Hi! I’m Leah and I am a second year student in Creative Arts, Health and Wellness. After school I would like to be an art therapist either in the cancer wing of a hospital or in hospice. I’m taking this course in hopes to challenge my creativity and to become more confident in thinking outside of the box, not only in art but also in my practices.
Assignment 1 – A KM
An Endless Stroll – Leah Nelsons
The Beginning Idea
During the brainstorm, the first idea was to have a map of where I walked the kilometre next to a grid of screenshots that I took from all the reels I watched on my walk. Later on I thought the addition of a video of me walking while on my phone would look cool placed in the centre of the two images (as shown to the right). However, as we were watching the documentary on Marina Abramovic, I decided that the whole thing was far too complicated and didn’t leave enough room for interpretation.
Rough Draft - Brainstorm
By leaving it simple, my hope is if this were to be displayed outside of the classroom, viewers could have the freedom to interpret the artwork themselves and not have me spell it out for them.
The Process
I walked a km on a trail behind my house and while I did that, I screen-recorded the reels I was watching and by the end of the one kilometre it came to around 15 minutes. I did my best to keep track of how far I was walking by using my apple watch. As I walked through the forest, I could feel my attention getting sucked more and more into my phone and some point my mind reached a point of numbness. On the walk back, I put away my phone and realized there was so much of the natural beauty of the forest that I had missed. Not only that, but my mind felt clearer.
The Making and Thoughts Behind the Piece
For the final product, I didn’t use the entire recordings of the reels because I wanted them to be flashing quickly, because they are often kept short to keep us engaged.
The video is in loop format because personally I don’t have a concept of time and it’s super easy for me to get stuck in a spiral of “I should put my phone down” and “just one more video” and then all of a sudden, an hour or two have passed.
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