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RAFAEL
CAVALLINI
I think it may be useful to make it clear that I have Autism Spectrum Disorder as some of the ideas I have connect in with the
special interests I had since I was quite small.
When I was younger I made sense of the world by creating stories or games by ordering the world in a particular way. When I
was out I liked walking around and if I found interesting objects I liked to collect them and place them in certain ways. I liked to
give meaning to objects that would not have originally been intended. I was able to see the magical possibilities in the things
around me, the things that I found. I used to create a narrative for those things and create games that I would play in my head
which involved objects that were around the house or found outside. Interesting things like a bottle cap or an old pen. I used to
place objects around the house - unusual things, I would hang something on the door or maybe arrange towels or cushions, even
when I was 3 years old, placing objects such as coins in unusual ways, creating meaning out of them.
I liked the idea of looking for the magical in things around me. My mum also did it with me to help me get over anxieties, if I was
feeling really tired or anxious or not managing, she would say, for example, 'let's find a red stone’ which she would say would
give me special power or 'why don't we look for a purple flower and if you smell it you will get more energy'.
These special interests also related to particular Nintendo or PlayStation games where you had to go on a journey and collect
objects, for example the Nintendo game - Animal Crossing where you have to collect things or notice things in the environment
and then get them. Or in a game where you have to travel on a journey but you have to notice different objects around such as
‘point-and-click games’. This interest has also spilled out into other areas such as films; one favourite is M. Night Shyamalan’s
Lady in the Water, where the placement of unusual objects or finding meaning in objects in order to solve a mystery is a central
theme. For example, one of the characters looks for special clues and meaning on a cereal box, a place where people wouldn't
normally find meaning.
INTRODUCTION
I think imbuing things with sacred significance, things that to
most people have no meaning, but when you have Autism you
have to make sense of a world that seems to be quite chaotic
or frightening or unpredictable. Creating meaning out of things
that don't have any meaning to other people helps you to feel
calmer or make some sense of the world around you, imbueing
the world with a kind of excitement and mystery.
Some of the things I have chosen figure into the ideas I've had
from a very very young age, even if it is just things like
fascination with text on the walls or codes, looking for shapes
in things that other people may not see.
I want to understand how the interest is connected to who I am
as a person and how I see the world. When people think of
being Autistic they may think of scientists or other logical
thinkers and they don't always see people with Autism as
having a creative brain and seeing the world in a different or
imaginative
way. By exploring these ideas I can give people a window into
seeing the world in a different way.
My ideas could just seem wacky or strange, but actually my
brain sees things differently so it may not seem unusual to me.
Katsura Hashino
Weiyi Li
Amalia Ulman
Daniel Moon
chushi
David Lynch
Photograph of coins that I had arranged when I was about 5 or 6
I have become infatuated with the bobby pin as
an object that can represent relationships, a
human artefact that can hold a sense of
romantic feelings in the same way that the
paperclip can hold a sense of ‘office’ feelings in
Amalia Ulman’s recent work (right).
The first slide shows a bobby pin that I had
discovered in the corner of a bathroom and it
struck me as having a kind of magical presence
to it. I do enjoy to pick up bobby pins that I find
on the floor as well as other small things that
people have dropped. This bobby pin appeared
to me, however, to have a sacred nature.
Possibly its placement in the corner of a room
gave it less of an incidental nature.
I would like to emulate this type of magical-
feeling discovery that I sometimes feel when I
come across some objects or online content and
artists.
LIVING PRACTICE
Living practice is the idea that art practice does not need to be
native to a studio or a time and simply weaves into the way you
live.
The use of this type of practice has grown immensely since the
existence of the internet and social media like Instagram and
Twitter gave a space to create art at any time and in mundane
ways. Artists can go so far as to intervene with the real world in
an artistic way and showing a creative approach to mundane
decisions like buying a creative assortment of items from a
supermarket on purpose.
These ideas spawned in my head when I was hanging up and
taking down washing for my mother and I realised that this
process was a very pure type of creative practice. I could
contrast colours of pegs with colours of clothes and fold them
over each other in the basket in a visual pleasing or interesting
way.
From Daniel Moon’s (The Last Moon) video ‘Here In My Garage’.
Daniel Moon is evolving what it means to be an
artist, often avoiding being referred to an artist
at all. While YouTubing has scarcely been talked
about as an art form some YouTubers like
Francois Pisapia and Izabella Rodriguez have
used it for art practice. Daniel Moon has often
combined his editing skills he says he learned
from film club with his amateur vlogging skills in
his ‘Visiting South Korea for a Month’ series
uploaded on his YouTube channel ‘The Last
Moon’.
Outside of that most of his videos are gaming or
mentoring. These he say stems from his passion
for gaming and drive to put more positivity into
the gaming community and his mentoring from
his neuroscience degree and drive to help
people.
The way that he implements his life interest into
his channel is worth comparing to my theory of
'living practice'.
Daniel Moon
I created this as a poster idea
for the final exhibition at the
Arts centre. I considered
pitching the idea of mysterious
iconography as an advertising
technique for the exhibition but
became increasingly distant
from this idea as I decided more
and more that my role in the
exhibition would be somewhat
secretive.
DAVID LYNCH
David Lynch is a director, photographer and musician most well
known for his film and TV work that often incorporates surreal
and oneiric themes and imagery.
Since the time I watched it I have always considered his film
Mulholland Drive to be my favourite. The perfect balance
between the dream world and Hollywood – escapist yet deadly
serious about its terrifying story of having someone you love
betray you. Mulholland Drive and other film work by David
Lynch has greatly influenced the way that I work over multiple
disciplines since the point of watching Mulholland Drive.
The techniques of surrealism that he uses such as placing
imagery into the film without context were not new to me at
that point but the way Lynch runs them parallel to real-world
problems and scenarios was.
I had gone for a walk and
ended up wondering around
the backs of many of the
university buildings because I
felt there was some kind of
magical aura and possibility to
these areas. On an emotional
level this sense of discovery is
difficult to articulate but the
kind of objects that double as
mundane and magical can be
chosen and so this type of
experience may be emulated.
This photograph is of an area I
found behind the national
library where a chair is
pointing towards an area of
leaves that seem to have been
sprayed with some kind of
white paint.
