‘Forward: Towards the Vanishing Point Boredom’ an essay by Siegfried Kracauer, in his book The Mass Ornament, discusses whether anyone can be truly bored in the modern age and how some can choose to be bored. Kracauer discusses how everything around us contains something of interest be it history, music, a story or lacking any other source of entertainment one’s own imagination. He then goes on to criticise whether anyone can truly be bored as we have entertainment thrust upon us. Therefore is boredom a choice we all actively make. Ironically, he also points out that when we become truly engrossed within something we ourselves become an object of boredom to those around us.

The tone of the work is primarily reflective but also heavily romanticised as Kracauer’s text flows fluently when read and he explains the possibilities of the imagination in depth. The work was written during the 1920’s a period of social revolution driven by the rise of technology into the everyday life. Among the first to reflect on modernity his work continues to be important today as technology becomes increasingly integrated into our lives and media forces entertainment and happiness onto us daily.

The work is best summarised when Kracauer states, ‘And even if one perhaps isn’t interested in it, the world itself is much too interested for one to find the peace and quiet necessary to be as thoroughly bored with the world as it ultimately deserves.’ (Kracauer, 1995, p.332)

Bibliography

Kracauer, S. and Levin, T. (1995). The Mass Ornament. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp.329-334

I was sitting in the studio alone late one night updating my logbook when I started formulating the initial ideas behind this piece of work, the continuation of my journey.

Fig 1 displays the initial stages of development in a piece of art that reflects heavily on the environment that I am now presented with, besieged on all sides with expectations and  no family or friends to fall back on. Yet it also presents itself as an opportunity to redefine myself closer towards the person I aspire to be and driven to become. The work looks intently into identity.

Fig1:Sketchbook Extract

The start of this piece was a documentation of my thoughts and ideas carried over from my logbook. Ideology features heavily in this respect with the original working concept being that my identity runs in my blood, it is the things I do, the company I keep, the way I act and the perils I have suffered. I do not believe that it can be confined to a single piece of work. I make my own Identity and its constantly changing.

The initial translation of this into the visual language took place in the form of a concept drawing focusing on colour, texture and layering to display a portion of my own identity. I felt layering created an immediate sense of identity due to the complexity in which we hide our true selves below multiple facades.

As a result, I began collaging those important to me, friends, family, as a base layer for the work and dissecting that into a compositional diagram to make up the shape and form of the work. This led to me redefining the original motive; Identity runs in the blood, it is the things you do, the company you enjoy and the friends and family you love. It is also the bad times you have the suffering you endure and the pains you overcome. Your identity is your blood sweat and tears, the same blood sweat and tears that goes into every piece of work we do. Thus, every piece of art I make is a microcosm of my identity.

In the future, I envision the further development of this work by increasing the scale and taking it out of the page into more sculptural elements to emphasis the layering and create a greater, more accurate representation of identity and what it is to be human.