For my audio self portrait I decided to modify the book "The Secret Garden" to best represent myself as an object. I chose this mainly because despite my absolute reliance on technology, I positively refuse to make the change from book to Kindle or eReader. I love everything about my overflowing bookshelf and the indescribable feeling of opening a book for the first time and letting yourself fall into a fantasy. I find that I will always have a strong connection to books and I love not only the stories inside them, but the importance of memories of people who they have belonged to. The Secret Garden was not only my favourite story as a child, but it is also an object that is tied to the memories of my childhood and all the things I used to imagine while reading stories like these. Today, I still hold onto some of my childhood imaginations and it often comes out (if ever so slightly) in most of my work.
For the modification of my object, I decided to directly use the books pages in order to create a scene (note: I specifically bought a new book so I didn't have ruin my own!). I ripped out random pages and traced stenciled trees onto them so I could cut them out. I then used the excess to create the bench and the leaves/flowers. Furthermore, the three illustrations (Mary, the crow and the squirrels) are original illustrations and also cut out straight from the book's pages. At first I was heading more in the direction of using other paper to create my scene (like coloured construction paper), but I'm extremely happy that I didn't. I'm really happy with how the trees and objects are actual passages from the book and I find that coincidentally words like "magic, clouds, child" can be seen amongst them as if relating to my childhood imagination. At the beginning I found it extremely hard to ruin something that I have such a strong opinion about and since I bought the book used, I thought of the person who had previously owned it and if it meant anything special to them. But in the name of art and the purpose of having something creative for this project, I cut it up anyway.
For my sound portion, I automatically wanted to create something soft with a kind of fantasy sound for it. I took a pulsing crescendo and decrescendo from Garageband and basically applied improvised musical typing (in the sound of a piano) until I created something that I thought went well with it. I looped it and then recorded one other piano accompaniment (also musical typing) on top of what I already created. Overall, I'm very happy with this project and I feel as if imagination is a key part of who I am. I often daydream and find myself getting lost in books and I think my sound works well with what I wanted to accomplish.
If I were to do anything to improve this project, I would definitely try and incorporate soft lighting into the book or unnoticeably in front of it so the trees are able to cast shadows on the wall. I find the trees extremely captivating and even additionally while presenting it, I was surprised to see how well the wind from the vents made the branches move. In a gallery setting I would aim at take advantage of these things and even hope to have dim lighting to create a more captivating experience.
Click HERE to listen to my sound file.
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