In the series Twin Peaks, Special Agent Dale Cooper is called to solve
the mystery of Laura Palmer’s death, leading him onto a strange
journey. On the left is pictured the entrance to ‘The Black Lodge’
Throughout Twin Peaks there are portals and objects that have
extra-dimensional connection. In Season 3 Episode 3 Dale
Cooper leaves the Black Lodge he has been stuck in for 25 years
in order to transfer with the doppelganger that had taken his
place in the real world. He attempts to switch places with his
doppelganger by appearing through the cigarette lighter
receptacle in his car. The doppelganger, however, had created a
fake doppelganger in another part of America who he switches
places with instead which causes him to travel through the plug
socket of their house.
I have always really liked the idea that real-world objects can
be used for supernatural purposes, for example I had the idea
that the ticket machine in the carpark behind my house could
be used as some kind of transportation machine to an
underground world. On the right is a photo that I took in 2014
of a section of the screen asking you to pay the machine with
time itself as the entry cost.
In the ending scene of
Episode 23 of the original
Twin Peaks a character Josie
has her soul trapped inside a
wooden doorknob after her
death.
This is one of the most
memorable examples of Lynch
using an object as an
extension of the extra-
dimensional world.
The fact that whole persons
soul can be theorised to fit in
a doorknob show us that we
can see the potential in
objects to hold a lot of the
humanness we have such as
emotions even if they are
trapped against their will.
I had noticed that there was a card reader that had been neglected behind one of the buildings. I felt like it could theoretically be
used to enter a secret area or underground and that it being abandoned had awakened it to this possibility.
(Still from my film with Sam Pursall; ‘Drawing Ourselves Inside the Circle’.)
Sight,smell,taste,touch,sound
Black butterflies, empty plate, 58
Bay West
Not having cleaned my teeth because my mouth ulcers are too
painful
And I just disappear, 42
My tissue, 3
Finally starting from where I intended
93, 76
Maybe 100 and disgusting aim
3/11/16
From taking steps around the Arts Centre, 100 steps at a time asked to focus on each of the 5 senses I wrote down this text
describing my journey. At one point I found myself in the toilet sensing a feeling of waves that I whistled into the recorder. I called
this ‘toilet song’ and created this cover to elicit the feeling that I felt in that environment.
chushi
My great interest in chushi over the past years has stemmed
from my growing taste for art with minimalist, lo-fidelity and
subtle qualities.
chushi has kept his profile very low, often giving little information
to music publications to advertise his newest releases. From the
YouTube he links from his Twitter his name may be Саша
Скрипкин (Sasha Skripkin).
He has uploaded many minimalist videos on this, such as a video
of the sunlight through drapes.
The photos he uploads on his Twitter are also often very
minimalist – showing blurred image or sections of ground. Often
very empty spaces.
His music is often like piecing together broken memories
things chushi taught me
Having coverage/fame does not define you.
Activity does not define you.
Nothing needs to be a high feeling.
Deletion can be art practice.
Silence can be art practice.
The fog of 14th and 15th of November
When I was a teenager I would often feel an inside
sense of some kind of large event impending like
the end of the world. I don’t recall feeling that way
in the recent years but when something majestic
happens in the natural world like starlings over
Aberystwyth I feel a similar sense of large
happening. This fog that engulfs Aberystwyth from
time to time but was at is largest that I have seen
on these dates also creates such huge atmosphere.
It also reminds me of a section of Eiji Aonuma’s ‘The Legend of Zelda:
Twilight Princess’ where you have to navigate a forest in thick fog with a
monkey who flails a lantern. The lantern creates light and clear air for small
circles allowing you to move through the forest in degrees.
DON’T TALK TO ME OR MY SON EVER AGAIN
Reflecting on the session exploring the Arts Centre I
created this meme that I mentioned I would like to
place on a large area of wall in the outside of the Arts
Centre.
I believe that memes are a very profound art form
that had evolved as the internet had grown older.
Memes can often be used to express abstract
thoughts in a very easily communicable way through
the use of a kind of mathematical formula for each
type of meme.
Memes are never scared to be overly simplistic
because they are designed to be widely
understandable.
Memes are often incredibly reflexive as well, for
example ‘deep fried memes’ referencing the quality
loss from image reposting and refiltering.
Amalia Ulman is an Argentinan-born artist working in
Los Angeles who is well known for her Instagram which
has over 130,000 followers. Ulman has gained
attention from projects which included faking a
cosmetic surgery procedure pretending to go to North
Korea (before actually going to North Korea) and most
recently faking a pregnancy.
Amalia Ulman is often acting out characters that use
different aesthetics on her Instagram. Most recently
she is using memes, photographs with a strict red,
black and white colour scheme and one panel
newspaper comics to create a character of a pregnant
female office worker. These characters that she makes
often parody or critique the way that Instagram is
used.
She also created the character of ‘Bob the Pigeon’, a
kind of love interest of this office worker. Pigeons often
represent the lonely and mundane aspects of city life.
This surreal character draws attention to the often
isolated way that we use social media. In fact very few
times since the beginning of this has Ulman been
pictured with anyone else other than ‘Bob the Pigeon’.
AMALIA ULMAN
After working with Miranda to choose words for photos I
have taken in order to bring out hidden meanings in the
photos I arranged these words on my pin board.
I grouped the words into clusters that I felt went well
together and placed them over the whiteboard like a
constellation or a map.
It reminds me of when I was a child creating maps for
worlds that I had created which sometimes included
planets in an environment in space. This feeling is
extended from the way the light reacts in the picture
creating dark circles around the edges to concentrate the
light in a circle like a star. The heavy amount of light
coming from the bottom corner of the picture on the right
is like an explosion of light such as a supernova.
24/11/16
10/12/16
Placing the
words around
Aberystwyth
https://vimeo.com
/195229122
MOUNTAIN:
After having left the words posted on my pin board I decided
that I wanted to bring them outside into places like designing
the level of a video game, placing objects to collect or interact
with.
Doing this late into the night after rain had fallen was quite a
mysterious experience. I liked the idea of taking pieces of
myself and hiding them
The photos and video that I took to document this process are
not particularly aesthetically appealing which is appropriate for
the subject of loss and dispersion. After all the colour of blue
the post-it notes are is not particularly nice to look at and the
way that I wrote the words is not either.
I thought of these as kind of a treasure map. Pictures that a
person could use in order to find these words.
