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The Thought Experiment

isyweaverj23
Oct 20, 202418 min read

Updated: Nov 7, 2024

Initial reaction/thoughts to the prompt ........

  • Very relatable to me and my anxiety

  • Relatable to me feeling left out all of my life.

  • Difficult to process the concept of thinking about what everyone in the world is doing- pretty MIND BLOWING!!! Too much to contemplate (gave me a headache for 10 mins)





    Immediate rection experiment (no thinking)


  • It immediately made me want to write down everything I thought people could be doing right at that moment all over the world..........








I filmed myself writing activities I thought people could be doing/ were doing, without thinking at all about it. I just wrote what instantly came into my head. After analysing and reading over the full page of activities I listed, I realised the variation of mundane and extreme activities.


After doing this experiment for around 20 mins, I realised that it would be almost impossible to list all the different activities people could be doing in that moment. To even begin to guess, or calculate what each person could be doing, as everyone is doing something different, and no one is exactly the same. It would take me hours, days, months etc to calculate that....


However, whilst trying to wrap my head around the enormity of possibilities of what people are doing right now, when reading the list I made and analysing it, I found one commonality that brought everyone together and put everyone in the same category..........the activity I listed was sex.

Sex- people like it, they are having it, they want it, they don't want it, everyone was created from it. It's universal, and we all have it in common in some way.



The artists, poets and photographers that have immediately come to my mind after reading the prompt are....

  • Andy Warhol

  • Steven McCurry (photographer)

  • Philip Larkin (poet)

  • Carol Ann Duffy (poet)


I also decided to ask a few people that day what they were doing texting them or directly asking them and recording it. I also asked them what is their favourite things to do as well.



Voice recordings....




People Watching Experiment


After guessing what everyone in the world could be doing, I decided to take my partner to a café and sit in the window set a camera up beside me and people watch, filming the world go by, whilst discussing the people that walked past with my partner..............


I loved this video because I managed to film a man who was also people watching. Therefore I call this video "People Watching People Watching"

I also really enjoyed playing around and editing with the speeds on this video, as video editing is something I have never done before being an illustrator, so this was quite fun.

I slowed down clips of the video of people that caught my eye, and interested me. Me and my partner all discussed and guessed who they were, where they might be going, what they may do for a living etc. Guessing who they are from their superficial appearance.


I then I began doing quick observational studies of people in the cafes I sat in. Guessing who they are based off their appearance. Very superficial really, but this made me thinking of stereotyping people made want to illustrate little profiles of them which I believe is true to their. I also did this whilst in the food hall Founders & Co .........


( see sketches in my sketchbook)


This all made an interesting study on how we as humans immediately judge or make assumptions of people/strangers at initial glance.


When sitting in this big scare window of the café watching, it made me feel like I was watching a David Attenborough documentary of human existence at rush hour. The time this was filmed was at 5-6pm on a Wednesday evening. I filmed and wrote down my observations of watching people, whilst me and my partner discussing the people whilst people watching....... ( see in my sketchbook)



"The Girl Chewing Gum" 1976 film inspired me to try this experiment.


The man giving orders: The Girl Chewing Gum (1976)

 

“ The most striking aspect of this film is of course the relationship between sound and image or, more precisely, between the voice-over narration and the action it initially appears to direct. Immediately inviting consideration of issues to do with authorship and authority (of the male narrator over the images, but also that of the sound-track over the image-track) the film appears to engage with an essentially ‘modernist’ cinematic sensibility, if we understand modernism in its established sense as the desire to demystify the ‘illusionism’ of mainstream narrative cinema, in so doing facilitating a more critical relationship to what we see and hear.”




This experiment also made me think of 19th Century painters that studied scenes of everyday life , and then got me thinking of the the comparison with street photographers that capture candid scenes of everyday life.


" Nineteenth-century painters often drew on the representation of scenes from everyday life. They were inspired by themes such as childhood, work, and bourgeois interiors. Such scenes lie somewhere between visions of Romanticism and the first signs of social realism in painting, with a focus on representing issues and contradictions in contemporary society. "



Pranzo di Nozze (Wedding Dinner) - Vincenzo Caprile



Recently I stumbled across a photography exhibition in St David's centre during Swansea Fringe Arts weekend. The exhibition consisted of many photographs and portraits of people from various cultures in there home environment doing their mundane daily activities.





