Sion Jones - 15th February 2017

I liked Sion from the start of his talk. He started off very unique, asking us to participate in a very short meditation session right there in the lecture room. Asking us to close our eyes and breath naturally, whilst he slowly guided us through it. I was very pleased that a lot of people were positive about it. 

From the start I understood that he is a yoga teacher and is very much interested in the present moment and mindfulness. I am also interested in yoga and meditation and I am currently in search of what works for me, so that I can integrate it within my everyday routine. I believe from all the research I have done on meditation and yoga and the benefits of them, that they do really work when you turn it into a normal part of your everyday life. 

Sion has talked about the inner and outer experiences, inner and outer space that is very interesting. The mind being the inner space that sometimes is overwhelmed and stressed out, triggering waves of negative thoughts to the surface. Overthinking is something I am struggling with, finding it hard to sometimes just be in the present moment. His recent work that he has shown us, is focusing just on that: the over thinking mind and the awareness of the present moment. 

Gwacter : Empty Space

link

Screenshots of the video piece:

This video consists of people sitting in front of the camera in silence, eyes closed, breathing. After a while they hear a bell ring once, this is the time for them to open their eyes and look directly into the camera. There is a certain vulnerability in this video, the eyes stare at you, revealing the conflicting thoughts that are occurring behind them. 

This video work is focussed on the practice of meditation to show how people struggle between tangled and conflicting inner and outer experiences, the inner and the outer space. We are constantly distracted, overloaded with information which is hard to process. We have fear, stress, anxiety, mental suffering due to the fast paced world around us. We are constantly rushing and forgetting to enjoy the present moment we are in. We are distancing ourselves from nature, detaching ourselves. Meditation is an aid to calm your mind and be aware of your body in the present moment. Be aware of your existence in the world and everything that surrounds you. 

Gwahaniad / Separation

link

Screenshots of the video piece:

I felt really intense throughout this video, as it truly depicted how my mind feels when I overthink. Sion used rushing water to represent our flooding thoughts, which stop us functioning properly. Flooding information and thoughts that becomes impossible to control and calm, which take over, leaving you restless. Also in this video you can see the inner and the outer struggles of overthinking. The outer and the inner space. The outer is Sion scratching his head, the inner is the thinking, because it's invisible it is represented by rushing water. The video speeds up throughout, changing from one image to the other, until it is so intense its a constant flicker between the two. The only sound present is the sound of the water, creating a very calm and yet intense atmosphere.

I really like the simplicity of both of the videos, with minimal editing for less distractions. They are simple and so intense at the same time, you cannot help but be captured in the moment. 



Thoughts for myself:
What stood out to me is the use of the inner and the outer space which I might want to explore myself too. I like the idea of an inner space that is unique because we are all different. See how I can use that to come up with an intervention/ performance/ experiment. 


~Ev

Triptych Show: 'BLIND' 23rd January

The show overall:

From the start I was mostly drawn to the big garage space, which for me was most interesting out of the three. It was rough and not your typical white wall clean space. There was a lot of potential to play around with the display of artwork as well as the scale of them. In the show there were quite a few big scale projections close to each other, some on the ceiling, or higher up that usual, and some were smaller. I believe scale wise they were the biggest pieces of work on display. However, the work I believe travelled furthest, would be the bags from different shops which were stitched together and created a trail around the whole of the space, which glued the whole exhibition together. 

Another piece that I liked was a big circle created on the floor with charcoal, which surrounded one of the pillars. At the set up stage it looked fantastic with plenty of room surrounding it, looking quite dominant. However, the more pieces went up on display the more the piece lost its dominance and scale, particularly after the bags were placed around it, in a way entering the big circles space. 

There was one dominating sound which added atmosphere to the whole of the space. It was coming from a projection and included metallic and robot sounds. There were also different performances, ranging from hidden performances that not necessarily involved the public to engage, to some that require audience participation. 

'BLIND' performance:

My performance consisted of creating an experience both for myself and for the person I engaged with. At first I asked the person to lead me through the space whilst I am blindfolded. I generated questions about the space, positioning, colours, anything that comes to my mind at the time. The space being the start of the conversation, and a medium for the person to notice the smallest of things that he might not have seen before. Then we changed and the person was blindfolded whilst I walked him around the space explaining what surrounds him and explaining to the person in detail what is happening around him, how far things are, what colours, scale, people, sounds etc. Highlighting the sense and awareness of the space. Throughout the interactions I have recorded everything that has been said so I can go back and see what came out of the exchanges. The recordings act as the documentation of the piece. 

Throughout the exchange it was interesting to see how much people would trust me to guide them through the space whilst they were blindfolded, after I myself have done it. At times it worked better and at times not as good, due to the way the conversation was flowing. It was a good experiment to test out what I was actually interested in the conversation and peoples responses, so next time I would know how to guide the conversation better. 

Photographs by Sam Dobson and Shaunagh Chilton 


~ Ev