I think I know what I’m doing now… until I change my mind again.
First, there is a story to tell about aesthetics and power. I will do more research to figure out what I can say.
Then, there is an artistic artefact to communicate my findings. Dr. Willis talked about care in storytelling in the intensive day of World as Stories. I think poetic and artistic expressions can show that care. This weekend I joined an online nature poetry workshop called Our Time is a Garden. During the workshop I came across Mainly in Sinuosities by Amanda Thomson — a piece of essay/poetry/art about the Union Canal. The form is scattered, as if mimicking the wild plants overtaking the canal today. I think this echo is beautiful and human. This is what I need to add to my project.
Scattered content matches my theme of rejecting singular standards in the world of beauty. (Also, I think I’m good at writing small bits of text, but not very good at anything long and focused.) So a scattered approach might suit me. In The Mushroom at the End of the World, Tsing also structured her chapters as scattered mushrooms and encourages the reader to start anywhere.
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My final thing should be portable (if it’s about giving people power, then it should at least be accessible), so a website might be the way to go (although I really want to make a book! Maybe the book is based on the same contents at a later stage). With a website, I can create an encounter experience — from how skincare brands take you through a quiz to find you a product, key in a lucky number, or this page of buttons (I am obsessed and I need to interview this guy! He’s following my Instagram so hopefully I get a chance to), the audience can be taken to short fragments that make them think. This is a Temporal Landscape is an inspiration.
Imagine stealing a bag of rubbish from a high street bin. The bag’s contents form a random archive of what people have been consuming.
What’s on these short pages? Here are a few ideas, and I will choose one or multiple for this project: 1. household items (fictionally) retrieved from a bin, with unexpected introductions about them 2. Interviews 3. Dataset (eg. a collection of romance copy for wines, frequency of a certain word/colour in a certain product category, or numbers highlighting what’s abundant and what’s missing in a supermarket (as I struggle to find short-grain rice in my local Tesco)) 4. Case studies or images that can evoke questions (for example, the word “exploiting” in Dynamic Earth feels so out of place) 5. Very short essays or book summaries 6. memes.
I need to do a search to see if this already exists, and if so what do I do (…making a book?)
How’s that going to work with copyright? I don’t know. I can use my own images as much as possible but will still have external content.
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Motivation and other random thoughts:
I like pretty things, but they can be colonial, classist, or arrogant in other ways when you really think about them. I dislike the fact that I like them. I think this is a chance to understand why I’m attracted to European upper-class aesthetics and what I can do about it.
What about cottagecore vs tradwife aesthetic? Very similar in style, with very different demographics.
I went to China a few weeks ago with my partner, who has never been to China before, and I was reminded again how something so strange to a foreigner is completely invisible to locals. This project will try to be that foreign eyes.
Should I add an artistic mimic of AI? Or some design details acknowledging the short half-life of AI image aesthetics. Something lo-fi and hidden. This is not a major part of the project but I think it would be fun.
