How did the project Blinded by Grace II come about?
About a year ago I started the project Blinded by Grace II in lockdown. It's a bit of an amalgamation of a lot of things. It kind of is that whole like linking process that you're talking about where initially I was just like thinking about black people more or so in the film industry, but specifically in awards kind of after the whole Moonlight winning the Oscars. That video. There was something about the experience I had of watching that all happen that I found really powerful and I felt not able to particularly articulate why I had such a strong reaction to it, so I started kind of collecting bits and different media and videos and photos as a way of trying to capture that feeling. And then I made the first iteration of it, which was a different website, which basically consisted of a mind map I created with just a lot of different photos that again illustrated how I felt and what I was trying to get across. And so, then yeah it just became about kind of capturing this feeling through different media that symbolize different thoughts or feelings or maybe. Could reference things that if some people would understand and if you know, the media, like you did then you'll kind of get it on a certain level that other people might not. And then the website and the piece was me starting to think more about black people in film, black masculinity, how it's been represented, and how I feel, looking back at the media and the films that I was watching and like because now I manage a cinema, so I watch a lot of these high end films and arthouse films and so i'm thinking about Big Mama and like White Chicks, and all this stuff and how it fits into this cinematic landscape I've been exposed to and then. Also you know the photograph of DMX with the orchids? After he passed away and everyone was resharing the picture, it was just really on my mind, because I was like trying to figure out what it was about that photo that was so compelling to people and it almost seems like there's a bit of a humor to it and it's being seeing as almost like a juxtaposition because it's this really like strong guy, this strong built black guy, talking about intimacy and tenderness and orchids and, why is that funny almost? So yeah it was kind of built around that.
Why did you choose a digital space? Is it because the project was centered on films?
Initially I wanted to just make something that was an archival project, and when I was collecting pieces, it was just because I was in lockdown and it was just the only way that I could present it to people, but also, I am like very interested in digital art which I wrote my dissertation about black artists that work in that media, so it is something that I come back to a lot. And I think it's the whole thing of occupying space and it's a space that anyone can occupy as opposed to a gallery space or having a big store space to have this physical archive which is something that not everyone has access to, so I think there is definitely something in that that where a lot of black artists and black people in general, seem to kind of be able to use the Internet in a way that's kind of just ahead of everyone else, it seems.
I never thought of it like that. I guess there are less restrictions or limitations on the internet versus when you're trying to showcase in a physical space.
Yeah it's tricky because I guess the thing with that is trying to navigate it in a way that prevents it from just becoming a bit of a void, because obviously there's just so much stuff out there. So it's pros and cons, I guess, because anyone can make something, but then you might still not get the kind of audience that you might have if it's a real physical space that people would know about.
Do you do any coding to create this specific project?
So I didn't personally but Anna who runs External Pages did the coding. She has this online gallery space and just uses it to facilitate other people's creative work, which I think is really pretty great.
Our class is centered around linking. We think of linking as something that is on the internet through hyperlinks, but we also discuss its relationship to how our daily thoughts and experience connect or link in a certain way. We also discuss how research is a form of linking. I was specifically drawn to the Blinded By Grace II because of its interactiveness. How does linking inform this piece or your other works?
Yeah I'm not sure. Linking isn't something I particularly thought about very consciously, but it is something that is very important and I don't know if it's from being on instagram more. For example, if I'm posting pictures I find that I'll be having that same sort of mentality of look this refers to this meme, and this was refers to this other picture I had. Even just creating a comic or whatnot just when you have like those pictures like that and that kind of becoming what seems to be more and more of how I'm creating things in an everyday sense of how I'm consuming images, so I don't know if it's just something that feels more natural now than it maybe did when I made previous works, and but It's something that I have been thinking about because it is important, but I don't know quite why yet.
Well yeah that definitely makes sense because before we started to like talk about linking in this class. I had never conciously though about it as a way we're thinking and linking in our everyday experiences.
Have you ever played the (sidetrack) Wikipedia game? It's apparently a thing where people were who have ADHD are meant to be very good at. You go you go on a page and someone says, you have to get to another page, so you have to click the links and get to the other thing in as little clicks as possible basically. It's a thing people with ADHD are meant have that way of thinking, much more, naturally, but I don't know if everyone's now moving more towards that because of how much media we're just consuming all time.
So, I saw a lot of your other work center films. Is there a reason why you chose to use GIFS, pictures, and texts over videos for this specific project?
Yeah, in older iterations of the project I initially think I was trying to make some kind of short film. And it just wasn't really working and I don't know if it was because the work was about films and everything I made like felt like it was not as good as the original videos or original films. It felt a bit like it wasn't bringing anything new, I guess, so in combining these different medias I'm hoping that it has a bit of a new take and it can be kind of consumed in a different way to how you would look at the other videos and images normally.
So, you've already begun to talk on this a little, but how do you choose what creative forms to give the most attention to?
I studied photography at uni and and so with most projects that I would start I would be like I'm going to do a really serious photography project this time on and I guess you just have things that you gravitate to so that would never end up as the final result, even if that was my intention. It would just never be that. And a lot of the time it does end up being video and I guess yeah I guess I'm just drawn to it. Unless it's like a film project. I think if I set out to do something else it just sort of takes its form after time. It's not as much of a conscious process all the time.
