The longer version of my video is taking FOREVER to upload,. I hope you can forgive me for uploading it a little late i've tried uploading it for days now and it has failed so please understand. :) The shorter one is already on there. 

Today is the last day of the project. I have been up working until sunrise for days now so I'm feeling like I'm going a little bit crazy. I haven't had the energy  to keep up with my usual workflow routine. I have been busy decorating my puja table and contemplating the means of my existence. I am so proud of myself to finish this project and this course. I came to foundation thinking I was going to do fashion communication (lol!!!!!!!!), went on panicking over almost everything the first months of the course. From not knowing how to use a sketchbook, getting a "high risk of referral" not even knowing what referral meant, being so afraid to call what I created art that I JUST COULDN'T SEE MYSELF in the art curriculum to being here now. Being in this space I've created for myself, both mentally and physically where I feel PROUD of myself. Even though this year has been scary and challenging as heck I still find every piece of it worth it. All the mediocre shit I've produced, all the nervousness, awkwardness. It's all worth it.

I can now see myself as someone that has the potential to work with what I enjoy doing the most. I can't even write this without crying, haha. From being the supporter, the artists friend, the side-kick to one of those ~beautiful art people~ to being able to identify myself with that that is beyond the role, the essence of being that makes it easy to accept what is. I came into the course with so many rigid concepts, of self, of art, of CSM, whatever. It's all falling away, one by one. I am finding myself feeling frightened sometimes still, because my idea of myself has changed so quickly in such a short time. What I do know is that what I create matters, that it touches people in a beautiful way, that I am able to give something back to the world through creation and that that is love. I am overwhelmed by the positive response I've gotten from my tutors. I never expected even getting into CSM, I could not see myself in the context of that room (lol). It has taken me all this time, to the end of the course to actually feel important and deserving of the space I am taking up. On the course and outside of it, hehe. 

I just want to say thank you to whoever is reading this. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for accepting me to the course. Thank you for helping me manage the course. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for appreciating. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

To do: 

WORKFLOW

- Document process in sketchbook from last couple of days

- Upload flip through video of sketchbooks

- Take pictures of full installation

- Make shorter version of current material to show the tutors (30 min to 3 min)

- Make sure video and photos are uploaded in the right format 

ROOM

- Install projector+sound

- Hang up "pearls"

- Make a puja table

To do for assessment:

- Write evaluation

- Choose 5 pictures to hand in (check resolution) 

Showed my work to some of my family members. The room really created the reaction I aimed for. A sense of wonder and ease. One of my sisters said "Silje's created heaven out of the ugliest room in the house!!!!". I definitely notice that those who are spiritually inclined catches on to the idea behind the project most quickly. Others are more "Wow, cool" about it. It could also be that those that I know that are more ~spiritual~ are more open to appreciation of  art and the process of creation. My sister vegan spiritual sister saw my video and was INSTANTLY like "Wow i can watch this forever so cool, it's like you're this infinite being constituted of spacial awareness appearing in form as all of us and no one at the same time" I was like: *sobs* U really get meeeeeeeee...

I am going to check if I can get some feedback from friends as well. My friend who helped me make the installation has no idea what my video is about so it is going to be fun to install the video with her and see her reaction. I showed another friend a snippet of "light language" from the video and she told me that it had come to her naturally to start chanting/sining in this gibberish language while having a bath and that it was beautiful. That really touched my heart because it means that what I created helped her open up to a new part of herself which is why I do what I do. In that sense one could say that my creation fulfilled my aim and intention. Same thing goes with the relaxed state my family members entered when they saw my room.  I feel proud of myself :)

Tomorrow me and my friend are going charity shopping for garbage "stuff" for the room. I'm thinking of plastic flowers and religious icons... We'll see what we find. 

To do today:

- Sketchbook documentation+upload

- Re- scan, re-upload 30/3 - 17/4 + new pages + collages from last week

- Research artists 

- Edit video 

- Make sure transitions flow nicely

- Check sound transition + progression thru out the whole video

- See if there are some parts I want to remove/add/focus more or less on

- Make sure no frame all frames are coherent but not too similar

- Make scrap collages 

Today I have worked on my video and updated my research page. I went back to reflect on earlier influences of this project and found it really helpful to my editing process. I can see how every bit of research has helped me put together the material I have now. It was very helpful to write some short reflections on some of the research I had done to figure out why I actually put it there in the first place. It made it really simple to know what to focus on through editing after I was done. I am thinking of the order of the clips in the video. How the video progresses. I want it to become more and more audibly attention dragging as it progresses, start timidly and progress into a  more expressive mood. I need to see through that tomorrow.

Today I have mostly focused on adding bits from a segment of the original video that I'd missed before. I have also focused on editing colour and light to make it more vibrant and I've changed some frames that I thought were a bit repetitive or dull looking. I like that each frame is different from the other but that are some points of recognition through the whole thing which binds it together nicely.

Plan for the week

To do:

- Create first "final" outcome 

- Add front face angle snippets evenly throughout the video

- Go through edit of colour and green screen effect (especially new snippets)

- Upload Cindy Lee research

- -Screen and document video at moms work

- Research artists tutor sent to me last week

- Rescan/reupload sketchbook pages from last week 

- Finalise installation

- Add more fairy lights

- Add more religious/spiritual symbols

- Hang up fabric in the ceiling

- Install projector and speaker/speakers

- IF THERE IS TIME go shop for more material for the installation (plastic flowers) 

Did some collages. My grandmother died today so I need to take some days off. 

Tried to explain to my friends what performance is yesterday. Got met with some resistance, haha, I realise how much my months in London, my time at CSM has opened me up creatively. I feel extremely grateful to have had the experience to be in such a open-minded environment. 

To do:

- Organise and upload sketchbook pages

- Edit end of video

- Upload to workflow

- Buy extension chords and UK to EU plug

- Decorate the room 

- More fairy lights (in the ceiling??)

