fan
• Both the air and sound filling up the space
• Dining chair
• Person isn’t sitting in it – is it empty?
• Plate, knife and fork
• Empty plate
• Meant to have food on it
• Ready for humans to eat
• It’s still full – patterns, purpose etc.
• Lounge chair
• Traces of human activity (magazine and laptop)
• Humans leaving their traces in the space
• Is it empty?

 

3. Noticing the Irregular

• Patterns
• Rather than listening to/looking at a consistent pattern, looking at a irregular pattern – what makes it irregular? Why do I usually only notice patterns?
• Repetitions

PHOTOS:

1. Cushions on couch

• Irregular pattern
• The idea of physically being able to arrange objects into a pattern but deliberately choosing not to – how we dictate how space is used

2. Drink bottle

• The dent in the side of such a smooth metal bottle
• Irregular because at the time it was a shame, however now it functions as a hand placement and is really comfortable
• How the shape of something can be unintentionally reformed for the better
• How humans adapt to objects but also into space itself

3. Magnets on fridge

• Again the potentially to be in a pattern but are not
• Is it still a pattern though?

4. Grapes

• One side gone, half the side taken off by humans
• Lopsided – irregular in it’s pattern/shape/construction

SOUNDS:

1. Birds chirping

• Interesting timing, levels of sound and pitch

2. Irregular tapping noise

• Man made
• Suggests impatience

3. Clock

• Very consistent and loud tick
• The clock doesn’t even show the correct time though
• Inconsistent clicks

4. Footsteps

• Walking in an off rhythm way
• No set pace or consistency

4. Coming Alive

• The idea of visualising a story/process/anything through what you can hear
• Piecing together a puzzle – puzzle being a combination of sound and visual
• Listening to every day practices that we take part in and visualising what it looks like based on our knowledge and familiarity of things we do every day
• For visuals – being able to imagine the sound by looking at the object and what it does

PHOTOS:

1. Door deco

• Imagining the sound when wind blows across it or a hand goes across it
• Wooden, delicate, soft yet somewhat unpleasant
• You can’t avoid the sound – it’s inevitable when going in and out of the door

2. Fan

• Frequently used appliance in summer
• Turning it on
• The sound it makes when it turns, and how the sound changes as it goes past you every time
• When it’s on you how the sound is different due to your face being affected as well

3. Exercise bike

• Not a common thing to have in the household
• Interval training – imagining the sound as the pedals move faster then softer every few minutes

4. Wrapping

• Classic sound of unwrapping something from plastic – easy to visualise, to imagine the sound and its process
• Some plastic wrappers are bigger than others

 

SOUNDS:

1. Process of washing hands in bathroom
2. Cooking – opening a packet, pouring into bowl, putting in microwave
3. Making the bed
4. Having a shower

• All activities that are able to be visualised by listening to the sound process