New ways of looking for inspiration

Another quote I recently stumbled upon, in a number of the research books is also a great affirmation for an Art Student...

                  Dies non transeat sine linea,     or,     nulla dies sine linea

Which roughly translates to

                                "never a day without a line...."

(Whereas the latin word 'linea' can mean both drawing and writing)

So...  I put my books away, watched and listened to an inspiring lecture from Professor Ryan Gander today, who uses many types of media to explore and create his work.  He is interested in the unseen things sometimes taken for granted in our every day lives.... the triggers and links through language that link to new thoughts for identities, IDs - pictures - drawings... you get the picture? (heh heh)

His works since 2003 have been prefixed with the title of Loose Associations"... so, as 2013 is his 10th year, this he calls LAX... Which happens to be the abbreiviation for Los Angeles International Airport in California.  and so another thread of associations develops...

It seems that a lot of Ryan's work has been influenced by the thinking of a 20th Century American sociologist / psychologist, Erving Goffman, and his books such as "The Backstage Language of Behaviour" published in 1959.  In fact, this book was cited in Ryan Ganders' lecture on 3rd October.

Further reading of some of Goffman's work helped me to explore the ideas and notions of identity in human behavior from an alternative perspective too, which Professor Gander also exploits to the full.  Goffman's work was inherently linked to human identity, another good reference would be "The Presenting of Self in Everyday Life".  A helicopter view of this provides a reference that his work emphasised the use of symbols in the performance of their social roles. i.e. Paraphrased very simply, this is "How people 'appear' to others."   Geoffman talks of a repertoire of symbols that actors develop to manage their social identities and to defend themselves from unwanted scrutiny or negative views and appraisals from others...  This sometimes leads them to act in a similar way to each other, hence establishing a common "stigma" or collective identity.

In this sense, I pursued my observations of groups of people together, which is most evident in larger assemblies of people, such as the environment I am in now... the university.  For fear of lots of controversy, I'm rather guarded about my next statement, however, I think it's very pertinent...

(Quick Water-colour Pencil Sketch)

Many people seem, particularly in a western culture, to be preoccupied with their self image.  They try to be unique for uniqueness sake... To be individual.  However, the symbols and signs used to create this seemingly individual identity generally all come from the same sources, based on whatever the current vogue or fashion might be...  This is sometimes described as the herding instinct, which I make (to me as obvious) link to herds of sheep, all trying to be different, yet ostensibly remain the same. With that in mind I made a number of thumbnail sketches of sheep wearing bling jewellery / baseball bats / driving new Range Rover Sports cars / Wearing Ralph Loren or Polo or Boss / having Tattoos and body piercings etc.   So it's almost like a rather limited vocabulary, just repeating the same symbols (or words) in a different way... A bit like the famous Eric Morcambe (TV Comedian of the 1970s & 80s) quote regarding Ernie Wise - his comedy partner's horrendous Piano playing; to a famous concert pianist (Andrte Previn)...  He said, "All the right notes are there, they are just coming out in the wrong order"... I feel that this is sometimes how it appears in our current culture.

[Sketch drawn in Manga Studio V4 - EX]

It is all basically (in my opinion) down to the fact that we are still just higher order primates! (I'm saying this, only slightly with tongue in cheek...:-) )

 We just want to belong to the group...  We want to belong to our tribe... - Just like 10s of thousands of years ago when we (as Homo Erectus, then as Homo Sapiens...) were moving from the jungles to the plains.

We as humans don't want to be left out. We need to be part of a group.  We get our primal needs of safety through this feeling of belonging to a group, but it seems very few people will accept that it is because of 'in-security'  - that may be one of the strongest motivators!...

So, as an experiment, just suppose, from an "Identity" point of view, what would a sheep or any other animal say about humans?

I wondered...