Digital Collage

Trying to imagine what growing vegetables might be like, we would still use the land we have but perhaps be more inventive about it.

Another collage exploring the possibility that the pot’s original purpose could have been to fend off pests and birds. Nasturtiums are often planted with tomatoes and other crops to draw bugs away from the produce. CD fragments and other reflective objects keep away birds, I thought that there might be fragments in the fossil record for people to find in the same way that you often dig up pottery shards now.

Performative dinner experiment

I made a lentil-based dinner last night and invited friends over to share it with me. In the centre of the table was the pot, which I placed a microphone in and recorded our conversations. We discussed what we thought the future might look like and how we might get there from the present.

Please listen to the edited audio here: https://clyp.it/y50o4iel

Blue Screen and EcoHub Experimentation

On Monday I got the opportunity to photography the pot at the EcoHub, I also experimented with a green(blue) screen, so I’ll have a play with editing that too. I’ve been thinking about the pot acting as a protector of the crops. Something people use to ward off blights/diseases etc and to ensure a good harvest. This could have started down a scientific route, e.g. if you plant marigolds around tomatoes they help draw away insects. But over time became a more ritualistic tradition.

Had a play around with photographing the pot like a still life on Sunday. 

I don’t think the medium is particularly effective, but whilst I was finding things to use in the photo I started to think about how people might interact with the pot. Maybe they do place little votive offerings around/in it, maybe with the goal of protection or good fortune. 

I’m now thinking I want to partially fill the bowl with wards/offerings/charms and see how that feels. Perhaps I could ask others to place something in their to bring them protection etc? Or does that stray from my concept a bit?

Serena Korda, The Jug Choir, https://www.serenakorda.com/the-jug-choir/

She mentions how people used belamine jugs to ward off evil spirits by placing things like bent nails in them. Can I do something along those lines and put things in there to protect the harvest? If people do that would they place the jug in the midst of their crops to keep them safe? Or would they put them somewhere within the home? What things would I put in there?

I’ve already been thinking about the acoustic qualities of my pot, I want to put microphones in there and record the conversations around it to see what/how it picks things up.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Concept

Core to my practice this term is exploring how the Anthropocene, and the changes to the environment that comes with it, will transform and shape our spirituality in the centuries to come.

I believe that changes to our growing seasons, weather patterns and our access to resources will create new traditions. Our ability to adapt to different environments is core to our survival and at every point in the past where those environments have changed new belief systems and rituals have arisen. Longer growing seasons in parts of Europe might lead to a renewed focus on the Harvest as an important time of year; longer, harsher winters caused by the loss of the Gulf Stream and potentially the loss of the Great Ocean Current would surely change our behaviour during that period and our response to the coming of Spring.  

I want to explore what these changes might look like, how we move through both the seasons and our new environment by combining scientific predictions and fantastical imaginings of a proto-future.

One of the digital collages I’ve made. Jen pointed out that using images from the 50s/60s suggests this in an alternative timeline, rather than a photo from the future (pretty obvious now I think about it).

I like the idea of using the buildings we have and retrofitting them with the things we’ll need to 100 odd years. It’s hard to believe that people wouldn’t use the buildings around them, interspersed with their own constructions that are designed for the climate. So maybe a pathway to go down next term is to explore that side of things?

Work I saw at the Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal a couple of weeks ago.

The top picture is known as ‘The Great Picture’ commissioned by Lady Anne Clifford, depicting her life. I’m wondering whether I could do something similar digitally with my pot? I’ve been thinking about its place in the domestic setting and as part of a larger holiday, could I make postcards/posters/calendars showing it in use, like current holiday cards?

I’ve made some digital collages using the pot but I don’t know how effective they are, Jen said to bear in mind how the photos I use impact the narrative. Not sure where to take them from here