Throughout this lesson, we spent time exploring and researching DIY cultures, specifically labels that specialise in, for example, avant-garde music, freeform music, and music that comes from marginalised groups. We learnt about what it means to be an artist and how we should (or shouldn’t) label ourselves and our identify. We also discussed artist statements and how to create them, linking intention to method to conceptual ideas as well as to social and personal elements.

From my understanding, in an artist statement it is important to get to the point, but also to be clear and methodical in the way in which you explain your intention and practice. It should also be backed up contextually; eg your aim on a wider scale, whether that be socially or politically, etc ,etc.

My artist statement (experimentation, not finished):

My work takes on various different forms. I have a deep interest in understanding the relationship between digital and acoustic elements of composition, as well as the vast technical world that these elements exist inside of.

My interest in sound collage (or epic collage) stems from contemporary deconstructed club music and the social and political motivations behind this style of composition. For me, sound collaging can be used as a means of transportation and transformation, a means of education and learning and more broadly, a means of making abstract work that evokes a wide range of emotion. Contrary to the conceptual nature of sound collaging, I am a huge fan of the technical side. I strive to produce collages that sound loud, clean and robust dynamically, but I also admire the audio artefacts that come with sound collaging. For example, the clicks at the beginning and end of a piece of audio, the graininess that comes with pitching down audio and even the absurdness that comes with reversing and cropping a file. Ultimately, I want to create art that seamlessly combines conventional song structure with the broadness and uniqueness of sound collaging.

After spending some time on my artist statement, I realised that its very hard to talk about yourself and your practices. I think this is because these things come to you naturally and can be quite hard to acknowledge most of the time.

In the coming weeks, I want to explore performative style and artistic ethos in my artist statement.