The Work

My idea behind the video is to document the creases created by me nightly in and on the bed where I sleep.

A problem I encountered in the conceptual phase was how to remove myself from the work but not loose that sense of presence usually imbued by a visible subject. My answer came in the form of stop-motion. Stop-motion allowed me to create the feel of a false present subject while not distracting from the true subject – the traces on the bed and blankets; the whole room, really.

Not only do the rippling creases act as a symbolic way of attempting to reconcile the missing subject (who, through a beautiful act of allegory, becomes the viewer) with the lost experience, but they also, through our understanding, point to the events and experiences of the day. The creases of the bed become metaphors for the traces that are left on and by the body, and as they shift and change, constantly reshaping each other through their connection, they can be seen as an allegory for that constantly shifting and fluctuating semiotic framework that make up our selves.

Re-enter that invisible subject in the bed.

I love circles.

The Inspiration

So inevitably, this change that came over me worked its way into my work.

My medium of self expression changed from sculpture to illustration and photography (you can check out some of this on my other blog, Poorboy Illustration, at poorboyillustratin.blogspot.com, or follow my link on the left).

This change was obviously greatly influenced by my change of studies to Arts Direction and Graphic Design, but the core of the shift lies slightly deeper. This graphic medium just seemed more suited to Cape Town; more in tune with the ebb and flow of popular culture that wasn’t nearly as prevalent in Grahamstown.

Also, clay costs too much.

My predominant theme in my earlier works dealt with relationships between people and the unspoken narratives that both connects and isolates us. After my move, this shifted towards a more predominant focus on our relationships with our environments. This is what eventually led me to what you are looking at now.

I tried to think of a way that I could trace my life over the last year and a bit. The simple, most obvious suggestion occurred to me in the form the photograph, but was rejected for the same reason – too simple; too obvious. Also, it suffers from the same, immediate process of dissemination that I was discussing earlier. When you look at a photograph, you aren’t really seeing what happened. You’re seeing a bubble of time, yanked out of context, always just out of your grasp and constantly slipping further and further away. Simply by looking at a photograph, you’re forced to admit that those few moments of exposure are forever lost to you and the closer you examine it, the further away it is ironically pushed.

So any sort of direct representation was out of the question.

Then I got to thinking about all that I’ve written so far and about those creases that I’ve worn into the world around me; those traces that point to my past experiences, even when I’ll never be able to truly experience them myself. Surely they’d make for a far more provoking subject matter. But where to begin? What single scenario could be used to successfully represent the last year (and a bit) of my life?

When it came to me, the answer seemed quite simple: that single act that I had been repeating almost every night since I had arrived in Cape Town – sleeping in my bed.

The Experiment

The blog is going somewhere, i promise. This is just an experiment to see if it'll be able to get to where it's headed. I've always been a fan of stop motion. I feel that it, as a video medium, has a powerful sense of tangibility and, because of this, lends itself well to conveying certain ideas or concepts - certainly with far greater effect than CGI could ever hope to achieve. This mini-vid is my first real attempt at stop motion and is a test run for a larger project I am currently working on. It was done on the fly, so i apologize for the shoddieness, but it's a means to an end.

These Creases

We touch the world and the world touches us. With every instant that goes by, we leave echoes of ourselves on the world around us and the world in turn leaves its marks upon us. Our lives are a myriad of infinite, constantly shifting experiences ranging from the very tangible hello-goodbye handshake to the constant reorganization of the semiotic framework that forms the foundation of who we are, and with every experience, traces of its passing become embedded in the fabric of our world.

The thing about traces is that they are everywhere and everything. The creases in the blanket may point to the person that lay there, but the blanket itself is an index of the cotton plants from which its material was gathered and of the processes by which the cotton was refined, spun and woven, bleached and dyed, packaged and sold so that it may one day end up on the bed to be slept upon. The blanket becomes a text to be read; to be deciphered and interpreted. It has imbedded upon it the traces of all that has come before it, both physically and symbolically, and through our most often unconscious consideration of this blanket we in turn imbue it with new possibilities, just as it does us. Having considered this blanket, even unconsciously, we now carry its trace with us, to shift and subtly alter all our perceptions to come.

As for the person who once slept there; he’ll come soon.

Because nothing exists in isolation.