They are all winners

My mum and dad come round to baby-sit poppy, while I go into UNI to “write”…but I end up “making” – It’s something I find far more enjoyable and informative…but that’s by the by!

I project my “winners” experiment onto the wall, and let Jonathan, Susie and Mary have a look at it. Jonathan said something like “I wonder what they will spend the money on?…that’s assuming it is money they’ve won”. An interesting point, and probably a very accurate assessment of the expectancy of people these days – when we see “competition” or “winner”, we automatically assume – money. Why else would anyone enter a competition, if not to win money (or the avoidance of spending money (holiday of a life time etc)).We all have the discussion whether these people “could” exist (of course they “could”, the names are all plausible – census derived names = “real” data. Another interesting aspect of the work, is that several of the towns that appear, are automatically linked and talked about by people (Jonathan’s sister lived in one town displayed, Mary spots a town that she visited in her youth, Susie spots a town that was “”the next one down the road” to her villages, where she grew up in England)…This links into my observation of people looking at photographs of themselves in groups, people will most likely focus and comment on their own face – it’s the sense of self and personal reflection / comment that shines through. People feel comforted knowing that they are in this world – a reality check, and the more “cross referencing” and “self awareness” certainly distils the notion of being alive, being “here”. It might well be linked to a selfish drive, to see yourself, before any other possibility – to put everything you see into your own context, see it for your perspective. It is interesting watching Poppy grow, how she is fascinated by her own reflection, we’ve not taught her that – so it must be wired into our brains to “self recognise” before anything else. It also interesting to think that a babies face, is no the first that it sees, it is “mum and dad”, but the selfish drive, seems to override that impulse to “need to see” a parents face, more than its own reflection…Perhaps it is that fascination of seeing from your own eyes, to know that what you see is from your own, unique perspective – and to see a reflection or image of yourself in a different position strikes the brain as the ultimate dichotomy. The study of the self is a fascinating, but massive area – surely the very crux of philosophy!…I do like opening these cans of worms and fishing with them.

Anyway…Since projecting the “winners” on the wall, I place the trumpet against the corner, “upside-down” (small end on the ground) and see it as some sort of tombola. I video myself throwing newspaper sheets into the opening, filling it up with pages and pages of supplements, old news and adverts. The collection of information, like a rubbish heap or piles of protective wrapping paper holds resonance with my ideas of being overloaded with information, the idea that all that text, pictures, numbers, laid out on paper surrounds us, informs us and exposes us to the world, but is also never-ending, the layering of strata day by day – for what? Is this pile of information part of who we are? Not every word within a paper necessarily speaks for us – but when we buy the paper, we are buying into that editorial position, so how can we base our opinions on scantly read “fact” that is also based on a bias perspective.

The idea of “competition” presented in the “putting a name in a hat” (tombola) is evident – I reversing the footage, and the paper magically floats out (out of shot), as if these messages are flying off to their winning owners. Aesthetically, it’s quite mesmerising to watch, but I think that it also works on a conceptual level. I like the absurdity of the footage (reversed), a towering tombola, spitting out information, with “winners” displayed next to it certainly has got my fellow mfa students creating “imaginary people”, the stories these names create, the places and ages that support the developing narrative is quite exciting. I think I might write “thank you” letters from the “winners”. I should even search the names, to see if these people actually exist – perhaps even reducing the odds, to include the age or town of the randomly created “person”…the possibilities (again) are endless!

I buy and stick the times to the Full Stop today.