- Pearls, glitter, ornaments 

- Try screening the video at moms work, document

- More scrap collages!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Just edited my video a bit. I keep finding interesting bits I want to include. I decided to only use the original audio and realised that it only felt like hiding to cover up the original audio.  

I am finding that simpler is usually better. I am thinking of trying out projecting the video in the basement soon. I am excited about it but also a bit nervous. I feel like I want to finish this project soon. My computer keeps almost crashing because the file is so big. The thing is like 30 mins right now. I can keep watching it over and over, but i wonder who else would lol. Feeling weird about what I am creating at the moment. Kind of want to hide. 

To do:

- Print out sketchbook pictures 

- Upload sketchbook pictures

- Update workflow

- Keep scrap collageing 

- Buy extension cord for the fairy lights 

- Keep decorating the room 

- Record new audio for the video 

Today I put in rugs, a mattress and some pillows and fairy lights into the room. To be honest I kind of liked it more when it was empty than the way it looks now because now that the floor is covered it the room feels much smaller, more messy, less mysterious. It made the room feel more welcoming and homey though. It is a nicer space to spend time in now than before. Still I don't know how I feel about the room though. I need to finish off trying out all my ideas of what I am going to make out of the room before I honestly know what I actually prefer but at least it is a good start to try and realise my ideas and see how they feel in manifest form, haha. 

Yesterday I did some collageing with images and materials I found while cleaning out the basement. It always takes some time to make the collages when I've found a lot of new objects to work with because I need to source out images in books and whatever. The "organise" part of making the collages feels positive though because it helps me digest what am working with and arrange my inner images of my current experience. Sometimes I get annoyed because it feels like I'm not going anywhere and that I am not doing as much work as I am "supposed to". I don't really know what to do about that feeling. I don't think it is a very nice way of treating my self or my creative process.  

Sometimes creativity flows through meditation, a walk in the woods or a talk with a friend. Sometimes it's through birdwatching or doing my make up.  It feels like there is so much going on inside me that I can't even begin to get to the core with it. I am in strangely alluring times. I keep getting sucked in into ideas of reason and rightfulness. Ideas that dissolve as soon as I try to capture them. Becoming nothing.  I still wonder why. 

Yesterday I continued to edit my video.  Though I did make some progress in structuring the material and making look more clean I felt like it didn't really go anywhere creatively. I find audio to be the most puzzling part of the project right now because I know I want to use a more complicated editing program to get the results I am looking for but I simply don't have time or resources to learn how to produce sound right now. I asked a friend who is a very talented music producer to help me which feels exciting but scary as hell. I don't know if he'll actually end up helping me or not, but it feels safe to at least know I can ask. Coming back home to Sweden has really helped me widen my perspective on what I can achieve to create; here I have a big house to play around in, lots of interesting things laying around the house to use for my sketchbook, my installation, my performance, my research etc. etc. I also have a lot of supportive open-minded people around me to talk about my ideas with and to help me realise them. I would not have been able to make this installation without my friend who's helped me clean out our very very very very very messy borderline hoarder basement. In London my space and my options were much more confined, the people around me were busy most of the time and I felt like I didn't really "add up" in the environment I was in. The privacy of working in my own space makes such a difference from working in my tiny room in my tiny flat in London.

Even though I was surrounded by amazing creatives in London I find it easier asking for help from people who do something quite different than I do, almost as though it is easier to find common room when it is not always about Me and My Art™. I have this one friend who's an AESTHETICS QUEEN, she makes amazing tiktoks, dresses up in crazy outfits, amazing make up, does witchy shit off the web. I have a friend who is great at interior decoration, and is amazing at just making rooms "feel right". I have another friend who works with people with special needs, helping them manage their life and their stuff, and always is openminded and humanitarian. She's is always up for helping me with whatever practical I need help with, without judgement as well. This other friend who is a really compassionate listener who I actually dare to talk about my ideas with. She enthusiastically asked  if she could come view my installation when it's done when I talked about it. And of course my music producer friend who's taste and sense of detail is so impeccable it makes my brain go BEEEP wtf every time I hear his music. Amazing. Ever since 4d day in diagnostic part when I was in the same group as 3 very technically skilled and effective creators (who ended up doing something completely different than 4d) I have been longing for working in a team. I remember how effortlessly my ideas came to reality through their skills. It was just so much easier than doing everything on my own. I like working by myself though and I find that the best thing is to have balance. To work as much as I want on my own and then to reach out to the right people to help me with the right things. Things I know they're good at, things I know they thoroughly enjoy. It's just ya kno... a win win. 

Today I have disassembled three wardrobes that stood in the room where my installation is now coming to creation. I have hung up tulle curtains on the walls, and a tulle canopy in the middle of the room. It was quite the effort, because the walls are made of concrete so to attach the tulle I had to use some creative solutions. With the help of fishing line, washing line and thread I attached the curtains to pipes and the ceiling lamp. One of the walls didn't have any pipes to attach the washing line to so I used the side parts of the dismounted wardrobe to help to hold up the line. I also used the back part which was made of thin plywood as partition to cover the view of the heating system at the back of the room. Even though the set up obviously is quite amateurish it looks really great in low light. I found a red light to put up in the room and with that light it actually looked quite nice. Like a dreamworld of veils. One layer after the other. The light wood colour of the wardrobe added an organic element to the room. It looked really nice through the tulle, especially in low light. I need to try and see how the projector will work inside the canopy. It is right below a really ugly strip light  lamp so i might need to put up some kind of fabric inside the canopy. There is also one wall that still is completely bare. I might want to attach the back of the canopy to that wall. That will make it easier to access the space inside the canopy but it might also leave less room for stuff I want to include in the installation.

Tomorrow I will plan on adding more textiles to the room. Rugs, pillows, mattress(es?). I might also start hanging up nice lights, like fairy lights etc. I am thinking of printing out pictures of "spiritual" people and images to put on the wall, behind the veil. 

