MA Degree Show

In the summer of 2016 I graduated from Norwich University of the Arts with an MA Fine Art at distinction. As well as my final work Mam/brain, a film displayed as a triptych on three screens, I also exhibited a commissioned sound piece. The commissioned piece was a collaborative, responsive work I had put together with a co-worker and writer Ivana Finocchiaro. Through the use of social media I had grown used to reading the literal translations of Ivana's statuses, found poetic notions in the absurd framing of sentences, and disruptions in words that had no other equivalent. Ivana and I met to discuss this particular piece of her writing in which she confessed the struggles she faced living so far from home. Using the clumsy translation from social media, Ivana and I recited her writing. As she read calmly and openly it seemed that what she had felt had passed in her previous expression of emotion, but as I read it back to her in a language different to her mother tongue, those words took new meaning and became raw once again. As if new. The work, entitled Sbrodolamenti (meaning literally "the stain', and not so literally "the staining that forms on a man's chin as he slurps to quickly at his bowl or broth"), was presented through two speakers that spoke each translation from different sides of the room. Mam/brain, the work I submitted as a final piece for the degree show is not too far removed from Sbrodolamenti. Using three looped films of my throat, I positioned the TVs to almost surround the audience, as guttural sounds and gasps could be heard between the black cuts in playback. The framing imagery and small snippets of familiarity created something Christof Migone referred to as the ‘bottleneck of distraction’. The elusive nature of the satisfaction that comes from fully understanding a work, creates in the audience the driving force needed of them to listen harder, look closer, and question ‘why?’