Waking up in the Mind Palace

Recently I started experimenting more and more with image reflections and photo manipulation as you can see here. I found it to be necessary to explain myself with regard to these images in a little more detail as they seem to slightly resemble kaleidoscopic imagery and odd combinations of visuals, but they in fact are built on a system of meaning which I will explain here. 

We all find ourselves in situations where we look inward and feel a little or very confused about ourselves, our actions and the outside world. Being aware of these thoughts and actively trying to understand and analyse them in order to better one's 'beingness' sometimes seems like an incredibly overwhelming and difficult task. This effort of realising what these thoughts are and the serious inner stroll amongst the pillars of ideas and the big open mind palace with high ceilings and intricate paintings and pattern on the walls, is what I am trying to capture in this new series of images. Instead of looking at results and answers I am trying to capture the middle or in between stages of actions that develop from thoughts. 

I hope that this makes things a little clearer, even though it deals with confusion.

Thrown Together

Take photographs from the past, for example your ancestors and reinvent them. Not re-shooting them but working with them to create something new. What an inspiration. 

Writing and writing pages over pages every morning is the key but only referring to things you hear and learn does not justify this post. It needs to be personal. 

Here a thought on individualism.  

In today's world we are taught that being unique is a great thing and that it will take you far in life. Unfortunately there a certain guidelines that we follow that supposedly make us more unique if compared to others who coincidentally also follow those same suggestions. This of course is a hypocrisy in itself which I tried to address. By using lace consisting of a rose pattern and a real rose from a rose plant, I would like to demonstrate that being unique or an individual is not as easy but at the same time effortless. It is the idea that others might be able to see you or your problems more clearly than you do or can as you are occupied with understanding the chaos of stimuli coming together between your ears. Thus breaking out of the norm can be either confirmed or disregarded depending who looks at it, you or someone else. What I mean here is that I might see myself as unique and as an individual but you see quite the opposite and fit me neatly into a box. It is this grouping of people that contributes to the limits we encounter in regards to conquering the fear of life. This idea is a way to allow the thought of individualism and its possibility to grow out of a person, flowering like a rose to create a beautiful and unique being, which still belongs. 

A thought. A metathought.

It amazes me how many people are on this planet. How all of them somehow make it happen. Make themselves happen, even if it is just surviving. I am thinking of all the people in so many different countries and landscapes and cityscapes somehow all living together intertwined. But one thought about this whole idea bothers me. Who does the world belong to? One would say 'It belongs to the people'? But frankly, it does not. If it would, I could visit any place on this planet tomorrow without having to get a visa etc. But this is not what I mean, what I am in fact referring to is the idea of does this world not actually belong to our minds? Because yes we can see bodies walking and talking but without a mind there would be none of the latter. Say we agree. This earth is cramped with minds, thus with thoughts and all these thoughts if they would be floating around freely could be seen as the collective consciousness. So imagine you have to give this bubble of thoughts a name that actually does not refer to what it is seen as (collective consciousness) but to what it means, to what the mother-thought is all about?! I believe it is tricky. Obviously. But the thought made from the collection of thoughts I would call 'The Metathought' for the purpose of this blog. Imagine you would be able to access this metathought and throw it around like a ball, swim in it, burn a part to see how it heals itself again and cut it in half to be able to say that you were the one who experienced half of it. 

I wonder if your thoughts are still part of it if you're the one playing with it? 

This is it. A random thought for today.

 

SINcere

It is interesting to note that once you believe you have found a certain theme for your blog things run smooth. But suddenly you are not sure anymore of what to write. This happened to me. These odd thoughts and things I normally bla out on here seem to have moved to a different space. Not one I chose, to be exact, I can't find it yet. But by sitting here and typing I am recalling things I wanted to share, not the wonderful ones that just scream at you but the more subtle creatures in my head. This in itself is a thought I had, the one about the creatures. 

Today I was in a conversation that triggered a thought. The discussion was a funny one, me having to, as a result of joking around, make coffee for the other person as a way to 'pay' for my "sin" I just committed (obviously the word sin was used in a funny manner which refers to me making a joke about the person I was talking to). The important part here is that if I would not know what coffee is, would that mean that I am unable to pay for my sin because I have no reference to the demand!? I know this is very far fetched and turns the humorous event into something serious, which not as some may believe is the topic of religion, but rather human interaction. To take it further, as was added by the person demanding coffee, if you don't know how to say sorry, can you be sorry? The 'how' here does not refer to a situation such as the inability to speak or a fear of the consequence of saying something and so fourth, but to truly not knowing the concept in a form of expression. To clarify, imagine you have never heard these words before: 'I'm sorry' etc, would you be able to feel sorry because you don't have a verbal connection to it? Does the association of speech with concepts make them real? And if yes (if you could feel sorry) would it be connected to the words 'I'm sorry' or would other words be used? (Obviously language plays a role I'm not going to go into here)

The point of this little exploration into space was to take something completely out of its context and question its validity through that. At the same time it also explores connections made that might or should be analysed further, here the verbal and emotional, or at least reconsidered with regards to its authenticity. Ok fair enough, it probably is and was discussed for centuries. For me though it should be taken into the arts (again), in my case photography, and explored.

I will leave this post with another thought I picked up along the way that might fit as the inverted version of the above:

"You can be sincere. But you can be sincerely wrong."

So am I doing a good thing here?

I don't even know how to start this entry, my head feel like it is surrounded by clouds, I struggle typing fast and accurately and knowing that so much needs to be done, typed and justified, not only here. I find that for the last couple days photography became just a thing for me, and it's not a good thing. I am not seeing the beauty in it or the deeper understandings but I see it as effort, of hopeless ideas which transform into burdens. And yes I am again not inspired and after looking at ideas and images I feel that I don't appreciate them anymore, they become useless and purely skill driven, having nothing to do with thought. That was never my aim, my aim was to create art that speaks, how cliche it might sound. 

Fair enough, I didn't get enough sleep the last couple of days which might have a massive impact on all this, but I feel angry because I want to feel creative and motivated again. 

This is to much information that has nothing to do with photography but unfortunately this post will be just that. Moaning. Because sometimes we just have to moan. And no-one want's to hear it because it creates unpleasant atmospheres and feelings but maybe sometimes it must be forced to take the audience out of their comfort zone. So am I doing a good thing here?