To do

- GET MY INSTALLATION IDEAS OUT OF MY HEAD (sketchbook and workflow)

- Write longer reflection

- Make notes and sketches of materials use 

- Edit video with new appropriated sound, try to elongate videos material to fit sound

- Research Johari window 

- Upload sketchbook pages on workflow

This past week I've had no energy over to create, I've been cleaning out the basement to make room for my installation down there. I think I needed a break from the project to calm myself down and process what I've been through and what we've been through collectively lately. The project has been in the back of my mind all the time though. I worry about my installation because I know it won't look like the ideas in my head in real life which is making me feel a bit discouraged. I know what's in my head is just in my head and that it's better to get through to it and find out for myself what I actually can do rather than thinking about it. It's just that it's so easy to get stuck in old habits when you come back home and it takes time to become conscious of when you're sinking back into old habits, it takes energy to actively break cycles. Anyways. I schemed the basement for materials to use all week and I'm proud to sat that my whole production is made out of ... garbage. Using trash is another way of proposing cyclical movement in my art. I am not the beginning of the story I am telling, I am not the story's origin. The things I use all have their past and their story, thats what lives through when you use found objects, interconnectedness and ancestry. 

I've also been feeling weepy and tender for DAYS. Cleaning out the basement felt ritualistic, emotionally heavy at times. Letting go of the past... I have been thinking a lot about ancestry and family lines. My grandfather, 88 years old, had an epileptic seizure at the beginning of the week. While we were waiting to know what happened to him, not knowing if his life was in danger or not, i felt through an emotional trigger from when my father commited suicide and I felt myself as a 5 year old child thinking of "Will my family be okay?", "I need to make sure everyones okay.", heavy fear weighing over me. It's funny how even 5 year olds are archetypal caretakers in some sort of way. It all lives inside of us. I have not acknowledged my inner caretaker much in my life. I have not cared for her. I have found that aspect of myself sticky and overbearing. Almost awkward. I've lived in martyrdom trying to take care of others, not accepting anything in return, you know, searched out people who would give me little in return. Because it felt safe, because I imagined there'd be little to lose once I had to let go. 

Turns out repressing something only makes it act out stronger, my concern for other peoples feelings, my willingness to make myself small to not disturb someone else's order acted out like nothing else. I didn't let my self be heard, I repressed my self. I didn't let her come through with messages of wanting to be loved, because I was stuck in the past, always focusing on loss and survival. My focus as a child was to maintain the wellbeing of my family so that I could feel safe. I couldn't understand that the fears I had at night were flashbacks, I didn't understand it when my mother or my siblings acted out, seemingly attacking me for being me. I didn't understand it when I did the same to them. I felt shameful for many things I felt but didn't understand. I learnt a lot from it though. I learnt that you need to start with looking at yourself with loving eyes, loving thoughts, loving emotions. You need to embrace in order to be able to let go. We need to acknowledge all aspects of our humanity. We all have an inner predator, an inner caretaker. The wounded needs care. The desperate one needs to be met with kindness, patience. 

In one situation I am the ruler, in another the lover, in a third the magician. Sometimes I experience myself as the outlaw, or the explorer. The next minute I find myself hopelessly lost in the role of the innocent trying to be the hero. My concept of self is as fleeting as my emotions. We need not to be too attached to a certain role, like I used to be before, because it will restrict our emotional register and make some experiences seem unattainable to us. Concepts of Either/or nature which makes us believe the universe will mother us in a very human way, e.g. give us a gold star for going right, slap us in the face if we choose to or, god forbid, get FORCED to go left. This is what the jester is here to tell us and that is why I many times in my life, and also in my light language video take on the role of the jester. The jester is here to remind us that the social roles and the social institutions of this world are all imaginary, and therefor relationally relative. 

When the joker sees a person taking his life seriously and regarding himself as extremely important, there is something a little bit funny about it and he is inclined to get the giggles.

- Alan Watts

When I found myself as a fatherless child at 5, I totally abandoned my innocence to take the role of a caretaker. Found myself in situations as a teenager where my innocence was being tested again and again. I couldn't submit to it, I took the blame for everything. Tried to ACT like the hero. Too proud, too ashamed to admit I was a child inside. The role of the sage had to come to my life. I needed to get in touch with my inner healer. I worked hard through the help of my amazing therapist. My therapist taught me of the reality of my self, that everything I am exists here and now, anything else is imaginary. Who I allow myself to be is simply constituted by the limits to my imagination. My imagination of my self becomes rigid and feels very very real whenever I am in pain, whenever I experience my self as separated. I go to remind myself what really is real here and now in this moment. The pain becomes bearable again, I am not separate, I am connecting and co-operating with this world in every shiver of my being. 

“We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.”
― G.K. Chesterton

Having a dysfunctional relationship with my self helped me realise at my core what and who I really am, what want and what I don't need in my life. I realised the importance of a clean, safe and beautiful home, wholesome food, meditation, walks in nature, supporting friends and creative activity. It sounds so simple, almost banal, but I've really noticed difference not just individually, but in how others interact with me, and in my space too. People come into my room and they say shit like "Wow, this room is like, giving me serotonin.". I've mentioned rooms many times during this project, but I've meant it in a symbolic sense rather than my ACTUAL room. What's funny is that it feels like I'm doing some sort of absurd parody or pastiche or paraphrase of *CRINGE WARNING* Tracey Emin's My Bed. It is funny because I remember seeing My Bed on tumblr in my younger teens and romanticising it, finding some sort of solace in Emin's work, but almost at the same time seeking out to approach the same structure as hers to my own being/doing. I romanticised mental illness, romanticised the dark and destructive. I romanticised my own pain. Became hyper-attached to it. Didn't know who I was without my painful narrative. I noticed a lot of art I observed both by art students and working artists throughout my time in London followed similar themes. Doomsday-like prophecies of the world going to shit and everyone being depressed and suicidal. This, again, made me think of the myths we tell ourselves as a collective. Myths that become our collective reality. Our way of approaching the mystery: horror and suicide. I've already known of, lived that story since I was 5 years old. I am in no need of myths like that to explain the abundance of the mystery of this world anymore. I want colour, childish playfulness, divine formation and exuberant role play. PLAY. 