NAMING THE PROJECT ‘HOW WE RESPOND TO
WATER’ AND THE IDEA OF #loficountry
I had an initial idea to name the
project ‘How we respond to water
after recalling my drawing ‘How We
Respond to Space’ (left) which I
mistakenly thought was called ‘How
We Respond to Earth’. I may have
decided to use this model of title to
connect to my past work but
change the element to water which
felt appropriate because of the
raining that was happening at the
time of making the presentation.
#loficountry was an idea that stemmed from my interests in art that I felt was lo-fi
like Francois Pisapia and Cawa Gaogao and that my own photos were of that ilk.
The choice to create a hashtag was partly as a kind of parody of the tendency to
turn a word into a hashtag to advertise it and partly because of my experiment to
ask people to take photos of my own photos I had printed. Though noone had
taken a photo and tagged it on twitter or Instagram it was intended as an
experiment to see how people would respond to the object of a photo print.
Slide from the presentation for ‘How We
Respond to Water’
Katsura Hashino
Katsura Hashino is a video game designer working for Atlus. He assumed lead
creative position for the Shin Megami Tensei series from ‘SMTIII: Nocturne’ and
became director/producer for the Persona games from ‘Persona 3’. Persona 3
brought the series a wider popularity and Hashino stayed director/producer for
Persona 4 and 5.
The direction he took the Persona games combined Surrealism with the experience
of everyday life in Japan.
In his interview with Kill Screen’s Zack Kotzer he says “The core of the series is the
‘back’ side, the alternate world, the shadow of human society. The protagonists live a
normal life in the real world, or the ‘front’ side, and enter an alternate world for a
supernatural experience. This alternate world, however, is not a ‘world separate from
the normal world’ that you find in other fantasy RPG titles.” These alternate worlds
serve as “an imaginative tool to express the problems that lurk within our society—
weaknesses that people unconsciously possess that inhibit their individuation.”
In Persona 3 ‘The Dark Hour’ Hashino says “Is a phenomenon caused by people
forgetting to face and accept the eventual inevitability of death.” This parallel world
serves as a place where the protagonists face the underlying weaknesses of the
society in a dimension with completely different powers.
Katsura Hashino’s Persona 3
Persona 3 is a great example of games that attach meaning to objects as an aspect of the gameplay. The character
Elizabeth often asks you to complete quests which involve bringing her objects that defeated ‘shadows’ leave behind or
simply bring her a specific item from a store. The quests attach meaning to otherwise unassuming objects by offering a
reward for the quests’ completion.
As well as this the game is often about the process of living. Hashino also asks us to play the game of social connection,
tending to friends, listening to them until a point of resolution. Days move through periods of time like ‘Afternoon’ to
‘Evening’ giving a strong feeling of slow pace.
The thing that strikes me
about Persona 3 is how
nostalgic it feels and how
much it feels like Japan.
These qualities may not
seem surprising but given
that I had not played the
game at the point of going
to Japan and the game
spends a lot of time in high
school or dungeons the
Japanese atmosphere to it
must be very strong.
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The store ‘Book On’ in Persona 3 is a
reference to the Japanese chain-store ‘Book
Off’ and is one of many examples of the
whimsical play on Japanese reality.
After recalling the chain store ‘Lycamobile’ and wondering why
it only really existed in the London area I imagined if it started
appearing everywhere, replacing shops that already existed.
Finding the Postcard Rack
Stumbling upon the postcard rack for the first time I didn’t
immediately decide that it would be the site of my work for the
Takeover. As I started to feel more like my final piece would be not just
about the emotion present in object but about objects that are
discarded, things we have lost and fragments of memories the
postcard rack became the perfect place to show that in my mind.
The placement of the postcard rack very much felt like walking behind
the abandoned buildings that I had been doing since the beginning of
the academic year. The postcard felt so abandoned in this dark corner
which I wasn’t sure if anyone was really using.
Logistically the postcard rack would be very convenient for putting
photographs in and objects would be fairly easy to place in it too.
The structure of the rack looked almost gothic or maybe like
something that could conduct electricity. It struck me that black was
quite an unusual colour for a postcard rack which are often silver,
white or brown. It also looked somewhat like a dead tree.
The presence of the white fabric draped over the rack gave the area an
almost natural feel, like the fabric had grown over the rack which gave
it a sense of having existed there for a long time.
Ring Collection, Sep 07, 2014
Weiyi is an artist, designer and curator originally from China and now
conducting a PhD in Innovation Design Engineering at Royal College
of Art in London.
While her work is quite varied in theme one common thread that stuck out to me is the
use of everyday objects – often discarded – as a material for design. She has made
many pieces of jewellery out of material that may be considered trash such as spare
components for DIY such as on the right or even a plastic zip cord that she tied around
her neck (bottom right). Jewellery is often a way to show wealth using rare metals and
stones and Li uses this to elevate these objects.
A piece that Li curated for website bigbadgallery
involves a showcase of collected items from Animal
Crossing that adhere to a theme – below ‘water’.
As of late Weiyi Li has frequently been using the app B612 – a face
filter camera created by Tokyo’s LINE Corporation. This app’s
selection of face filters is very vast and often has quite surreal,
baroque or just absurd options for changing the face.
In her Instagram video (playable right) ‘1min B612演技合集 again
raise the volume ⬆️⬆️⬆️’ she collects together a variety of shot clips
of filters over 1 minute, performing them in a very serious way.
The face filter is a medium that could popularise a combination of
real world and surreal or magical imagery. These effects allow us
to play out characters that fulfil dreams or ideals as well as
become objects from every day life caricatured. In one clip she is
transformed into a child’s fork holding a miniature sausage which
she looks unimpressed and confused by in another she is playing a
bowling pin and acts physically hurt when being hit by the bowling
ball.
Like B612 an app like musical.ly can also give people
an opportunity to perform. Amalia Ulman uses
musical.ly for this video (playable right) where she lip-
syncs to the song ‘Trap Queen’ by Fetty Wap. This
song gained some political relevance when Hillary
Clinton ‘dabbed’ to it on the Ellen DeGeneres show –
seen as one of her embarrassing attempts to try and
appeal to a younger audience.
This kind of palatable modern rap song was perfect
for Ulman to use for this character who uses memes
generally considered popular with ages younger than
her. This performance is no exception – there is a
disconnect between the heavily arranged camera
angle movements, office uniform and smart haircut
and the associations of the song with a very young
generation.
