Think of the headless chicken expression as thinking less before you act, letting your instincts guide you. For someone like me who is used to overthink is hard.
This was the first task has been assigned to us. We listened to an audio that at first glance sounded like a weird poem or rather a nursery rhyme, rich as it was with onomatopoeia, and rhymes. Each of us has been given a sentence from this extract, and without knowing its meaning, purpose, or context, we have been asked to interpret it freely in our own way.
This was mine: "...while you hee. But wait. Low in dark middle heart. Embedded ore."
First, I looked for the meaning of words I did not know. Then, I thought of the images that this sentence evoked in my mind. I immediately felt a strong connection with this sentence, since I imagine that embedded ore as my identity as a creative, stuck in the middle of darkness. In fact, over the past few months I have been thinking a lot about my future as a creative, questioning even my skills. Probably this is the reason why I had so many difficulties in finding a way to interpret this sentence.
Later, since I felt a sense of no completeness, I decided to add a few words, creating a sort of small poem. “I am crying while you hee. But wait! I will be able to pull it out. There, Low in dark middle earth. That Embedded ore. My Embedded ore. And I will show it to you. And then while I hee, you will cry.”
Then the breakthrough came.
Since I found myself obsessed with finding a meaning, I decided to completely ignore this aspect and go beyond, by simply playing with shapes and colours. What I have done was outside of my comfort zone. I created a pattern made up of type and then I applied it to some objects to create a shopping catalogue of branded products.
Finally, we discovered the context. The text was taken from the eleventh episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Sirens.
We have been then asked to realize a different outcome, aware of this new information.
I realised a graphic representing an old polaroid taken in Dublin on June 16th, 1904 that portrays the author in the arms of a mermaid, who represents his wife, met that summer day.
My intention was to merge the private and the public sphere of the author’s life.
I also realized some random graphics, by using the same pattern I previously created. This experimental work has been inspired by the technique used by the author to write the book, the stream of consciousness, which is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which [sic] pass through the mind" of a narrator.” (Cuddon, 1984)
Just like James Joyce, I decided to let myself be carried away by the flow of my thoughts, regardless of where that would lead me. What I discovered surprised me. New skills I did not even think I had. I have learned that the outcome is not as important as the process itself and that things will make sense looking backwards.