Category: Portfolio

Having conducted research into several relevant works and conducted various experiments, I arranged the work in my room as I would arrange it in a gallery space. I considered the knowledge I had gained from research into technical, aesthetic and conceptual elements when setting the work up, as well as through the idea’s conception. Having…

After my first successful test, I continued experimenting to see what would work. I started by trying the same one-reel method, but getting the tape as taut as possible; however, the tension on the connection of the tape was too much, which led to the tape snapping during testing. I had tried a very loose…

With the content of the letters being so old yet memorialised by its existence on paper, looping the final words on a cassette tape felt appropriate. The typical cassette sound is warbly and noisy, with the cassette becoming obsolete in the 2000s and sounding so distinctive, cassettes now sound old and nostalgic. I think using…

With tape being an obsolete medium as well as possessing a warbly, old sound, it felt like an appropriate medium to work with when trying to present the love letters I found. The letters feel old and were discarded in the charity shop; Tape feels old and has been culturally discarded. This felt like a…

In 2001, supposedly the day before the attack on the World Trade Centre, William Basinski finished Disintegration Loops, which would go on to become a legendary piece of work. “The tracks were created from pre-existing loops as they were transferred to digital masters, made unique by the way the magnetic tape crumbled slowly away, causing…

Many artists use repetitive speech patterns as sonic material for their work. In researching these techniques, I feel as though it is important to explore works that are both relevant technically and conceptually. Considering the emotional aspect of my work, researching the looping speech patterns of I’m sitting in a room by Alvin Lucier doesn’t…

The project I am currently focusing on is centred around a set of love letters that document a broken relationship I found concealed in some books in a charity shop. Considering the unique nature of this material, researching the Museum of Broken Relationships, a collection of personal artefacts coming from relationships that have fallen apart,…

The letters I have found contain a secret. In using this secret as material for an artwork, I should be conscious of the way in which I do this. What are the ethics of sharing somebody else’s secret? How much of the secret should I share? Examining two practitioners who work with secrets and privacy…

After finding a few more postcards in the charity shop, a friend who volunteered there informed me that somebody had handed in some old love letters documenting an affair concealed in small books. The text reads as follows: A Little Book Of Cheery Thoughts: Thank you sweetheart All my love Jeff A Little Book Of…

I first became interested in personal ephemera after finding a postcard from 1972 in a charity shop in Leicester: I found humour in reading Susan and Len’s 50-year-old reminder to buy a chicken for them on Saturday. Given that the request for the chicken was so old, to verify the chicken’s existence is no longer…