Instruction
Take a picture of you. Then find a picture or video of you that was taken at least a year ago. Compare how you look today with how you looked back then. Then go back another year and repeat the process. Keep going back until you’ve reached 3 years or ran out of pictures. After you’re done, talk to a partner about the differences you noticed.
Materials Required
phone(provided by the participants)
Artist Statement
For this project, I wanted to create a score that focused heavily and specifically on self-reflection and soul searching. I believe it is an important and meaningful practice that should be done by someone every once and a while to remember where they’ve come from and who they are now.
The project is inspired by books read in class, such as Grapefruit by Yoko Ono. This book contained simplistic directions and instructions that were clear enough to understand but allowed for the reader to interpret them in their own way. This created thought-provoking and meaningful experiences that were unique to each and every reader but similar enough that they could be compared. After reading this book, I knew that I wanted to at least attempt to construct a score that achieved a similar effect.
At first, my score involved taking a series of pictures that represented different points in life, such as pursuing marriage, graduating from college, and having children, and arranging them in way that fit the life the player had in the past and the life they want to have in the future. However, I ran into a simple but devastating problem. What is considered a “meaningful” point in life? Owning your first pet? Getting your first house? Getting your first real job? What about something as small as achieving a savings goal? Fostering Self-love and self-appreciation? The problem that I uncovered was that there are simply too many experiences that are important for the human being to be condensed into 15 or 20 simple images. This in turn complicated my process, and I had to pursue the project from a different angle.
Consequently, I turned my attention to how a person views themselves, and how that self-image changes drastically even in a small amount of time. I focused on the pictures provided by the player themselves rather than by the project, and how the change of those pictures over time represents the change in the player’s sense of self, thus leading to the final iteration of my project.
Through the playtest, I received overall positive feedback from participants. They found the score very enjoyable and insightful, as it gave them a chance to reflect on how much they’ve grown as a person and appreciate what they’ve become. As a result, I would describe my project as a complete success.