I received this large bubble wrap with an item I bought in the mail
and realised it had a nice quality when light was filtered through it.
I took some pictures of myself filtered by this found object which
turn me into a kind of shadow or figure. Something as mundane as
bubble-wrap can be used as something completely transformative.
9/2/17
I have been thinking about the significance of the objects that
we place on a Christmas tree. Over time these objects gain
meaning, they become sacred objects to us and tell stories
about our life. They have significance to us and we display them,
hanging them up for everyone to see.
The corner that I used with drapes is almost like a Grotto. A
corner that you have to go around that extends the magical
quality.
Below is a photograph of Mother Shipton’s Cave.
This cave from Knaresborough,
Yorkshire has a Petrifying Well.
The water turns objects to
stone over time with a small
teddy bear taking around 3 -5
months. People can come and
place their own objects here.
Natural process like this can
still have magical quality
because of the history behind
it. This was once thought to be
Mother Shipton’s witchcraft.
Weiyi Li dropping her disposable camera in the sea may not seem like an
artistic technique as much as an accident but the existence of the
disposable camera and the sea are part of her identity.
4/3/1718/1/17
Some of the times that I was
walking around Aberystwyth
I saw the words again. Orb
stayed on the door for a few
months and Glow is still
inside the advert on the pole
from the last time that I
checked if it was. Others like
Watch and Calcify were
completely lost.
Fanta in Jars and Bottle with Spoon 5/3/17
Using things that would otherwise be discarded;
jars and a bottle that were empty and Fanta that
I didn’t want I created lantern like objects that I
wanted to place outside somewhere. I decided
to place them on the clock tower at the top of
Great Darkgate Street outside of Why Not Bar on
a busy Saturday Night. It was interesting to be
unnoticed by everyone around me while I was
arranging these objects – it was like I was in a
parallel universe like The Dark Hour in Persona 3.
NAMING THE PROJECT ‘THE SECOND NENG’
I decided to name the project
‘The Second Neng’ after my idea
to arrange objects in the postcard
rack culminated. This was a follow
up to a piece I had conceptualized
called ‘The First Neng’ which was
planned to show at Arad Goch.
The idea for this piece was to
place old drawings and maybe
hang some objects from a pin
board that would be mounted on
the wall. Sadly this piece has not
yet been exhibited because of
scheduling issues but ‘The Second
Neng’ would still be it's spiritual
predecessor.
These two drawings I intended
would be part of ‘The First Neng’,
presenting the origins of the term
Neng.
THE
SECOND
NENG
The word NENG I invented to express objects and abstract nouns
that I had some feeling about. Naturally the word already existed
without a fixed meaning. Here are 2 descriptions from Urban
Dictionary
Art has the ability to
communicate feelings that
we wouldn’t be able to
through words but it is not
often used that way in my
opinion.
I wanted to dress this
abandoned postcard
rack like a Christmas
tree with objects that I
felt expressed
something.
Choosing Objects for the Final Piece
The Glove – After finding that I had lost a glove after coming out of a lecture and not being able to find it anywhere in the
building I felt the devastating sense of being out of control of even my own belongings. Sometimes things almost just get
lost on their own.
The Bowl Fragment – When trying to pour pasta sauce from a bowl hot out of the microwave I dropped the bowl and it
landed onto the bowl I was trying to pour into and broke it into two pieces. I was very shocked because the distance
between the two bowls was so small that I couldn’t have imagined dropping the bowl would actually be able to break the
bowl underneath.
The Necklace – My girlfriend’s necklace that she left behind in Mold after she went back to Japan at the end of last year.
The Pouch – A pouch that my friend gave me Yu-Gi-Oh cards in which was dirtied and discarded on his floor but it was given
a use in order to carry the cards.
The Photograph – One of the photographs I had offered at the ‘How We Respond to Water’ presentation. It was taken by
my friend Ailia and stuck on the cupboard in her kitchen. She said that over time it had gotten spots of plaster thrown on it
because they had to have work done in their kitchen.
After coming back to check that the postcard rack still remained in the same place I found that it was gone, replaced by some
equipment and debris. I was initially worried that I wouldn't be able to get the same type of postcard rack and would have to use
something else like a table but thankfully after asking conversing with Sam Thorne he arranged that the bookshop could give me
a rack of the same type.
3/11/16
I noticed when the postcard rack was gone that there was a small piece of donut left on the floor. It reminded me of the day
exploring the arts centre and how I had ventured behind the back of the building to find a pack of donuts resting in the top of a
barrel (pictured above). This discarded piece of donut was a striking reminder of the time that had passed and the things we
have lost. It felt too specific of an object to be a coincidence. Why would someone leave this piece of donut in the space where
the postcard rack had vanished?
On the day of exhibition I had another loss that my friend
didn't manage to bring my photograph for me. At first I felt a
bit sad that the objects I wanted to place in the rack wouldn't
be exactly the same as I intended but realised that the piece of
donut would be an extremely fitting object to place instead.
After finding out that there wouldn't be a map of the pieces of
art in the handbook I had to re-evaluate the way to show that
my art was there. I wanted to have the feeling that people
could just happen upon it rather than be explicitly brought to it
so I felt a bit awkward being part of the tour.
The idea to bring people to another area where I drew a map
of how to find my piece was a fairly good substitute for the
original map that I thought would be in the booklet.
I did however feel uncomfortable that people met me and
knew I was the artist of this piece because I haven't quite
figured out the level of how much I want to be associated with
the art I create.
More trash
that had
appeared
by the time
I came to
uninstall
my work.
In the process of packing up to leave my flat in Aberystwyth I
found the pieces of paper that I had picked up in Hugh Owen
on the day I placed blue post it notes in the building. One of
these is a receipt for books borrowed and the other is a written
list of 4 book codes. I wondered if I had exchanged the words
Watch and Blaze for these relics in the way that Lynch
exchanges doppelgangers through the Black Lodge.
For the caption of Daniel Moon’s ‘New Bugatti in South Korea’ he says ‘This is the last of my adventures in South Korea. While I
am not there anymore, I cannot express how grateful I am to have been able to experience yet another wonderful adventure in
my home country.’ At one point in the video I hear the Transfer jingle (https://youtu.be/A9QXIIsP28w) for the Seoul Metro played
in the distance behind the image of a beggar. Having been to both Korea and Japan before the end of the project I realise how
strong these metro line jingles are at evoking the feelings of being in that country.
