IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS¶
I changed my final project, to see the new proposal, check the first part of my fina project documentation here
THE SEED¶
Working with my hands has always had a prominent place in my life. Not only has it allowed me to express emotions that couldn't be explain with words, the contact with the material through the touch, it has also allowed me to create a space in which to understand and process them, to transform and go forward. After this personal experience, I wanted to investigate the reasons about the benefits I felt. I wanted to be able to communicate them to the world, in an artistic and practical way, to extend the fruits that are obtained from this practice. Make in a conscious way, following all those people who have raised this topic before, a practice that was born spontaneously as a basic need in human beings.
Neanderthals, more than 64,000 years ago already expressed that need. They looked for ways to transform and manipulate the surrounding materials to express and share their daily experiences. Looking at the dating of these first expressions, it makes me realize how primary this need is in the human being and how linked it is to the development of our consciousness. It is proven that the hand-brain connection implies for the human being that essential alliance that acts as feedback to favor our neuronal development. There is no doubt, then, of the connection between these two factors.
Working with the hands improves neuronal plasticity, optimizes our skills, as well as concentration and even mental calm. During the practice, endorphins are generated, thus reducing stress and even anxiety.
THE SHADOW¶
I observe human behavior in these times, especially in cities. I see an unbalanced society. Our magic need to create it is no longer growing in a healthy direction and has led us to a difficult pace to maintain. Humans mistreat the planet putting our habitat and the species with which we share it at risk, but we also imprison ourselves in dynamics that punish us psychologically. We create a rhythm that makes us sick and devalue us as a species.
There are few intimate and safe spaces in which we can reflect and work to develop the positive values of our species. Spaces where to balance negative and destructive impulses, which are also human, and to transform them into something that expands us instead of repressing us. There aren’t in off physical spaces in our environment and in our minds, where to process vital experiences as individuals and as a community.
We have serious problems to communicate honestly. Generate true dialogues in order to find solutions, instead of attacking and defending as the basis of communication. We only need to watch the political debate of the last elections in Spain, to realize that something is not going well. We perceive ourselves as separate elements; the awareness of being part of a whole has vanished. We can contact someone on the other side of the world, but can we truly communicate with this person?
Feeling as isolated parts we lose the power to change things in the community and little by little that feeling is translated to our lives. It makes us elusive and defensive and takes away the wellness of being part of something and enjoying the spontaneity and qualities of our surroundings. We stop valuing it and as a consequence, taking care of it.
By incorporating the machines into the production system, we have reduced manufacturing time by increasing the amount of products we make. Instead of taking an advantage of this in a humanist way, we have reduced its benefit to economic growth. Generating more economic capital is above generating more human well-being. We are immersed in a dynamic of producing and producing, consuming and consuming that generates us stress, frustration and more disconnection with ourselves, with the individuals of our community, the environment and the planet. This brings us back to the problem of the lack of safe, calm and ponders spaces. Places where to be aware of how our consumption is, and from what purpose and need we produce. Also spaces where to reduce this accelerated pace that a machine can maintain (and even the machines have their limits even if it is different from ours) but that we must reduce for our well-being. We spent a lot of time in advancing technologically and it seems that other needs lagged behind.
I have also observed that this ability to produce at high speed, leads us to create empty works and objects, with apparent little transcendental content. That content, which at the beginning of our history was so vital and part of the engine of creation, no longer occupies a relevant place. We generate millions of images and objects on which we have lost power because we reproduce without thinking about stereotypes. The alchemy between being and material is lost, the transformation that is generated in both during their interaction and how this affects the viewer.
Creation is a process of transformation, of matter and of the person who generates it. The object at the end of the process is a mirror in which this person and also the other spectators can look and expand their knowledge about themselves and the society and environment in which they live. Looking at magazines, Instagram, series, it seems that this property has been unbalanced by aesthetics unbalancing them.