Instead of the installation thematically being established as a self confessional depression-mess (like I used to think I was, like my room used to look like) this bed in this room is surrounded with magical symbols and multi-colored lights, textures and colours breathing and pulsating. It is a representation of me lying in bed in my London flat watching light language videos on youtube, meditating, looking up to the light polluted night sky to see if I can spot some stars. A scent of incense, lit candles, a kirtan playing in the background. It's more than just the decor in the room that "gives people serotonin". I think there is a certain sensation of welcoming safety and sacredness to my room. I take good care of my room. I grow in and through this space. I devote my love and my energy to this space. I am going to try and recreate my Serotonin London Safe Room here in my basement. In one sense it is a bunker built in time of world crisis, in another it's a small temple, in a third it is a basement room filled with rubbish. It's all about perspective :).

A mattress on the floor at the centre of the room, a homemade light language video playing. Tulle curtains on the walls of the room, a tulle canopy around the mattress enclosing the space in dreamlike symbolism relating to that of the metaphor of the veil in Hindu tradition. Fishing lines hanging from the ceiling with sacred objects and symbols attached to them. Hideously dehumanising dolls I used to play with a as a child (voodoo style), glitzy jewellery, fairly lights, stuffed animals, kitchy blinking Jesus and Buddha statues, salt lamps, incense, holy pictures of holy people. Camp aesthetics complied. 

I want to give the audience an experience of safety, of interconnection, of play, of cyclical movements, of quietude and accurate acclimatisation to a more harmonious symbolic storytelling than that of the busy fearful world of modern myth and imagination. This reaction will hopefully come instinctively, just like in my room in London. Through a comfortable sensory overload from the many symbols, textures in forms of image, sound and light the audience will hopefully enter a state of "being" rather than "doing". I noticed from studying my friend, who is usually not into art or academia at all. While on psychedelics, she presented many visual ideas as a language coming from the collective unconscious. These ideas were conveyed through symbolic imagery through drawings. We all have access to this unconscious language and we use it constantly in our everyday life: butterflies as symbols for transformation, the divine mother as a symbol for the caretaker archetype, numbers as expressions of the absolute and the infinite. I propose the audience will be able to intuitively feel through the symbols of the room, just like in my room in London.

The function of the bed will be to imitate me in bed watching videos on my phone. You know when you're lying down watching something it's always most relaxing to watch it from below? I am going to recreate this helping the audience to relax deeper into the experience of "the room". The image of the light language video representing the truth of our nature as infinite and eternal. Me in my clown costume, neon pink haired anonymous being floating around in space. A sound image constituted of a man of the sage archetype talking about the spiritual meaning of art, of me singing in codes, chopped and skewed. The sound coming from all corners of the room. Embracing the audience. 

To do:

- Print pictures for sketchbook

- Document and reflect in sketchbook

- Make a list of possible items for installation (generate ideas in sketchbook maybe? maybe through simple drawing aswell)

- Evaluate analysis on how of research on workflow research page connects to my creative process

Today I tried out new ways of experimenting with my cliff footage by adding appropriated footage of a time lapse starry sky and audio of a spiritual teacher answering a question from a german student, with a translator mediating the conversation which gives off a really nice effect+plays with the idea of language as symbolism, the relativity of language, language as a social institution. The starry background added a more camp-y effect as well which I found really entertaining and beautiful at the same time. Not serious, but sincere. 

I want to keep on experimenting with how the footage looks projected. I need to buy a uk to eu plug to be able to charge my projector first. I am also looking at ideas of installation, I am going to use a room in my basement which requires a good clean up before it can be used for anything so that is on my to to list as well. I am creating a super heightened experience of lying in bed in my room, watching youtube and meditating at night. I am going to use symbols from my own room, enhance certain aspects which I find have a charge of #spirituality, lol. Like fairy lights, kitchy blinking jesus figurines, dolls, stuffed animal etc. 

To do

- Editing experiments+upload

- Document in sketchbook

- Screenshot stills to put in sketchbook 

- Upload appropriated footage to workflow 

Today I have done some experimental editing to create the visual vibe I want for the installation. Now that I know a bit more in-depth what I want my installation to look like I've decided to go for simpler aesthetics when it comes to the video. I still want the video to be displayed in the ceiling with a mattress on the floor (like in my installation idea in my sketchbook from the 15/3) so that you look up at it but the idea of an installation which incorporates symbols, colours and lights in a womb-like space would give off a sense of comfort, playfulness, sensitivity. Right now I feel like I have no idea how to get it all together because as soon as I start working on something I realise how much work it is to get my idea from though to form. It never really gets on the level I want it to be which makes me a bit frustrated. I think the trick might be to simplify as much as possible. I just need to keep experimenting and I'm sure it will all come together. Right now I just need to focus on making making making. 

To do today

- Upload sketchbook pages

- Research installation

- Buy materials for installation+sketchbook

- Write about symbols sketchbook ideas generation on workflow

- Experimental editing 

This week

- Start experimenting with installation, gather materials (found objects) and sketchbook ideas

- Incorporate experiments with green screen idea 

- Make sound experiments with existing recordings

- Make nice (more abstract) visuals 

- Try video and sound out projected/installed

To do

- Write longer reflection about project (below)

- Sample snippets from cliff video, experiment with editing

- Document in sketchbook+workflow

- Upload outcomes+sketchbook pages to youtube and workflow

Today I am focusing on experimenting with editing. I aim to create many mini "sample" sedgements of the two longer videos i filmed the other day that i can then puzzle together by layering in different ways in non-chronological order to create a "timeless" feeling to the piece which will like nice looped. I want to incorporate more of that "camp" vibe into the #aesthetics of the video to enhance a sense of humour to it. I can see how the research I did weeks ago is coming into creation now, the research I did on the fool archetype, the "sacred clown" or heyoka role of certain tribes in Pan-America (the one who does the opposite of set cultural standards to remind people to not take their own stories too seriously, the one who is cold when everyone else is hot) the camp aesthetic in forms of humour shows and fashion trends (glitchy, low quality, tacky, eerie, absurd, existentialistic, unserious, sincere), the institutional critique artists in forms of challenging the standards, the stories of certain "rooms" (meaning for example an institutional practice or a set standard in a certain field of profession, or the expected social roles of a person of a certain culture).

