Music Mosaic
Artist's Statement
When listening to Only the Winds by
Olafur Arnalds, I was very aware of each instrument's entrance into the piece,
as well as its disappearance. I distinctly felt the absence of each
specific kind of sound once it had been there in the music and had faded away. In
last week's reading, Dillard talked about being able to see the things around
you. Only the Winds led me to think about not being able
to see what is not there. I think that it can often be even harder
to really see what is missing than it is to see what is present. I
decided to photograph the absence of things; Emptiness.
Like
the music video for Gone, Gone, Gone by Phillip Phillips, all
of the images I created for this project are definitely related, but not
sequential. I am not trying to convey a narrative, just an
idea. For example, the image of the candle that has just been blown
out is missing a flame. I am not a fan of displaying candles that
don't get used. They look so artificial and empty to
me. The boots outside of the door are missing someone to wear
them. They are clearly empty. The girl lying in bed is missing
someone to lay with, leaving the bed half empty. Each image conveys a
different emptiness. It is not until the final image that the subject
appears aware of her surrounding emptiness.
Only the Winds has a bit of a lamenting
quality to it, but it could easily be interpreted as expressing many different
emotions. I think that degree of
emotional ambiguity suits the theme of emptiness. Loss and absence are incredibly intriguing in
that they often engender mixed feelings.
You do not miss something without reminiscing about how good it was when
you had it. It is different in every
situation and for every person.
The
music is instrumental, meaning that there are no lyrics, and therefore no
language barrier. It is a song that can
be understood universally. Emptiness is
also a universal human experience. We
have all felt the absence of someone or something. Most of us have also probably chosen at one time or another, not to
see the absence of that someone or something.
Denial can be very comfortable. I
imagine that almost any person in the world today could look at the image of
the girl laughing and talking with an empty chair over dinner and understand,
if not even relate.
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