When time turns in to memory sometimes some of that feeling finds itself
dispersing and being held in many different places. Sometimes this feeling is only
vague – soap for example can remind me of a period of my life and general feeling
that I felt without explicitly referencing anything. The way that emotions are
transferred around the world has endless possibilities just waiting to be unlocked.

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Diary Making - 'The Second Neng'

  • 2. I think it may be useful to make it clear that I have Autism Spectrum Disorder as some of the ideas I have connect in with the special interests I had since I was quite small. When I was younger I made sense of the world by creating stories or games by ordering the world in a particular way. When I was out I liked walking around and if I found interesting objects I liked to collect them and place them in certain ways. I liked to give meaning to objects that would not have originally been intended. I was able to see the magical possibilities in the things around me, the things that I found. I used to create a narrative for those things and create games that I would play in my head which involved objects that were around the house or found outside. Interesting things like a bottle cap or an old pen. I used to place objects around the house - unusual things, I would hang something on the door or maybe arrange towels or cushions, even when I was 3 years old, placing objects such as coins in unusual ways, creating meaning out of them. I liked the idea of looking for the magical in things around me. My mum also did it with me to help me get over anxieties, if I was feeling really tired or anxious or not managing, she would say, for example, 'let's find a red stone’ which she would say would give me special power or 'why don't we look for a purple flower and if you smell it you will get more energy'. These special interests also related to particular Nintendo or PlayStation games where you had to go on a journey and collect objects, for example the Nintendo game - Animal Crossing where you have to collect things or notice things in the environment and then get them. Or in a game where you have to travel on a journey but you have to notice different objects around such as ‘point-and-click games’. This interest has also spilled out into other areas such as films; one favourite is M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water, where the placement of unusual objects or finding meaning in objects in order to solve a mystery is a central theme. For example, one of the characters looks for special clues and meaning on a cereal box, a place where people wouldn't normally find meaning. INTRODUCTION
  • 3. I think imbuing things with sacred significance, things that to most people have no meaning, but when you have Autism you have to make sense of a world that seems to be quite chaotic or frightening or unpredictable. Creating meaning out of things that don't have any meaning to other people helps you to feel calmer or make some sense of the world around you, imbueing the world with a kind of excitement and mystery. Some of the things I have chosen figure into the ideas I've had from a very very young age, even if it is just things like fascination with text on the walls or codes, looking for shapes in things that other people may not see. I want to understand how the interest is connected to who I am as a person and how I see the world. When people think of being Autistic they may think of scientists or other logical thinkers and they don't always see people with Autism as having a creative brain and seeing the world in a different or imaginative way. By exploring these ideas I can give people a window into seeing the world in a different way. My ideas could just seem wacky or strange, but actually my brain sees things differently so it may not seem unusual to me. Katsura Hashino Weiyi Li Amalia Ulman Daniel Moon chushi David Lynch Photograph of coins that I had arranged when I was about 5 or 6
  • 4. I have become infatuated with the bobby pin as an object that can represent relationships, a human artefact that can hold a sense of romantic feelings in the same way that the paperclip can hold a sense of ‘office’ feelings in Amalia Ulman’s recent work (right). The first slide shows a bobby pin that I had discovered in the corner of a bathroom and it struck me as having a kind of magical presence to it. I do enjoy to pick up bobby pins that I find on the floor as well as other small things that people have dropped. This bobby pin appeared to me, however, to have a sacred nature. Possibly its placement in the corner of a room gave it less of an incidental nature. I would like to emulate this type of magical- feeling discovery that I sometimes feel when I come across some objects or online content and artists.
  • 5. LIVING PRACTICE Living practice is the idea that art practice does not need to be native to a studio or a time and simply weaves into the way you live. The use of this type of practice has grown immensely since the existence of the internet and social media like Instagram and Twitter gave a space to create art at any time and in mundane ways. Artists can go so far as to intervene with the real world in an artistic way and showing a creative approach to mundane decisions like buying a creative assortment of items from a supermarket on purpose. These ideas spawned in my head when I was hanging up and taking down washing for my mother and I realised that this process was a very pure type of creative practice. I could contrast colours of pegs with colours of clothes and fold them over each other in the basket in a visual pleasing or interesting way.
  • 6. From Daniel Moon’s (The Last Moon) video ‘Here In My Garage’.
  • 7. Daniel Moon is evolving what it means to be an artist, often avoiding being referred to an artist at all. While YouTubing has scarcely been talked about as an art form some YouTubers like Francois Pisapia and Izabella Rodriguez have used it for art practice. Daniel Moon has often combined his editing skills he says he learned from film club with his amateur vlogging skills in his ‘Visiting South Korea for a Month’ series uploaded on his YouTube channel ‘The Last Moon’. Outside of that most of his videos are gaming or mentoring. These he say stems from his passion for gaming and drive to put more positivity into the gaming community and his mentoring from his neuroscience degree and drive to help people. The way that he implements his life interest into his channel is worth comparing to my theory of 'living practice'. Daniel Moon
  • 8. I created this as a poster idea for the final exhibition at the Arts centre. I considered pitching the idea of mysterious iconography as an advertising technique for the exhibition but became increasingly distant from this idea as I decided more and more that my role in the exhibition would be somewhat secretive.
  • 9. DAVID LYNCH David Lynch is a director, photographer and musician most well known for his film and TV work that often incorporates surreal and oneiric themes and imagery. Since the time I watched it I have always considered his film Mulholland Drive to be my favourite. The perfect balance between the dream world and Hollywood – escapist yet deadly serious about its terrifying story of having someone you love betray you. Mulholland Drive and other film work by David Lynch has greatly influenced the way that I work over multiple disciplines since the point of watching Mulholland Drive. The techniques of surrealism that he uses such as placing imagery into the film without context were not new to me at that point but the way Lynch runs them parallel to real-world problems and scenarios was.
  • 10. I had gone for a walk and ended up wondering around the backs of many of the university buildings because I felt there was some kind of magical aura and possibility to these areas. On an emotional level this sense of discovery is difficult to articulate but the kind of objects that double as mundane and magical can be chosen and so this type of experience may be emulated. This photograph is of an area I found behind the national library where a chair is pointing towards an area of leaves that seem to have been sprayed with some kind of white paint.
