Hello friends,
I spent more time then I would like looking at screens this summer. I'm sure a lot of people have felt this way. For me, some of it has been a total pleasure.
I was one of 22 artists invited to be part of the Yorkshire Sculpture Network, set up by the excellent team at Yorkshire Sculpture International. It is a 4 month long, fortnightly digital meet-up supporting us artists in our practice and wellbeing. A gift I am very grateful for during lockdown.
It has been such an honour and pleasure to be part of. Getting to listen to and ask questions of the likes of: Leilah Babirye, Jennifer Boyd, Emma Cousin, Kevin Hunt, Helen Pheby, Rachel Pimm, Thomas J. Price, Zoe Williams and Haroon Mirza.
Screen grab of the Yorkshire Sculpture Network crew, mid-Zoom.
It was during one of these talks that I had a moment of personal crisis.
Kevin Hunt was passionately describing how he had managed to find his safe and happy place by ordering in some food, meeting up with his friends at a digital art exhibition and going for a virtual walk around the show, discussing the works. How beautiful.
Until Kevin mentioned it, the thought of visiting an online exhibition wasn't even remotely on my mind...
It was at this point that I had a moment of total creative failure panic. I decided I must be a fraud. The fact that I was developing and psyched more than ever on my practice at that moment didn't seem to matter to my fight or flight brain.
What was I doing in my down-time? Playing PUBG Mobile.
Yes, on the face of it, it might seem like I was spending my time jumping out of an aeroplane dressed as a baby shark or sometimes just in my pants hungry to virtually kill random people from around the world all in the hope of winning a Chicken Dinner...
I then realised that this was my version of Kevin's Art Gallery with friends.
I was logging into a fairy-tale with friends that we would create and experience in real-time. A lens away from the fear, sadness and confusion of what has been happening on planet earth. We were a community on our own terms, finding our freedom.
The game starts with us ceremonially dressing (our avatars) to suit our mood and imaginative desires. Before I know it I'm jumping out of an aeroplane and entering a mythical land into an as yet untold story that we will create.
Sometimes we look for the most remote mountain we can find and we just hike and talk, taking in the dramatic views and soundscape we would find ourselves in. Other times we drop straight into the hot zone, gunfire and virtual death everywhere. I think my personal favourite story we created was when we named ourselves the Super Peace Keepers and we vowed to not hurt or harm a single person and see how long we would last before our inevitable deaths. To our surprise our Korean teammate that we had never met before thought this was a wonderful idea and joined us for the ride, the four of us in a circle, facing each other holding hands as we were taken out by another team hungry to create their own story.
Super Peace Keepers - A screen-grab of our final moments together.
Last night, dressed as a wolf, I visited a bombed-out Art Gallery.
“Stories are one of the most ancient and most effective ways of making sense of the world” - Philip Pullman
Look after yourselves and each other,
Christopher.