One way that the camp aesthetic support the role of the sacred fool is well represented through this quote: "the most obvious argument is that camp is just an excuse for poor quality work and allows the tacky and vulgar to be recognized as valid art. In doing so, camp celebrates the trivial and superficial and form over content. The power of the camp object may be found in its ability to induce this reaction". This is exactly what the role of what Jung calls the jester, what Lakota people call heyoka or people of the Kachina religion calls pueblo clowns, it's the trickster, symbolised as a fox in many cultures, the coyote in others. To turn upside down, to be unprofessional, to being grand where you're expected to be modest and to be very timid when you're expected to present with pride. 

I have gone through this year watching people around me. Amazingly creative artists who make interesting work, talk about interesting things, goes to interesting parties and go to interesting schools. They have this amazing reality they've created for themselves where they're allowed to freely create whatever they desire. However, noones seems to believe in this reality they've created for themselves. There is always some fixation to obsess over. After having lived the hermit life for a year, coming back to the "marketplace" (moving to London, starting my studies) was shock. Everyone was so caught up in these stories about where their life was heading and what that meant for their self-image. Are we worthy? Are we not worthy? Who will get in where? What does the people that go to that school think about people at the other very similar but school. I noticed that no matter how much success people around me seemed to attain it didn't change the case of them suffering, of them feeling unworthy. I experienced my friend say to me over and over in a haze of self induced anesthesia - I feel like everyone hates me, sometimes I feel like all of my friends hate me. This person who, on the surface looks so successful and happy. So interesting and charming - someone who everyone likes to look at. You know what I mean. 

I can see how the literature I studied helped me put context to the function of myths and symbols and the cultural importance of such practices. It seems like our collective myths have caused us a lot of suffering lately. Suffering as a collective, suffering as individuals, suffering as a planet. Ideas of "never enough", that we always need to attain more, that we always need to perform, participate, contribute. I think this quote from Kirkegaards Either/or says it quite well: 

Yesternight I made a draft edit of the performance I did yesterday. I am uploading it right now. I am also doing an analysis of symbols, hidden language in the video. I did some research as well earlier on how to convey emotion through performing, how to show authenticity on camera. I am currently quite tired so I am going to do a rough analysis in my sketchbook and the continue to edit and document a more detailed analysis tomorrow. 

so today...

- Research

- Upload draft

- Continue explore ideas of myth and archetype through further analysis

To do today

- Film on top of hill performance

- Document in sketchbook & on workflow

- Start editing

I only did planning yesterday. Today I filmed a performance at the top of a cliff. I am going to start looking at the material today and document key themes in the video... I feel like I get into a completely different flow at home. Instead of filming like 15s-15min segments I did two 20-25min performances and I found the right props to to support the Camp aesthetic I've been researching because I have so much more resources here at home. I also have access to nature here, it is easier to find solitude as well. While performing in front of people serve or in public serves a purpose i find it interesting to see what happens when you switch "rooms". I found something that felt very deep today. A word came to my mind earlier when I looked at the videos from earlier. Colloquial. I didn't know what that meant so I had to look it up. 

I tried out editing the sound of the British museum video by layering two files on top of each other and using different effects on them two, "large room" and "multi-tone". Layering sound is fun because it creates a textural landscape of the raw files which tell a narrative on its own.

I went through my workflow and my sketchbooks yesterday to reflect over the narrative of my process so far. I thought about how the connection to archetypes and myths come from my role as the performer, to be the "sacred fool" or the "heyoka" archetype. How the myths are in the "light language", myths are that which bring us closer to the mystery. That is tyhe function of the myth. how connected a society is can be determined by the quality of the collective myths they live by. What stories do we tell ourselves? What do we believe in? By connecting my art practice to a practice which is first-handedly expressed and experienced individually, second-handedly on youtube I question the legitimacy of "the stories of this room".

In a world which thrives on the idea of a masculine ideal - force, logic, intellect, competition, expressing spirituality has become taboo.  Our myths, the bible tell us we are flawed in our humanness, there is this inherent idea of irredeemable separation. This is of course not a very nice myth. It makes people feel miserable. So much art is about this misery, this suffering. To present something traumatic is somehow more socially acceptable than the idea of depth and connection through prayer, ritual, chanting, singing, dancing, meditating. By performing the role of the light language youtuber I am representing the role of the sacred fool. I am sure some who are not into spirituality would disdain light language as a healing practice. They'd see light language speakers talking about healing the body and loving yourself through "channeled alien language" as foolish.  I am speaking for all of us through words that are not meant to be interpreted but FELT, thus moving experience from reflecting over and interpreting to connecting and feeling. 

To do today

- Reflect over practice and its relation to current events and PPP (above) 

- Sketchbook plan and film Hampstead Heath redo at the top of a cliff

- Edit and upload? 

I did some ideas generating collages last night and thought about the whore-madonna archetypal myth of our society, the Innocent or the Outlaw. I thought of the role of the sage and the hermit lifestyle that comes with it. I thought about the need for belonging and the desperation that comes with it. I thought about the explorer through soul searching and cultivating your unique gifts. I thought of the different roles I take on, so many different roles. There seem not to be a cohesive self sometimes. I am this one second and that the other. The only constant seem to be I and that I is instant and eternal.

To do today:

- Upload sketchbook to workflow

- Finish editing & upload British museum

i havn't got much done this week due to unforseen events that got me to the decision to change my plans for the week. I am going to make a new plan today. This week I have had to travel home in Sweden, so I havn't got much time to work. I have much more alone time and access to green areas here which I feel will facilitate my making process, so that's positive. Right now I am very tired from traveling so I am going to start working tomorrow and only touch on light things today like creating a sketchbook page on workflow and make a plan for the coming days...