  • 11. In the series Twin Peaks, Special Agent Dale Cooper is called to solve the mystery of Laura Palmer’s death, leading him onto a strange journey. On the left is pictured the entrance to ‘The Black Lodge’ Throughout Twin Peaks there are portals and objects that have extra-dimensional connection. In Season 3 Episode 3 Dale Cooper leaves the Black Lodge he has been stuck in for 25 years in order to transfer with the doppelganger that had taken his place in the real world. He attempts to switch places with his doppelganger by appearing through the cigarette lighter receptacle in his car. The doppelganger, however, had created a fake doppelganger in another part of America who he switches places with instead which causes him to travel through the plug socket of their house. I have always really liked the idea that real-world objects can be used for supernatural purposes, for example I had the idea that the ticket machine in the carpark behind my house could be used as some kind of transportation machine to an underground world. On the right is a photo that I took in 2014 of a section of the screen asking you to pay the machine with time itself as the entry cost.
  • 12. In the ending scene of Episode 23 of the original Twin Peaks a character Josie has her soul trapped inside a wooden doorknob after her death. This is one of the most memorable examples of Lynch using an object as an extension of the extra- dimensional world. The fact that whole persons soul can be theorised to fit in a doorknob show us that we can see the potential in objects to hold a lot of the humanness we have such as emotions even if they are trapped against their will.
  • 13. I had noticed that there was a card reader that had been neglected behind one of the buildings. I felt like it could theoretically be used to enter a secret area or underground and that it being abandoned had awakened it to this possibility. (Still from my film with Sam Pursall; ‘Drawing Ourselves Inside the Circle’.)
  • 14. Sight,smell,taste,touch,sound Black butterflies, empty plate, 58 Bay West Not having cleaned my teeth because my mouth ulcers are too painful And I just disappear, 42 My tissue, 3 Finally starting from where I intended 93, 76 Maybe 100 and disgusting aim 3/11/16 From taking steps around the Arts Centre, 100 steps at a time asked to focus on each of the 5 senses I wrote down this text describing my journey. At one point I found myself in the toilet sensing a feeling of waves that I whistled into the recorder. I called this ‘toilet song’ and created this cover to elicit the feeling that I felt in that environment.
  • 15. chushi My great interest in chushi over the past years has stemmed from my growing taste for art with minimalist, lo-fidelity and subtle qualities. chushi has kept his profile very low, often giving little information to music publications to advertise his newest releases. From the YouTube he links from his Twitter his name may be Саша Скрипкин (Sasha Skripkin). He has uploaded many minimalist videos on this, such as a video of the sunlight through drapes. The photos he uploads on his Twitter are also often very minimalist – showing blurred image or sections of ground. Often very empty spaces. His music is often like piecing together broken memories
  • 16.
  • 17. things chushi taught me Having coverage/fame does not define you. Activity does not define you. Nothing needs to be a high feeling. Deletion can be art practice. Silence can be art practice.
  • 18. The fog of 14th and 15th of November When I was a teenager I would often feel an inside sense of some kind of large event impending like the end of the world. I don’t recall feeling that way in the recent years but when something majestic happens in the natural world like starlings over Aberystwyth I feel a similar sense of large happening. This fog that engulfs Aberystwyth from time to time but was at is largest that I have seen on these dates also creates such huge atmosphere. It also reminds me of a section of Eiji Aonuma’s ‘The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess’ where you have to navigate a forest in thick fog with a monkey who flails a lantern. The lantern creates light and clear air for small circles allowing you to move through the forest in degrees.
  • 19. DON’T TALK TO ME OR MY SON EVER AGAIN Reflecting on the session exploring the Arts Centre I created this meme that I mentioned I would like to place on a large area of wall in the outside of the Arts Centre. I believe that memes are a very profound art form that had evolved as the internet had grown older. Memes can often be used to express abstract thoughts in a very easily communicable way through the use of a kind of mathematical formula for each type of meme. Memes are never scared to be overly simplistic because they are designed to be widely understandable. Memes are often incredibly reflexive as well, for example ‘deep fried memes’ referencing the quality loss from image reposting and refiltering.
  • 20. Amalia Ulman is an Argentinan-born artist working in Los Angeles who is well known for her Instagram which has over 130,000 followers. Ulman has gained attention from projects which included faking a cosmetic surgery procedure pretending to go to North Korea (before actually going to North Korea) and most recently faking a pregnancy. Amalia Ulman is often acting out characters that use different aesthetics on her Instagram. Most recently she is using memes, photographs with a strict red, black and white colour scheme and one panel newspaper comics to create a character of a pregnant female office worker. These characters that she makes often parody or critique the way that Instagram is used. She also created the character of ‘Bob the Pigeon’, a kind of love interest of this office worker. Pigeons often represent the lonely and mundane aspects of city life. This surreal character draws attention to the often isolated way that we use social media. In fact very few times since the beginning of this has Ulman been pictured with anyone else other than ‘Bob the Pigeon’. AMALIA ULMAN
  • 21.
  • 22. After working with Miranda to choose words for photos I have taken in order to bring out hidden meanings in the photos I arranged these words on my pin board. I grouped the words into clusters that I felt went well together and placed them over the whiteboard like a constellation or a map. It reminds me of when I was a child creating maps for worlds that I had created which sometimes included planets in an environment in space. This feeling is extended from the way the light reacts in the picture creating dark circles around the edges to concentrate the light in a circle like a star. The heavy amount of light coming from the bottom corner of the picture on the right is like an explosion of light such as a supernova. 24/11/16
  • 24. After having left the words posted on my pin board I decided that I wanted to bring them outside into places like designing the level of a video game, placing objects to collect or interact with. Doing this late into the night after rain had fallen was quite a mysterious experience. I liked the idea of taking pieces of myself and hiding them The photos and video that I took to document this process are not particularly aesthetically appealing which is appropriate for the subject of loss and dispersion. After all the colour of blue the post-it notes are is not particularly nice to look at and the way that I wrote the words is not either. I thought of these as kind of a treasure map. Pictures that a person could use in order to find these words.
