On the home page I spoke about having an experimental art practice. I also spoke about it being a little different that the norm. That is, that it relates physically to a painting as opposed to a sculptural practice, and as it would relates to being a clash with a social as opposed to universal reality. This is all true, but it seems to me that many would read this and just think it would be so abstract and obscure as to be reasonably meaningless. This is not true and so I would just like to add a couple off words about what I do here in the Blog.
Firstly, a social reality is not ‘really’ a reality like a virtual reality or anything that we can ‘step into’, even though sometimes I think about it metaphorically in this way. Instead it is a prism or lens through which we look at the world we live. Consequently, when we walk around in our everyday lives we are simultaneously ‘in’ a social reality and ‘in’ a universal reality at the same time. The situation is that the ‘real’ reality is what we touch bump into and knock our heads on, and the social reality is the way that we collectively codify and explain this world that we bump into and knock. A social reality thus always exists yet at the same time never really does, and is fundamentally just a lens. There can be a little confusion here with a personal interpretation of a social reality which is a little different but basically just another lens, but in order to keep this description as clear as possible we can put this aside for the moment.
When exploring a social reality what it actual ‘is’ is a lens that is half projected and half perceived or real, and it can never be claimed to be anything more yet at the same time can never be said to be anything less. So making more of it is fantasy and making less of it is denial, and this is what is important to me.
The reason why I think this is important, is because I believe that at this point in time, that understanding this aspect of our lives is vital. It is with an understanding of a self that is mediated like this for example, that we may understand the limits and possibilities of the different frameworks we use to see and interact with the world, understand who we we are in the sea of screaming opinion that is our interface with a digitised media, and perceive the way that others now attempt to employ the different conceptual frameworks through which we see the world for their own usually selfish ends.
The way that I try and do this, like I previously said, is via exploring an experimental arts arts practice to capture in my work the half projected half real nature of a social reality. It is by exploring the works half projected and half real nature, as the projected is whatever is my construction/creation and the real is my use of found images, different materials and methods etc, that I hope the viewer can understand the nature of a social reality and the sense of self that I am trying to describe as they consider the (strange) emotional response that the works hopefully create.