I got really good feedback from my online tutorial so I am using that to help me plan what to do further on. My tutor told me to upload more experiments, that I made good reflections, that I can take this time to go back to reflecting on my concept and it's relationship to current events in the world.

To do

- Scan+Upload sketchbook to workflow

- Edit+Upload Museum experiment

- Write longer reflection on making process in relation to PPP and latest events

- Experiment with green screen ideas (generate ideas in sketchbook)

- Re-do Hampstead Heath experiment

My to do list for this week is

- Revise museum material

- Start editing Hampstead Heath material

- Plan "green screen film" in sketchbook

- Scrap collage 

- Exhibition 

My plan today was to film at Hampstead Heath and start editing it but unfortunately my selfie stick broke and didn't record any sound so now I need to buy a new selfie stick and go back to Hampstead Heath Tuesday. I first felt a bit frustrated when I noticed the sound wasn't working on the videos. I had literally thought to myself - hmm I should check the sound but I DIDN'T and that thought also came to me after I'd accidentally broke off the phone holder part of the stick sooo.... I need to go to a tourist shop in Central to buy a new selfie stick WHIcCH is funny because last time I went past a tourist shop and saw a bunch of selfie sticks at the front of the store I was like.. hmm I should buy one. Talk about NOT TRUSTING YOUR INTUITION. The higher meaning of these series of events might be: I was just supposed to get out in nature and "filming" served the purpose of getting me out there. Just like when you're like: Oh wow it's raining and I gotta walk the dog... Well heck I'll do it for him (the dog) but then when you get out there in the quiet evening rain the skies seem to open up to you and your conciousness seem to expand and you're like... MY GOD here I am. Here we are. We're all humble tripping. Why did you get a dog in the first place? What about my needs of JUST being in nature without "being productive"? (2 flies in one smash as we say in Sweden better than vulgar 2 birds in my stone... wait this make me thinl... why do i thinl killing flies is bätter than birds.... one truth, child) What about your needs to listen to the night sky falling down upon you!!!! God bless. 

Possible schedule this week...

Måndag:

- Museum thing edit and post in Class

- Research "Green screen"

- Print sketchbook pics 

- Ask tutor to revise word count on thing we signed because current number is incorrect (change to 547 words)

- Exhibition + buy Selfie stick in Camden

Tisdag

- Hampstead Heath filming

- Start editing

- Research "Green screen", props?

Wednesday

- Fix props

- Buy cable for projector

- Post Hamstead Heath?

Tuesday

- Film green screen 

- Research Installation ideas

Friday

- Edit green screen

- Sketchbook Installation ideas

Saturday

- Edit green screen

- work on installation and presentation

Sunday

- Upload and Install green screen

- Reflection

 + to think about

Film Green screen sheets+duvet cover set ??? yes no??

Go to library/do reading

sketchbook collageing

yin yoga

go for walks

prepare meals

breathe smile :)

I had tutorial today which I was really nervous about but it went really well! I feel proud of myself. My tutor told me to keep experimenting and it will all come together, which was really fun and encouraging to hear. They told me to focus more on documenting in my sketchbook, more screens from films. I think I am going to buy some toner to get the printer working so I wont have to run to Archway every time I need to print something. 

Still trying to figure out my sketchbook. How to use it in a comprehensible and "honest" way, so that it becomes a way of carrying my work forward, to help me reflect on decisions. Everything takes so much more time and energy than I imagine, in the sense that I carry it forward through processes that I'm bit yet that familiar with. It takes time to get to know the way I work. It honestly still feel like a mystery to me how to document like... an editing process because that is all about do - redo to me and it's hard to put on paper. 

I feel like I should start having my sketchbook next to me while editing so I can document any ideas and thoughts immediately. 

To do:

- Sketchbook documentation

- Keep editing 

- Post 1 video on youtube

I started the day with editing my footage from the last couple of days - The British Museum footage and some other footage I filmed by the Thames during a night walk. I find myself wanting to "perfect" a lot more now than I felt the need for last week. I remind myself to continue on in a "beginners mindset", it's more about making and being able to move on than to perfect details at this stage. 

I want to be more consistent in documenting my process in my sketchbook. I am still learning how to use my sketchbook. It is interesting to see how much more fluent my process feel when I allow myself to relax more, to not take myself so seriously. When I think more about how I want to do it than how I'm supposed to do it. When I focus more on doing work for myself than for others. Of course, thinking about the audience and how to present your work is important (and fun), but it's important to me to remember that I am still in the process of learning how to "become" a creator. Stunning results feel less and less important, getting in flow and finding genuine interest feels more intriguing. 

I find using a sketchbook so helpful to get my ideas out of my head. It's a dynamic way of reflecting over my process. Quite unexpectedly, it has become one of my favourite elements of the process because there are so many possibilities in how to go along with it and It's quite beautiful to see how it's become something that is helping me more and more to undertand myself as a creator. 

To do:

- Documentation sketchbook (start dating pages!!!)

- Print 

- Keep editing footage

- Upload at least one video to the channel (if it feels ready)

JOHARI WINDOW

Sunday, I continued on doing literary research - Deleuze and Performance, The Myth of the Other, The Movement of the Free Spirit. I've found it easiest to let more "heavy" research "go through me" rather than trying to make direct concept out of it. It is as when I read Wittgenstein, and I discovered it was more beneficial to read him as poetry rather than trying to intellectually grasp and analyse every little detail I came across. I read about Wittgenstein, who facing away from the audience, read poetry to the academics to teach them, prove to them, show them, whatever, that there is something beyond word that is  essential to any type of expression. I take in and I learn from what I read and I let it manifest through creation. 

