NOTE:

In this writing, I am looking into the concept of experience. I look at how I use appropriated images in my work to depict concepts. We look into some theories regarding realities, be them real or simulated, and what differences, if any, they have. I am trying to explore what drives my art. This is the third part to better understand myself and my art.

Constructing the “lie“, a hyper-real experience:


Copying the real, this is one way to describe photographs. Though a photograph is a way of capturing moments and places, they are far removed from being any thing other than an image. But why do we apply “substance” and “qualities” to these secondary experiences? Why do I feel the need to distort these images to make it fit the content I am representing in my work?

Umberto Eco expressed something, that I feel helps answer my question, when referring to Disney’s park’s, “we not only enjoy a perfect imitation, we also enjoy the conviction that imitation has reached its apex and afterwards reality will always be inferior to it.”

I distort the images intentionally in order to make them appear correct. I assign memories to images that their moment never involved me, until I, the viewer, acquired them. Once acquired I look at them, I will look at them not as “just an image” rather I see them in a way similar to the way that the people involved in their creation, subjectively. Given, this does not mean that my reflections upon these images are the “right ones”; however, it does not mean they are the “wrong ones.” My reflections become experience. It is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right. This is a hyper reality, a perversion of reality.

Though these hyper realities were never “real” they were still experiences. One view of experience is a general concept comprises knowledge of, or skill in, or observation of, something or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. One might also differentiate between physical, mental, emotional and spiritual experiences. I find my work is driven on a state of individual subjectivity, on which I create my own state of reality. This reality is base on my interaction with my environment. This is based on how I process information and store it. Neurological networks have many variables like relativity, and thus affect individual experience of any given situation. I react to images and perceive them as significant.

This is what I do in my art, I create works using appropriated images that, based on the how I experience them, conceptual forming my the art. After the concept is formed, I approach the work with several aesthetic choices. One of these choices is the use of color. The uses are often aesthetic in nature, but also have conceptual properties as well. One example of this is the color red. Studies show that red can have a physical effect, increasing the rate of respiration and raising blood pressure. I choose this color because of its effect on the viewer and the many meanings it has. Red can be good or bad and it is this duality that I love about the color. Another example of aesthetic choice is the way that I layer these appropriated images, the grid structures that are formed are important in setting moods of stability or instability. But these layers also are a way in which I depict my dreams, reflection, or hyper realities. They, in a sense, become simulation, models that can be manipulated to fit my needs to reach the desired product. The pictures in each layer are fragments to a world presumed “real” by the viewer, but in fact make up a world custom fitted for my concepts. Also in these “worlds” I try to abolish the depth of time. Past and future along with present often find themselves so entangled, it is hard to tell them apart. I try to show a “world” without secrets.