The mode of practice I attempted to develop was one of Salvador Dali’s in which he would put a tin plate on the floor and then sit in a chair beside it holding a spoon over the plate. He would then completely relax his body to the point where he would begin to fall asleep. The moment that he began to sleep the spoon would slip from his fingers and clang on the plate waking him to capture the surreal images. I would like to try this technique because surrealism is one of my favourite art movements and I like to incorporate my subconscious into my own work and ideas.

In doing this myself, I was looking at how I could adapt it in my own way which I found difficult as I struggled to doze off or relax in a chair and I’d drop the spoon without seeing imagery on the few times I did manage to drift off after hours of trying to relax in an uncomfortable chair.

However, I did manage to briefly almost completely sleep on several 4-hour long bus journeys which were impossible to stay asleep on. I wrote some ideas down after being between sleeping and waking, rather than being magnificent drawings of surreal imagery, I wrote down ideas I had and very roughly sketched out what I had thought of whilst in that state. I thought of sculptural ideas, some inspired by works of Dali and Duchamp as that was the book I was reading on the buses and that was the imagery I was seeing.