I went to the British Museum after I was done studying. I was originally planing on going to hampstead heath to "connect with nature" through light language, but it was raining and I had been preparing to go the the museum for some time. So I thought it was time and I went there feeling quite strange about the endeavour I was performing. Wearing my best normal looking "Ellen Degeneres" style outfit (yes, we gay :/), with my selfie stick in hand I went to speak light language amongst the ancient symbols from all around the world. Talking to the mummies, to the ancient greeks. Apparently you were not allowed to fold out the selfie stick in the galleries. This fact, being told to "behave" triggered some fear in me that made me a bit unsure in how I able I  was in recording myself. It ended up looking quite amateurish, shots filmed close to my face, me half-whispering because I was afraid someone was going to hear it was not a real language I was speaking and my cover as a "Ellen Degeneres looking Tourist" would be blown.

It went well though and I made an undercover performance as an alien learning ancient wisdom from human history to gather information on how to help the human race ascend, AND NO ONE SUSPECTED A THING!!! I am proud of myself for "putting myself out there"

The exhibiton I went to gave me new ideas when it comes to how to use time as a medium. through the video work Estrella i learnt that storytelling can be done in many ways and that it's yet again more about the symbolic language in art than what is said outfront.

I filmed myself walking through a park on the way there, and edited the material with footage from the exhibition when I came home. It all feels like it is becoming a type of "vlog" situation of what I am doing. It is good to practice "performing" in public spaces. It helps me ease into it. 

To do today

- Literary reseach in the library

- Film something in public (maybe edit it too)

- Sketchbook documentation 

Tired, tired. Working on something while processing difficult things is hard - I get into a low energy state, want to cocoon myself. Isolate. It's hard to stay motivated when I'm experiencing flashbacks of traumas and I need to take care of my emotions first. It helps to take "breaks", just leave it as it is for awhile. I need to remind myself to not to beat myself up for not "performing", I realize that I am on this course FOR ME, not to please someone else. It makes it easier to find the self serving motive on what I'm doing. 

To do:

- Go to exhibition at Freelands Foundation 

- Upload research from exhibition 

- Print pictures for sketchbook to document process

Also: 

- Buy green facepaint

- Research literature from reading list

Yesterday I didn't do any "work" because I needed to take care of myself and rest after therapy. I started the day today with experimenting more with "light langauge" to get into speaking on video and also filming myself. I spontaneously edited the material together - I did it all quite quickly and I noticed the advantages with not waiting to create what is in my head but rather just "throw it out there". When I do this I gather material and information of how I want the final outcome to be, so it is important to me to see making just as much as research a literary sources and visual research. It doesn't have to be perfect, everything doesn't have to make sense, everything doesn't have to necessarily even look that good; what's important is that it gives m e a feeling of where I am at and what I want to produce, it adds context to and experience of that which lies beyond words. 

I am still tired from yesterdays therapy session so I am going to give myself time to take it easy today. 

To do

- Buy green sheet and body paint

- Research Johari window, The Myth of the Other, Deleuze and Performance 

- Print pictures for sketchbook 

- Sketchbook documentation

Today I have done some sketchbook planning, quite differently than before. It has taken me some time to get comfortable with using a sketchbook. I am still planning on regularly making collages out of found objects to generate ideas but I have found it easier to put the collages in one book and the actual planning in another. In my planning sketchbook I can get messy, write out my thoughts quite informally, use some visual research, but mainly just get everything I need to figure out out of my head and onto paper. Last term I experienced my my workflow as quite messy and a bit hard to get into as an onlooker. I am more and more finding ways to make my process more effective, both to me and others. It's empowering. 

I started experimenting with the audio part of my video and it was quite scary to record myself. I am interested in seeing who I become on camera. There is so much awkwardness to behaving strangely on camera: Making ugly noises is scary, it's not very attractive - it keeps me complicated.  I want to appeal to the viewer, I  want to be admired. This is whats so hard about making something off-the-grid. It makes me dream of having a team to work with, good technicians and creatives who can help me realise my vision. I am lowkey realising how I want to work in the future, probably not as an artist but as a creative director, a director of a team of competent people who share my vision and know how to work through it... dreams!!!

I read some research as well. The Myth of the Other by Franco Rella. It was good, because it provided historical context to the works of academic analysis today, its roots in freudian psychoanalysis and a distinction between "truth" in contrast to analysis and problem-solving. How truth is beyond words, how truth is sectioned into "knowing-not-knowning" that we try to turn into endless spectulation. How to get further from this, how to be anti-oepidus, but still see the cultural value of academic effort... It moves so slowly though. 

Suggestions for Tomorrow:

- More audio alien experiments 

- Sketchbook documentation

- Buy green sheet and body paint

- Research Johari window, The Myth of the Other, Deleuze and Performance 

- Reflection 

Okay so I have not updated in awhile because I've been busy doing people things like going to parties and going to a cottage on the countryside. I realized that I take on very much to do every day. While it is good to have a vision of what needs to be done, I've learnt to accept that most days I don't have the energy to do research all day and then make work. I am developing discernment when it comes to what needs to be done and in what order. I can make a planning but I need not to see it as: this HAS TO BE DONE :@@@@ but rather as guidelines, because my mood and interests are constantly changing. Sometimes I plan doing research for 1 hour and I end up doing research for the whole day. Sometimes I plan doing nothing and ideas just come to me in the empty spaces, fields on the countryside and meditations. It's funny. I'm not really in control, I guess I'm a force of nature and u can't control nature, everyone who's tried knows you can't. 

To do this week:

- Buy green sheet and face/body paint

- Go to museum with selfie stick and film myself talk alien language to the mummies

- Make a green screen 

- Plan video in sketchbook

- use footage to mash with green screen idea at home 

- research literary sources in the library

- document seminar

- RESEARCH JOHARI WINOW , au'jourdhui today

Today:

- sketchbook

- research library

- alien language to mummies 

I realized I had to shorten down  my PPP so I started the day by doing that. I felt it made a more clear outcome so I am happy with that. I needed to leave class because of my medical condition but I was able to hear some of the ideas my classmates are working on and how they are going to test out those ideas. It inspired me to start making something myself. Yesterday I did research that I might want to incorporate  as a monologue in my film. It would be fun to play around with making fun of the academic language as a learnt construct by putting it in an alien context - like a news report or talk show. The aim would be to obscure the value/legitimacy we put to certain social constructs in certain "rooms". I am going to reflect on the Johari window as back up research. I also want to try out speaking "alien language" as a news reporter or museum guide. I want to use lo-fi materials, phone camera and selfie stick, to emphasise the value we put to format and thjecertain regulations we apply to something to "make it real". I am once again referring to the Jean Cocteau quote I read in a Jonas Mekas interview:

"Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper."

