What makes you decide if an image is emotional?

I consider myself a fairly flat person emotionally - I'm generally very steady in personality and am not generally overcome with any strong emotions, although I'm quite strongly opinionated and think I'm perceived as being much more fiery than I actually feel inside. When I do find myself in a position of feeling a strong emotion, I'm often left feeling almost alarmed in the aftermath. My artwork kind of chases that feeling even though I generally film in places or with people that allow me to feel calm and sink into the moment of making. I make work that doesn't necessarily show anything strongly emotional in a visual sense but speaks of disquiet through words which don't fit together, are not spelt correctly or don't make sense. I'm chasing making videos that simmer with something underneath - It's probably a narcissistic failing on my behalf that I make work which tries to reflect how I feel about myself, even when discussing other individuals experiences.

How do you think honesty affects your practice?

I really enjoy the concept of 'honesty' in artwork because creating anything is an act of dishonesty to reality. We're trying to take the elements of what exists and twisting it and teasing it into something which only we can properly discern. I enjoy making precisely because I really need to take myself out of my own head through making or some form of activity. I'm a massive workaholic and find it really difficult to switch off and just exist without doing something. I think honesty is a sham when making, where's the fun in it? Subjectivity is also relevant to honesty - we all have our own very personal ideas of the truth. Our brains literally create our own personal versions of our reality - each time we blink, our brain inserts an image into our head that pretends to be what we're looking at, to disguise the act of blinking. Everyone tells stories to themselves about who and what they are and slowly that becomes the foundation of who we are as people - but who is to say what the reality of that is? Is the perception of the self more important than the perception of someone else's of an individual? I don't have the answers to this but it's worth thinking about and a worthy reminder to not take yourself too seriously - you're only a concept of yourself, after all.
 

Would you say that your work is personal, or more focused on the logic of language?

 

Definitely personal - I'm fascinated by how language functions in how we consider ourselves and believe it a mechanism in forming personality and thought patterns, but this is beside the point for me. People interest me - why we do what we do etc. I'm a very social person and enjoy nothing more than surrounding myself with people. How people behave as individuals and what drives them is something I think about a lot, both personally and professionally. How we express ourselves or communicate is so important to understanding someone and forging a bond with them. I often find myself repeating close friends' catchphrases that have inserted themselves into my vocabulary, without realising I'm doing it. What a lovely way to accidentally express affection for someone - have their words become part of your own personal means of expression.