This exhibition immediately reminded me of the photographer Steven McCurry, and his famous Phaidon book.......








I am not a photographer, and never felt good with photography......however this exhibition really inspired me to take my own photography of people in their natural habitat, doing their thing.......

To be honest I've always wanted to try photography and also had this new awesome canon camera that I wanted to try out and this experiment gave me the perfect excuse to try photography and photo editing so here you go.......


My photos people doing their thing......










(observational sketches of people in cafes/profiles)



Enrich Hartmann is a photographer I have always liked who photographed the mundane and the everyday life of strangers. When reading the prompt his photographs sprang to my mind along with the poets Carol Ann Duffy, and Philip Larkin. These were poets that I studied in college that express the subjects of everyday life, moments, emotions, the mundane and time in their poetry.




















Sherry Turkle



“ Autobiographical essays, framed by two interpretive essays by the editor, describe the power of an object to evoke emotion and provoke thought: reflections on a cello, a laptop computer, a 1964 Ford Falcon, an apple, a mummy in a museum, and other "things-to-think-with."

For Sherry Turkle, "We think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with." In Evocative Objects, Turkle collects writings by scientists, humanists, artists, and designers that trace the power of everyday things. These essays reveal objects as emotional and intellectual companions that anchor memory, sustain relationships, and provoke new ideas. These, days, scholars show new interest in the importance of the concrete. This volume's special contribution is its focus on everyday riches: the simplest of objects—an apple, a datebook, a laptop computer—are shown to bring philosophy down to earth. The poet contends, "No ideas but in things." The notion of evocative objects goes further: objects carry both ideas and passions. In our relations to things, thought and feeling are inseparable."


This then reminded me of another feminist book I was currently reading called "A History of Women in 101 Objects" by Annabelle Hirsch.



Inspired by the poems I began photographing and drawing mundane objects. This led me to sketching male objects and female objects separately, analysing and comparing the difference between them regarding stereotypical gendered appearances in objects. Such as colour, shape, size etc and the ridiculousness that objects are still gendered to this day............

( blue for boy, pink for girl, squared for male, rounded for female, "His and Hers" )m

I then began researching and reading books about objects and how they provoke emotion such as Shelly Turkles book.

Reading this made me aware of female objects, and how gendered objects are even in todays society. It opened my eyes to how objects are still so gendered even in todays society, such as through colours.....pink for girl blue for boy, squared shape for masculine objects, rounded for female etc. Therefore, I went around documenting this by photographing what I thought was gendered objects using a canon camera since I am enjoying photography so much at the moment in this project.........

The concept of gendered objects......


















Butler J 1990


(REF: This is a slide is a screenshot from one of our recent lectures), covering feminism and deconstructing binaries. The artist J. Butler caught my attention as she deconstructs gender and non binary. This intrigued me as I have been photographing binary objects, and how objects are still binary even in the society that is becoming more binary fluid. It interested me how for example objects that are targeting females are still coloured pink, and for men still blues etc as you see by my photographs below.


Personally I have never been one to follow the social norms, especially when it comes to buying or wearing clothes. If I like a male targeted object, item or piece of clothing, I will buy it. This is why I wanted to photograph binary objects around me, as this topic interested me and I have always been passionate about non-binary issues and closing the gender gap.

This could potentially be a question I pose for the Pecha Kucha.


I have always wanted to try photography also, so I am using this thought experiment as a chance to practise photography.





David Shrigley


I like David Shrigleys work as he illustrates mundane everyday thinks, objects, or thoughts and makes them meaningful or witty. He was one of the first artists my mind went to after I was given my prompt, and I began to explore everyday objects that everyone possesses. He illustrates and writes very relatable quotes in his pieces that can resonate with every human in some way. This was relative to my work at this stage in the thought experiment as I am exploring everyday objects and people going about their everyday lives.

   


This made me want to photograph just female objects that represent women, and women's lives. I wanted these to be real and raw to women's and objects most women possess in their everyday life.


I liked the concept that there are female objects instead of women being the object.

This got me thinking of how objects that represent women have drastically changed over the last century.


Here are photos of objects I took that I believe represented women many years ago and were symbolic of female oppression......


Then.....

















Now.....

Contrasting, I took photographs of objects that I believe represent women now and that symbolise female empowerment.