  • 25. NAMING THE PROJECT ‘HOW WE RESPOND TO WATER’ AND THE IDEA OF #loficountry I had an initial idea to name the project ‘How we respond to water after recalling my drawing ‘How We Respond to Space’ (left) which I mistakenly thought was called ‘How We Respond to Earth’. I may have decided to use this model of title to connect to my past work but change the element to water which felt appropriate because of the raining that was happening at the time of making the presentation. #loficountry was an idea that stemmed from my interests in art that I felt was lo-fi like Francois Pisapia and Cawa Gaogao and that my own photos were of that ilk. The choice to create a hashtag was partly as a kind of parody of the tendency to turn a word into a hashtag to advertise it and partly because of my experiment to ask people to take photos of my own photos I had printed. Though noone had taken a photo and tagged it on twitter or Instagram it was intended as an experiment to see how people would respond to the object of a photo print. Slide from the presentation for ‘How We Respond to Water’
  • 26. Katsura Hashino Katsura Hashino is a video game designer working for Atlus. He assumed lead creative position for the Shin Megami Tensei series from ‘SMTIII: Nocturne’ and became director/producer for the Persona games from ‘Persona 3’. Persona 3 brought the series a wider popularity and Hashino stayed director/producer for Persona 4 and 5. The direction he took the Persona games combined Surrealism with the experience of everyday life in Japan. In his interview with Kill Screen’s Zack Kotzer he says “The core of the series is the ‘back’ side, the alternate world, the shadow of human society. The protagonists live a normal life in the real world, or the ‘front’ side, and enter an alternate world for a supernatural experience. This alternate world, however, is not a ‘world separate from the normal world’ that you find in other fantasy RPG titles.” These alternate worlds serve as “an imaginative tool to express the problems that lurk within our society— weaknesses that people unconsciously possess that inhibit their individuation.” In Persona 3 ‘The Dark Hour’ Hashino says “Is a phenomenon caused by people forgetting to face and accept the eventual inevitability of death.” This parallel world serves as a place where the protagonists face the underlying weaknesses of the society in a dimension with completely different powers.
  • 27. Katsura Hashino’s Persona 3 Persona 3 is a great example of games that attach meaning to objects as an aspect of the gameplay. The character Elizabeth often asks you to complete quests which involve bringing her objects that defeated ‘shadows’ leave behind or simply bring her a specific item from a store. The quests attach meaning to otherwise unassuming objects by offering a reward for the quests’ completion. As well as this the game is often about the process of living. Hashino also asks us to play the game of social connection, tending to friends, listening to them until a point of resolution. Days move through periods of time like ‘Afternoon’ to ‘Evening’ giving a strong feeling of slow pace. The thing that strikes me about Persona 3 is how nostalgic it feels and how much it feels like Japan. These qualities may not seem surprising but given that I had not played the game at the point of going to Japan and the game spends a lot of time in high school or dungeons the Japanese atmosphere to it must be very strong.
  • 28. 3 0 / 0 1 / 1 7 The store ‘Book On’ in Persona 3 is a reference to the Japanese chain-store ‘Book Off’ and is one of many examples of the whimsical play on Japanese reality. After recalling the chain store ‘Lycamobile’ and wondering why it only really existed in the London area I imagined if it started appearing everywhere, replacing shops that already existed.
  • 29. Finding the Postcard Rack Stumbling upon the postcard rack for the first time I didn’t immediately decide that it would be the site of my work for the Takeover. As I started to feel more like my final piece would be not just about the emotion present in object but about objects that are discarded, things we have lost and fragments of memories the postcard rack became the perfect place to show that in my mind. The placement of the postcard rack very much felt like walking behind the abandoned buildings that I had been doing since the beginning of the academic year. The postcard felt so abandoned in this dark corner which I wasn’t sure if anyone was really using. Logistically the postcard rack would be very convenient for putting photographs in and objects would be fairly easy to place in it too. The structure of the rack looked almost gothic or maybe like something that could conduct electricity. It struck me that black was quite an unusual colour for a postcard rack which are often silver, white or brown. It also looked somewhat like a dead tree. The presence of the white fabric draped over the rack gave the area an almost natural feel, like the fabric had grown over the rack which gave it a sense of having existed there for a long time.
  • 30. Ring Collection, Sep 07, 2014 Weiyi is an artist, designer and curator originally from China and now conducting a PhD in Innovation Design Engineering at Royal College of Art in London. While her work is quite varied in theme one common thread that stuck out to me is the use of everyday objects – often discarded – as a material for design. She has made many pieces of jewellery out of material that may be considered trash such as spare components for DIY such as on the right or even a plastic zip cord that she tied around her neck (bottom right). Jewellery is often a way to show wealth using rare metals and stones and Li uses this to elevate these objects. A piece that Li curated for website bigbadgallery involves a showcase of collected items from Animal Crossing that adhere to a theme – below ‘water’.
  • 31. As of late Weiyi Li has frequently been using the app B612 – a face filter camera created by Tokyo’s LINE Corporation. This app’s selection of face filters is very vast and often has quite surreal, baroque or just absurd options for changing the face. In her Instagram video (playable right) ‘1min B612演技合集 again raise the volume ⬆️⬆️⬆️’ she collects together a variety of shot clips of filters over 1 minute, performing them in a very serious way. The face filter is a medium that could popularise a combination of real world and surreal or magical imagery. These effects allow us to play out characters that fulfil dreams or ideals as well as become objects from every day life caricatured. In one clip she is transformed into a child’s fork holding a miniature sausage which she looks unimpressed and confused by in another she is playing a bowling pin and acts physically hurt when being hit by the bowling ball.
  • 32. Like B612 an app like musical.ly can also give people an opportunity to perform. Amalia Ulman uses musical.ly for this video (playable right) where she lip- syncs to the song ‘Trap Queen’ by Fetty Wap. This song gained some political relevance when Hillary Clinton ‘dabbed’ to it on the Ellen DeGeneres show – seen as one of her embarrassing attempts to try and appeal to a younger audience. This kind of palatable modern rap song was perfect for Ulman to use for this character who uses memes generally considered popular with ages younger than her. This performance is no exception – there is a disconnect between the heavily arranged camera angle movements, office uniform and smart haircut and the associations of the song with a very young generation.
