Initial Ideas

Firstly, I began with the idea that I wanted this project to be based around my life, myself and my family, including many memories and meaningful items within it. I began to think that I could photocopy my birth certificate and work on top of that and have memories such as the tooth fairy included somewhere and maybe things like Santa Claus too. 

I mind mapped some ideas and gathered this:

I have a huge passion for music as I sing and play the guitar and write my own material. I wanted to include this somewhere within my project as it's a part of myself and has been a big influence in my life as i've grown up around it, with my Dad always playing in bands. I thought I could maybe take a series of numbers which are meaningful to myself, possibly my family/friends birthdays and make up a portrait of my face, linking different areas together.

For this project I wanted to move away from creating art that had a clear meaning, but move forward and create art that didn't make sense to anyone else, but linked entirely to my life and had deep meaning within it. I looked at Tracey Emin's work where she created her bed and also the clay seagulls hanging from the ceiling, both meaning nothing to the outside world, however having a deeper meaning within them. I love the piece that she created with the tent and she wrote inside all of the names of people who'd she'd ever slept with, including people who she'd slept with in a non-sexual way, e.g. her Dad and family. This piece clearly meant nothing to anyone other than herself:

Description of Tracey's Work

After looking at pieces with an extremely deep meaning, I discovered this site: Video Art

The piece that was done about David Beckham sleeping, really caught my eye and I decided that I would record myself sleeping to show my pattern of sleeping, as I am thinking of exploring my life. I also absolutely loved the piece by Susan Philipsz, as I am trying to explore myself/my life and how that links in with others and deeper meanings, so I decided to take my ipod speaking down to Durham river and play one of my original songs, 'Tell Me The Meaning' under a bridge and film people's reactions as they witnessed this. I then decided to take it further and I filmed myself playing the guitar and singing one of my original songs 'Come On' and film people's reactions. It went absolutely brilliant. I will post my video's soon.

I've also had ideas about including different quotes from old diaries and notes that I have written when I was younger and I was thinking of possibly inviting people that're close to me, such as neighbours, friends and family to write one word that they think describes me and hang it up on a tag on a tree, to represent my life and my ever-growing journey in life and filming them writing the words and hanging them up. I think would be great. I thought I could also include achievements that I have received over the years, such as swimming certificates, charity work, also countries that i've visited and basically everything that relates to my life!