Both sets of photographs are supposed to symbolise Female Oppression vs Female Empowerment. THEN vs NOW.






In comparison to objects I believe represent and symbolise women now, and female power. .........









I photographed this suit, as it is a symbolic object that represents women now, and feminism and female empowerment, and the progression of equality for women in society. From the attire of the Apron representing the epitome of the ideal woman and housewife in the 50s, to now a suit representing a powerful woman and equality.





Cameron Winant (My Birth)


This photographer came up in the lecture recently and inspired me to take photographs of objects that represent women and the lives of women in a real and raw way.

(Text taken from website)



How objects that have always been dominantly used and represented power and danger mostly by men.....eg, rope, handcuffs, whips etc are now specifically for women to use in a female only shop.



It made me want to paint male objects in feminine colours, and female objects in male colours to try and close the gendered gap and stereotype......so I did

I became very interested in the Gendering of inanimate objects.

I painted objects that are seen as manly objects in stereotypical female colours, and objects that females use in stereotypical male colours, to oppose gender stereotyping.








Throughout the painting and focus on objects, I continued to read two more poetry books written by Carol Ann Duffy, as I was inspired after revisiting and reading her poetry book Meantime earlier on in the experiment. I was specifically drawn to her poems that projected themes of feminism, and interested me so much so that I went on to read her other feminist poetry books......









I began illustrating to the poems...........


( See illustrations in my sketchbook)


Feminist Artists, Theorists and Research


Marina Abramovic- Rhythm 0

I wanted to explore feminism and feminist art further. Many artists caught my eye throughout our lectures, really inspiring me and my work. Especially the radical performance art of Marina Abramovic, specifically her piece Rhythm 0.

 


" Rhythm 0 (1974) was a six-hour work of performance art by Yugoslav artist Marina Abramović in Studio Morra, Naples. The work involved Abramović standing still while the audience was invited to do to her whatever they wished, using one of 72 objects she had placed on a table. These included a rose, feather, perfume, honey, bread, grapes, wine, scissors, a scalpel, nails, a metal bar, and a gun loaded with one bullet.


There were no separate stages. Abramović and the visitors stood in the same space, making it clear that the latter were part of the work. The purpose of the piece, she said, was to find out how far the public would go: "What is the public about and what are they going to do in this kind of situation?"


Abramović said the work "pushed her body to the limits. Visitors were gentle to begin with, offering her a rose or a kiss. Art critic Thomas McEvilley, who was present, wrote:


As Abramović described it later: “What I learned was that... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you.” ... “I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation.”


When the gallery announced the work was over, and Abramović began to move again, she said the audience left, unable to face her as a person.

Rhythm 0 ranked ninth on a Complex list of the greatest works of performance art ever done."



This piece had a serious effect on me and my work during this point in the thought experiment. When we learnt about Marina I was at the point of objects and women and female objects. And this piece affected me as it highlighted the dark side of humanity. When people are given complete freedom with a selection of objects and a woman. The levels of inhumanity and barbaric behaviour people went to was shocking.

This made me have the idea of evolving the prompt from “Thinking about what people are doing” to “Thinking about what people are capable of doing” especially to women.

 

This piece of artwork also intrigued me as she used objects within her performance, and my work so far has been focussed on objects. However, the involvement of objects in this piece was radical, and posed the profound point that if you give people the opportunity to use dangerous objects, they will abuse that privilege. In addition to abusing the privilege of her body, by violating her with the objects like she is an object herself.


This piece of artwork by Marina also got me questioning, how bad the abuse would have been during the piece if she had been a male??


This gave me some inspiration and possible ideas for the Pacha Kucha

  • ·Social experiment- a table full of stereotypical female objects, and a table full of stereotypical male objects. Ask the audience to come and select and keep an object. Then ask them if they chose from the male or female table and see how many men chose male objects and the same for female.

  • Ask them to raise their hand if they chose from which table and see if there is a correlation. Then have questions at the end on the screen behind that ask.......


    Did you choose the male or female object? Did you fall for the stereotype? Why did you choose that object? Did you choose that object because of your gender? Did you choose it because you like the object? Did you choose it because you are worried about what people will think if you don’t choose from this table? Did you close the gender gap?


Mary Wallstonecraft

During one of our recent lectures covering The Sublime, I thoroughly enjoyed the slides about Mary Wollstonecraft a feminist theorist that questioned Burkes book on the Sublime, challenging the patriarchy and the statement of a mans world.


