Discomfort - Week Three - Aleatory

First week back in the studio !! If you told me a year ago I would be excited to go back to college, I definitely would not have believed you. Very glad to be back making work.

This week we were working towards creating an outcome within the size restrictions of 1ft by 1ft to get ideas flowing and initial ideas out within our work to then present. On monday to get this project flowing I created multiple pieces of work using string, foam, latex and wire to help refine what I would like to present by the end of the week.

To start off with I increased the scale of my initial piece using string. I wanted to increase the scale to stretch out the string along with creating larger knots to present further severity of nausea (knots in your stomach) caused by anxiety. With this idea of nausea in mind I decided to create another small string piece but dipped it in latex. This was inspired by Eva Hesse and her use of rope and latex within some of her installation work. By dipping it into this latex, once dry it looks very similar to bile - creating the piece to be grotesque and present the reality of anxiety. Showing the discomfort of anxiety and also pushing this discomfort onto the viewers through the ’gross’ appearance of the string. '

Then after these I decided to use foam to create these knots, using a soft material to contrast the discomfort that is caused by anxiety. I found using this material very successful within how I wanted to communicate my ideas. Which then inspired me to use this appearance of foam but creating it out of fabric in large tubes and many different skin tones to present personal space and restriction. However, these foam tubes I have also taken further as I found dipping them into latex complimented the larger tubes which I had made out of fabric due to it looking like skin. This use of foam inspired me within what materials i wanted to use within my aleatory project along with what material works well within communicating discomfort, and by using ‘comfortable’ materials this juxtaposition is successful within harmonising the discomfort.

.

To create the fabric tubes I used scrap fabric which was found around the college in neutral/skin coloured tones and machine sewed these into various sized tubes. The support of this idea was also taken from my use of tights within my previous piece of work, the foam then further inspired me to collaborate the two within presenting the idea of personal space further. Both materials are ‘soft’ using the idea of comfortable materials to present this discomfort. Then with these tubes I have decided to create a cube using a ‘misty’ pink acrylic to squish them all in together, creating restriction of the tubes inside of the box. You can see the tubes against the frosted acrylic along with the small opening at the front of the cube allowing the audience to peer into the crowded box. I decided to use this process as I feel when looking into my piece it’s frustrating that only small amounts of it are revealed and it creates discomfort looking at the piece. Along with this you have to get very close to the piece of work, adding to this idea of breaking personal space making it uncomfortable to look at and also look into. The crowded box and the frosted acrylic creates a claustrophobic feeling for audiences to look at. Overall, the experiments created on Monday then allowed me to refine what I will be presenting on Monday. My piece that I created I find successful and would like to find a way to move these processes further within my project to present discomfort further.