Well, we kind of already we kind of already talked about this in terms of our discussion about digital spaces, but, I also wanted to discuss your opinion on the web, as a medium. Since you've studied digital art in uni, over time, what changes to the web, do you feel has improved its space as a medium?
I'm not sure. I feel like they're obviously a lot of you know, things to be negative about the web. I always try be optimistic, because I want to be positive about the times that we're living in now, and not just be a bit nostalgic to you know things that we didn't have as much experience of. I do quite like just how how quickly it all moves. I think can be quite exciting as someone who like me does get a lot of ideas from the sort of venacular which is something that I'm quite interested in. So the amount of content and things that you have access to online, I think, is definitely something that is that I like about in really basic sense. Initially, I remember just using YouTube and then Instagram to just find people that looked like me. Like on Youtube I was just like typing in "curly hair tutorials" tutorials and stuff because it's just the way that you could get that information that I couldn't get in my school or in other places. It's kind of a pro and a con that you can be kind of be connected to all these people and see people, and it can be quite affirming. And I guess it can also make you feel excluded or that there's something better. So, yeah trying to be positive and think about the ways we can use it is something I'm drawn to a lot. Like there must be more good things I like about it.
Okay this is kind of off topic but do you use Tik Tok?
I don't make any, but yeah I like because I, I think, because Instagram sometimes can make me feel quite bad or you get fomo. whereas when I got a Tik Tok, I would just look at pages that I found, jusT funny or I could kind of currate what I was following a bit more. Are you on Tik Tok?
Oh, just to watch videos. I don't make any.
But yeah I feel like Tik Tok is a cool place. It currates a lot of your interests for you, which is kind of scary (Daisy: Scary, yeah.) but cool at the same time. But Instagram is kind of dying because its centered on so much advertising.
It's just shopping now like every time I'm on Instagram I'm like should I buy clothes. But yeah it does seem like it's dying unless you're using it for business then the way that people are posting on it even the sort of, you know, massive groups of pictures being posted at once, rather than just one because it's almost like a retrospective rather than something that is quite out today.
Yeah I really don't know. I wish I was the type of person that could say. Even with saying Instagram is dying I'm thinking it is dying, but I can't imagine it not existing, especially as an artist, I think that I'm not amazing at sort of promoting my work on Instagram in the way that some other people are, but it seems like for marketing people's artwork or whatever the business is, Instagram seems like the kind of number one way people do that, so if that does sort of become a thing that people don't use anymore, then I don't know what will come next. We're just going to go back to email newsletters all the time and kind of a weird retroactive move? Yeah it's a weird thing because I can't imagine Tik Tok being used in the same way or maybe in a couple years there'll be some social media thing that I could never thought of but now like can't live without.
How do you feel that digital spaces inform or are transformed by the sensitive matters of race and gender you discuss?
You know, I guess, they must do because I don't get to see anyone reacting to it so with the video I made, the 01.01.09, which was about very sensitive matter you can kind of almost forget about it and don't have the experience of seeing people and having conversations necessarily in the same way that you would, if you were in a gallery space and people were interacting in that sense. I'm not sure if it changes the way that people respond to it or not, I guess it's hard to know. Then it's always that thing of looking at a screen versus being in a kind of a massive space or something like will never quite be the same, but it's hard to exactly know why or explain what the differences are.
So, I think you already answered this question, but do you have a favorite medium? I'm guessing its video.
Yeah I just like it. I guess yeah being more interested in film it just feels like a natural medium to use unlike writing, but I feel like writing was more of a, since graduating, something that I like could do whenever and without having to have materials or something so I think that's what a lot of people I've spoken to post-graduation do because you're just like I want to make things so you just kind of channel your ideas in any kind of way that you can.
Do you have any books, movies, podcasts or music you turn to when you just want a break or to relax?
Mostly music. I'm really trying to read more for fun, but it's so hard. But music. I love Solange. I like lots of quite different things. I go through phases. I feel like I get quite influenced by who I'm around and stuff, but probably my main sort of music pleasure is R&B. It's just the best. And recenlty since lockdown, loads of reality shows. Do you watch The Circle ever?
I did watch the first season.
Yeah I went straight to the second. I got pretty obsessed with that. And movies I don't tend to watch loads and loads of them because of get sick of them. So I try and save them, but probably some like Dreamgirls and Book Smart. Those are some pretty high on my list.
Yeah I haven't watched Dreamgirls in so long. But also like you were saying I don't really watch movies over and over again or I'll get tired of them. My brother is the complete opposite though. Set It Off is his favorite movie and he can watch it every day. I can't do that.
Yeah my sister is like that with Greece when we were younger. That's so funny. And I also wanted to go as one of the guys from Set It Off for Halloween, but didn't go out. But yeah maybe next year.
So, those were all my questions, but about reading for pleasure I did start reading a book called Bad Fat Black Girl. It's really good. It incorporates a lot of music of today and it's kind of like a memoir about her life. I have started but reading for pleasure is hard so I still haven't finished.
I'll have to check it out. I don't know if you've heard of the book Girl, Woman, Other. It won the Book prize with the writer tied to Margaret Atwood from the Handmaid's Tail. It's fiction and written in kind of a poetic way. It's about a collection of women of color of all different ages. It's sort of a chapter each of all these characters that overlap in some way. That was probably one of the most pleasurable reads I think I've had ever. I highly recommend it. It's so good.