  • 33. I received this large bubble wrap with an item I bought in the mail and realised it had a nice quality when light was filtered through it. I took some pictures of myself filtered by this found object which turn me into a kind of shadow or figure. Something as mundane as bubble-wrap can be used as something completely transformative. 9/2/17
  • 34. I have been thinking about the significance of the objects that we place on a Christmas tree. Over time these objects gain meaning, they become sacred objects to us and tell stories about our life. They have significance to us and we display them, hanging them up for everyone to see. The corner that I used with drapes is almost like a Grotto. A corner that you have to go around that extends the magical quality. Below is a photograph of Mother Shipton’s Cave. This cave from Knaresborough, Yorkshire has a Petrifying Well. The water turns objects to stone over time with a small teddy bear taking around 3 -5 months. People can come and place their own objects here. Natural process like this can still have magical quality because of the history behind it. This was once thought to be Mother Shipton’s witchcraft.
  • 35. Weiyi Li dropping her disposable camera in the sea may not seem like an artistic technique as much as an accident but the existence of the disposable camera and the sea are part of her identity.
  • 36. 4/3/1718/1/17 Some of the times that I was walking around Aberystwyth I saw the words again. Orb stayed on the door for a few months and Glow is still inside the advert on the pole from the last time that I checked if it was. Others like Watch and Calcify were completely lost.
  • 37. Fanta in Jars and Bottle with Spoon 5/3/17 Using things that would otherwise be discarded; jars and a bottle that were empty and Fanta that I didn’t want I created lantern like objects that I wanted to place outside somewhere. I decided to place them on the clock tower at the top of Great Darkgate Street outside of Why Not Bar on a busy Saturday Night. It was interesting to be unnoticed by everyone around me while I was arranging these objects – it was like I was in a parallel universe like The Dark Hour in Persona 3.
  • 38. NAMING THE PROJECT ‘THE SECOND NENG’ I decided to name the project ‘The Second Neng’ after my idea to arrange objects in the postcard rack culminated. This was a follow up to a piece I had conceptualized called ‘The First Neng’ which was planned to show at Arad Goch. The idea for this piece was to place old drawings and maybe hang some objects from a pin board that would be mounted on the wall. Sadly this piece has not yet been exhibited because of scheduling issues but ‘The Second Neng’ would still be it's spiritual predecessor. These two drawings I intended would be part of ‘The First Neng’, presenting the origins of the term Neng.
  • 40. The word NENG I invented to express objects and abstract nouns that I had some feeling about. Naturally the word already existed without a fixed meaning. Here are 2 descriptions from Urban Dictionary
  • 41. Art has the ability to communicate feelings that we wouldn’t be able to through words but it is not often used that way in my opinion.
  • 42. I wanted to dress this abandoned postcard rack like a Christmas tree with objects that I felt expressed something.
  • 43. Choosing Objects for the Final Piece The Glove – After finding that I had lost a glove after coming out of a lecture and not being able to find it anywhere in the building I felt the devastating sense of being out of control of even my own belongings. Sometimes things almost just get lost on their own. The Bowl Fragment – When trying to pour pasta sauce from a bowl hot out of the microwave I dropped the bowl and it landed onto the bowl I was trying to pour into and broke it into two pieces. I was very shocked because the distance between the two bowls was so small that I couldn’t have imagined dropping the bowl would actually be able to break the bowl underneath. The Necklace – My girlfriend’s necklace that she left behind in Mold after she went back to Japan at the end of last year. The Pouch – A pouch that my friend gave me Yu-Gi-Oh cards in which was dirtied and discarded on his floor but it was given a use in order to carry the cards. The Photograph – One of the photographs I had offered at the ‘How We Respond to Water’ presentation. It was taken by my friend Ailia and stuck on the cupboard in her kitchen. She said that over time it had gotten spots of plaster thrown on it because they had to have work done in their kitchen.
  • 44. After coming back to check that the postcard rack still remained in the same place I found that it was gone, replaced by some equipment and debris. I was initially worried that I wouldn't be able to get the same type of postcard rack and would have to use something else like a table but thankfully after asking conversing with Sam Thorne he arranged that the bookshop could give me a rack of the same type.
  • 45. 3/11/16 I noticed when the postcard rack was gone that there was a small piece of donut left on the floor. It reminded me of the day exploring the arts centre and how I had ventured behind the back of the building to find a pack of donuts resting in the top of a barrel (pictured above). This discarded piece of donut was a striking reminder of the time that had passed and the things we have lost. It felt too specific of an object to be a coincidence. Why would someone leave this piece of donut in the space where the postcard rack had vanished?
  • 46. On the day of exhibition I had another loss that my friend didn't manage to bring my photograph for me. At first I felt a bit sad that the objects I wanted to place in the rack wouldn't be exactly the same as I intended but realised that the piece of donut would be an extremely fitting object to place instead. After finding out that there wouldn't be a map of the pieces of art in the handbook I had to re-evaluate the way to show that my art was there. I wanted to have the feeling that people could just happen upon it rather than be explicitly brought to it so I felt a bit awkward being part of the tour. The idea to bring people to another area where I drew a map of how to find my piece was a fairly good substitute for the original map that I thought would be in the booklet. I did however feel uncomfortable that people met me and knew I was the artist of this piece because I haven't quite figured out the level of how much I want to be associated with the art I create.
  • 47. More trash that had appeared by the time I came to uninstall my work.
  • 48. In the process of packing up to leave my flat in Aberystwyth I found the pieces of paper that I had picked up in Hugh Owen on the day I placed blue post it notes in the building. One of these is a receipt for books borrowed and the other is a written list of 4 book codes. I wondered if I had exchanged the words Watch and Blaze for these relics in the way that Lynch exchanges doppelgangers through the Black Lodge.
  • 49. For the caption of Daniel Moon’s ‘New Bugatti in South Korea’ he says ‘This is the last of my adventures in South Korea. While I am not there anymore, I cannot express how grateful I am to have been able to experience yet another wonderful adventure in my home country.’ At one point in the video I hear the Transfer jingle (https://youtu.be/A9QXIIsP28w) for the Seoul Metro played in the distance behind the image of a beggar. Having been to both Korea and Japan before the end of the project I realise how strong these metro line jingles are at evoking the feelings of being in that country. When time turns in to memory sometimes some of that feeling finds itself dispersing and being held in many different places. Sometimes this feeling is only vague – soap for example can remind me of a period of my life and general feeling that I felt without explicitly referencing anything. The way that emotions are transferred around the world has endless possibilities just waiting to be unlocked.