RESEARCH
- Digital helth
- Consequences of not carrying out motor activities for human health
- How the use of technology affects our wellbeing
THE LIGHT¶
I deeply believe in the human impulse to search the light. Like a plant, it doesn't matter the bizarre forms that it will acquire on that path, in the end, it will arrive where there sun is. Life is made of cycles. The development of humanity also has them. We have invested a lot of energy for technological development and perhaps not so much to observe and grow as the human being, how to deal with our fears, our emotions and feelings... Perhaps, it is the time to take advantage from these technological advances, to provide us with the space necessary to grow in other aspects. How to do it I don’t know yet. It’s a path that I hope will be revealed during my process. But I know the starting point. Not only logical and intellectual intelligence can give us knowledge. There are other intelligences such as the naturist, the spatial or the corporal kinesthetic, with which we can discover and understand life. All of them act when we work with our hands. There are many lessons to discover by getting your hands dirty! Stagnant ideas or misunderstood feelings can be unlocked without being rationalized by spending an afternoon painting or making pottery if we do mindfully. Pay attention when you touch a matter, open a space to listen. A moment of silence where we can perceive the needs of that matter, its properties, its potential, at the same time that it’s adapt to the movements of our body. Developing this communication with the subject can make us more empathetic. Also when this space is created, a flow of energy runs through us, a kind of energy that is above our will. Feeling that energy pass through you detaches you from your ego and makes you feel part of a wider world, as happens with meditation when the flow of the mind momentarily shuts down. The sense of collaborating rather than mastering is deeply understood, by vivid experience. We can feel how the vital energy increase and also, when we go ahead on the activity, the calm comes to. Create with your hands also allows us to materialize the invisible stuff. The human being needs to keep a tangible result that will also bring us satisfaction, thus improving our self-esteem. The object can be used as a mirror in which to understand ourselves and understand the world in which we live.
RESEARCH
- Gilles Deleuze idea of artist's canvas as a potential space for unconsious visual expression
- The MAINSTAY of Karma Yoga practice
- Effects of touch on human psychology
THE PLANT¶
Matter-centric development¶
What do I mean by matter-centric development?
The approach to the final object will be through research and communication with each matter. With this practice, I want to claim the need to contact again with the resources that surround us and raise them above of the overproduction of products. Also claim more sensory and curious experiences to discover the planet in which we live (I think, this gives rise to the desire to respect it ;) )
I want to use happily collected local products. Discover everything I can do with them, using my hands and the tools that I can create with them and those in the Lab. Discover the changes in their properties by manipulating them, mixing them and applying different forces. That's why I write two tables in which I declare what materials and tools will be used and in what way. It doesn't matter if I later skip the rules, but if I do, I want to be aware of it and know the reasons why I do it.
Finally, the final form I give them will be determined by the properties that I have seen in them by this first approach.
It is also matter-centric because, in the same way that I seek to observe the changes in matter I'm working with, I am also interested in the changes that this matter generates in me. How its properties can move different emotions and parts of my behavior. Also, transform Deleuze's idea into, use matter for the unconscious expression of texture
RESEARCH
- Nick Neddo research
- Natural Dyes
- MaterFad
- How art therapy use the properties of materials
- How does the hand mind connection work
THE FRUIT¶
3 MONTHS GOALS
The first part of my project will be dedicated to knowing the materials in my environment and their possibilities when working with them. When I have created a small library of materials it will be the moment to use them to create an art work. I would really like to find a way that the object interacts in a tactile way with the viewer. I am interested in exploring human reactions to touch. The touch to textures but also to other properties such as temperature, humidity...
I am also interested in the approach that the viewer can be part of that creation process. Give them time to create, claiming the process above the final object.
I am interested in starting to work with space. I think maybe of a dynamic object, which can occupy space and body. That refers to another theme of my project, the object as a means of communication, with us and with the environment. I am interested in the idea that something that happens inside us, is embodied in matter through our hands and communicates with our surroundings and the people around.
Eva Diez's photography inspired me deeply. Thence the idea of creating portable houses that can be used on the body or in space. Use the idea of home to materialize the intimate space that is generated when working with the hands.
Also during these three months, I would like to know more about how the unconscious is projected in the work of art and what effects it has to work with your hands.
6 MONTHS GOALS
With the result of the project, I would like to get a scholarship to continue researching. I want to expand the quantity of pieces and evolve in their complexity.
I also want to show up at some art competitions and exhibit it in galleries.
Starting to generate workshops where to run this practice for other people is also of interest to me.
A YEAR
I want to have my own studio in which to continue creating and having developed workshops. Also create activities for the public space.
THE TIME¶