I want to deconstruct elitism in the art world, academic world etc. Take it down to a level which every one, no matter where they come from can affirm. Through using "alien language", perhaps put silly "academic" quotes as subtitles I am playing the part of the wise fool archetype which through making a fool of himself show us that our  social institutions, systems and regulations are relative - not because they cannot be helpful or useful but to show that it is all just ideas and in essence we are all the same - as my friend Oscar would say,

“Kings and philosophers shit—and so do ladies.”

― Michel de Montaigne

My to do list today

- Buy green fabric to use as green screen

- Do more research (Either/or, Kirkegaard and The Myth of the Other, Franco Rella) 

- Do visual research (Lo-fi talkshows, absurd humour - Joanne the scammer, Tim and Eric etc) 

- Plan sketchbook 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dxg9557xZs

Today I finished my PPP. I am happy with the outcome. I found it quite enjoyable to do a task like this because it allowed me to utilize knowledge I have from planning, researching, sourcing and writing from my high school studies in social and behavioral science. This is something I find very exciting. I realize more and more that my role as an artist is so much about concept. I am very driven by my intellect in many ways - I like thinking about thinking, I like asking questions, discussing and exploring limits of what can be said in word. I like using this as way of discerning what is more fitting to put to form instead of expressing in words. I have found it quite challenging to actually make a visual outcome out of my ideas. There i so much I want to express and I'm thinking how I can make something htat wont get completely lost in translation. I guess there is this element of letting go of my creation and letting it be its own for people to interpret. I need to find a balance between those to factors.

I have picked up some research from the library that I am going to scan in today and go through in class tomorrow. I did not have the energy to do that today. I aim to be mindful about taking time to rest and relax. I think this will make it easier for me to take advantage of natural energy highs - to work when i feel flow, rather than trying to force something for the sake of "doing work". Why do we call it work? What does that say about how we view our processes of creating. My friend talked about a Duchamp interview she listened to. He said he worked as a librarian because he didn't want art to be his work. I understand him. 

Tomorrows to do-list:

- Scan, annotate, read and reflect on research

- Discuss research with Saga 

If I feel the energy: 

- Sketchbook scrap collage to generate ideas 

And always:

- Breathe

- Relax

- Smile

- Let go

Thank you 

I feel good about getting my proposal done today. What I am thinking of now is finishing touches, removing unnecessary details and finalising the project planning. I want to simplify and short the text a bit to make it more comprehensible. I also want to make sure I am doing more research. I really enjoyed working on the proposal and I feel like I'm finally starting to feel more confident about my practice which makes it much more enjoyable. I understand how free I am, that I can explore whatever feels interesting to me, that I am allowed to research things I usually only read for fun. It's good to find a purpose to your interests. 

My to do list for tomorrow is:

- Review/final edit PPP

- Finalise planning 

- Read research in the library

- Possibly some collageing in the sketchbook 

I am working on my PPP and getting feedback from my classmate. She helped me structure my written text to make sure it was in the right section of the text.  It was nice to get some perspective by reading her proposal as well. I want to focus on making my aim clear. I want to really find time to revise my research to choose what to focus on during working with on project.  

Today:

- Go to library

- Research literary resources

- Annotate research texts 

- Finish Project proposal

- Reflection

- Smile 

- Breathe

- Let go

I talked to my classmate about what I should focus on during project - she said that with such a mature conceoy (tahnk you <3) it could be fun to contrast with something quite absurd and whimsical. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W9Wn1RSp4c

Thinking of how I want to do a performance, create something about institutional critique but it scares me a bit. I want to  do something frivolous and untamed but I feel scared and and small, like I want to get out. Is that my standing point? The unwillingness becomes the willingness. I think of Andrea Fraser, “what you need to know to understand my art? I was the youngest of five siblings[...]” Me too Andrea, me too. Competing for attention, obsession with fairness, the overwhelming truth of the machinery of a social institution. Belonging, becoming someone else or something to feel belonging. Truth is immaculate where we come from. Isn’t that it? 

“That I was the youngest in a family of five,” she continued. “It was extremely competitive, and fairness became extremely important to me from that position. I had to defend my little share, right? My little piece of the pie.” Her obsession with equity, she said, again tearing up, partly “comes down to that, to being the runt.”

She was attracted to “East Coast cultural institutions and status codes,” despite feeling, or precisely because she felt, “deeply illegitimate — as a high school dropout, as a hippie kid, as a half-Puerto Rican kid … I think I was able, from the very beginning, to recognize, even if I couldn’t use the words ‘ambivalence’ or ‘conflicted investments,’” she said, assuming a deep professorial register to mock her own preferred terms, “how much I wanted from these institutions … and that I could find a kind of legitimacy in that world. And, at the same time, I did feel absolutely crushed by it.”

Am I the same? Do I feel drawn to perform  to prove my worth? "deeply illegitimate" - as a high school basket case, as a hippie kid, as a half Hungarian kid, fatherless kid, gay kid, mentally ill kid, gifted kid, sensitive child, demanding, demeaning, dreaming of  whatever makes me feel seen, makes me feel powerful, make me feel right... The core wound of unworthiness. I am questioning the probability to ever stop performing, if I get into feeding something like this. It needs to come from a humorous point of view, rather than self-pity and woundedness. Or maybe it its alright that it is inspired  by hurt. Maybe I need to get off my high horse - institutionalised, constitutionalised. 

Even writing in English feels hard today. Aujourd'hui....... today. I want it to be perfect. I want it to sound fluent. Natural. Academic. Contradictions.