This fuelled my excitement to continue to explore feminism further in the thought experiment. I want to now explore the progression of feminism and female empowerment, and the progress of women challenging society, the patriarchy and social norms of the position of women, from the 50s to today.

As well as reading Carol Ann Duffy's poems which highlighted topics involving women's position in society, rape, trans, and mostly feminism.

Therefore as part of my research I also watched the films "Stepford Housewives. Which coincided with the apron I photographed/ filmed.


I also watched the film "Don't Worry Darling" which expressed misogyny in the 50s, and female nightmares and dreams.

These films both express the themes of the patriarchy, male dominance in society and the position of women throughout the 50s and 60s.


After watching Don't Worry Darling it made me want to explore dreams further. So I began by writing down mine and my boyfriends dreams and sketching them to make them come to life which you can see in my sketchbook.


Dreams and Feminism

The Dreams In addition to the Carol Ann Duffy Poem - A Dreaming Week


"This poem is an anti-parallel to creation, occurring at night-time (the time of romance and fantasy, rather than daytime) over a week, and insisting on the power of fantasy over reality. White Writing - A poem about modern women and the struggles women still face "




This made me think of dreams and nightmares, specifically women's fears and nightmares. And how women's fears and nightmares often can cross into their reality. Such as fearing men, fearing rape, fearing our position in society. Women's nightmares can happen to them in real life.

So I decided to ask the men and women in my life what their fears and nightmares are, and asking what they think each others fears are too, and analyse how they compare to one another:


Voice recordings.....




Poetry Workshop


Today we had a workshop with the wonderful Gemma Howell, a poetry author and coined the term the Third Space. This lecture conveniently fell at the perfect time in my thought experiment as I was already reading poetry and feminist poetry. This workshop allowed me to write a poem about Zartasha's object, a beautiful pearl and silver ring, a gift from her mother. The poem made me feel many powerful emotions:

  • love

  • goosebumps

  • connection with my mother

  • independence and strength

  • female empowerment

Here are the notes I took when interviewing Zartasha about her object.........








I was very excited to include this workshop in my thought experiment as it links perfectly with the poetry I have already been reading, and I had the chance to write a poem about two very strong women, mother and daughter, single and both dedicated to the daughter marrying her career and following her dreams.


I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop, and has inspired me to take my work in the direction of strong independent women, and their dreams.

Women, and their dreams and career, and to be independent, and successful in a male dominated world. How women dreamed for freedom 50 years ago, and how even now women are still dreaming of equality and a career.



WOMENS DREAMS/ FEMININE DREAMS

I wanted to combine Dreams and Feminism together, leading me to thinking about woman’s dreams, and what to women dream about.

Perhaps their dreams, and their nightmares.


Shirin Neshrat

During a lecture, the artist Shirin Neshrat that I love came up that I had studied a few years previously, and she tied in perfectly with the themes of my work throughout this thought experiment, with her work addressing gender identity, and the struggles and resilience of Iranian women. Resonated with my work of the gendered objects, and the progression and resilience of women.



Her work on dreams intrigued me and resonated with my idea of portraying a woman’s life. Her fear of being trapped and silenced. I loved the way she made this video, ow eerie it is and the use of sound to create suspense.



David Lynch- Dreams, films about dreams and the surreal


I began watching films that were orientated around dreams and surrealism, to gain inspiration for my work, such as....

Twin Peaks (1992)

Eraserhead

Christopher Nolan Films -Inception


Pecha Kucha one week away (shit !!!!!!)


Choosing the subject of the Pecha Kucha………


The journey of my work moved quite far away from the prompt of “Think about what other people are doing”. From there it went to studying people, to their mundane lives, to objects, to gendered objects, to objects that represented women then in the 50s/60s, to objects that represent women now. The photographs symbolising Female Oppression vs Female Empowerment. Then evolving to feminist poetry, to dreams, to women’s dreams of equality and freedom, to finally the Pecha Kucha Feminine Dreams.


If we had more time on this project, I would have liked to continue further in depth into dreams and surrealism combining it with feminism, therefore I may continue this into my work next year.

I thoroughly enjoyed using a camera and photographing throughout this experiment as I have never tried it before. I felt I could still be an illustrator by telling stories of women’s lives and feelings through my photography. Therefore, I was very keen to continue using a camera and create a short film for the Pecha Kucha, and I had so much fun making and editing it.

I wanted to find a way to effectively sum up the photography and work I had done in my sketchbook, on Feminism and Dreams…….” Feminine Dreams”.

 


My intentions for the Pecha Kucha….

I decided what the presentation was going to be 3 days before the deadline.

The idea of the Pecha Kucha is a story of a supressed woman’s life. It’s a take on a housewife in the 50s. Highlighting how women were oppressed and silenced. She is doing the housework, living a dull and silenced life, waiting for her husband to return home, to cook the dinner for him. However, she decides she has enough, kills him and leaves her life behind, symbolised in the shot of the enigmatic knife and the burning of the apron. The burning apron symbolising freedom and escape.  Which was not easy for women to do then, showing empowerment and courage. This is my intention and interpretation of the video I made.


However, I made the video appear cryptic and vague so that it is also left to interpretation by the audience. It could also be interpreted as not a housewife, but simply a video symbolising the silencing of women in general, then, and still now today.


As I was already having so much fun shooting with a camera, I wanted to continue this. Especially after learning about the film “Stalker” in one of our recent lectures on Space and Place, this really inspired me to create a short film, using the emphasis of space and sound to provoke thought and emotion.

 

 

 

My intention was to make people feel the silence that woman felt, and still may feel now. I wanted the video to make people feel the same feelings of being trapped, of boredom, oppression, and silence. I wanted people to live the life of a silenced, oppressed woman, that has only started to change within the last 30 years.

 

I was also inspired by this short film me and my partner watched recently, called “Perfect Days”, a film of a man’s life. No special effects, just his life, its real and raw. Putting the audience in the shoes of that person. This is what I intend to create in my video, putting the audience in the shoes, and the life of a silenced woman.

 

Therefore, I wanted to film still scenes with the focus on the sound and silence to heighten the senses. I also wanted to create suspense and make the video cryptic.

I also wanted to make each scene in the video long and drawn out, some people might say even boring to watch. The intention is for the videos to be boring as that is how her life was. Boring, monotonous, and silenced. So, these are exactly the sensations I wanted to create.

To think how these women would have dreamed of freedom and to be out of the house perusing a career and a life on their own accord. Not silenced or oppressed.


My intention was to make people feel the silence that woman felt, and still may feel now. I wanted the video to make people feel the same feelings of being trapped, of boredom, suppression, and silence. I wanted people to live the life of a silenced, oppressed woman, that has only started to change within the last 30 years.

 

I was also inspired by this short film me and my partner watched recently, called “Perfect Days”, a film of a man’s life, a cleaner from Tokyo. No special effects, just his life, its real and raw. Putting the audience in the shoes of that person. This is what I intend to create in my video, putting the audience in the shoes, and the life of a silenced woman.

 

 

Therefore, I wanted to film still scenes with the focus on the sound and silence to heighten the senses. I also wanted to create suspense and make the video cryptic.

I also wanted to make each scene in the video long and drawn out, some people might say even boring to watch. The intention is for the videos to be boring as that is how her life was. Boring, monotonous, and silenced. So, these are exactly the sensations I wanted to create.

To think how these women would have dreamed of freedom and to be out of the house perusing a career and a life on their own accord. Not silenced or oppressed.


I quickly decided a couple of days before the presentation that I would stand in front of the video with my mouth taped symbolising “being silenced”.

 

(See sketch of Pechu Kachu in my sketchbook)


PECHA KUCHA FIRST IDEA


 After gathering and listening to all of the voice recordings of women's fears, I had an idea for the Pecha Kucha. My idea is to have the voice recordings of the women's fears playing over the top of a short film of a woman's oppressed life I am planning to make. Once I have shot the video I will add this over the top. The apron burning at the end a symbol of retaliation of the fear and representing how strong women are even though we are faced with fear, and danger from men and society. Especially women many years ago……..


Link of the video of the First Idea I had for the Pecha Kucha......


PECHA KUCHA FINAL IDEA AND VIDEO


The title of my Pecha Kucha is.........



" Silenced No Longer"



Here are shots of each scene of the short film I made for the Pecha Kucha......





 


Here is the link for the video of the Final Pecha Kucha " Silenced No Longer"



 
 
 

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