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| 'Stream of consciousness', artist book, 21x14.8 cm, newsprint. |
Stream-of-Consciousness writing is a literary method of representing a blending of mental processes in fictional characters, usually in an unpunctuated or disjointed form of interior monologue. In literary criticism, Stream-of-Consciousness is used as a method to portray an individual’s point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character’s thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions.
This publication aims at exploring how the intuitive selection of experiences (seemingly unrelated to each other) in order to elaborate on, and ultimately, to understand the correlations between them, can, progressively, lead us to self awareness. Intentionally unbound, and by not having page numbers, this project represents an existential itinerary of a character among cultural surroundings and perceptions (google images). Hence, it can be, fundamentally, shaped (re-arranged) on the basis of a character’s thought processes, ‘... either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions.’
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| 'Stream of consciousness', artist book, 21x14.8 cm, newsprint. Spread. |
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| 'Stream of consciousness', artist book, 21x14.8 cm, newsprint. Spread. |
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| 'Stream of consciousness', artist book, 21x14.8 cm, newsprint. Spread. |
Concept 2 - Reassessment:
Design wise, this project is very interesting. Being unbound and with no page numbers, it works really well towards communicating the concept of the Stream of consciousness as an unpunctuated form of narrative.
However, the problem of this concept is that it fails to deliver the research objectives -to communicate the concept of self awareness to the audience. I conceived and designed this artist book as a form of narrative, intrigued from a random chosen image (Aqua), based on my Stream of consciousness. People who are going to be invited to re arrange this publication on the basis of their Stream of consciousness though, will probably be limited on building their own narrative associations, because of the predetermined imagery. Even though the format of this book is open to re arrangement -in fact it is designed as such, still, the parameters (imagery) contradict fundamentally with the very concept of Stream of consciousness.
At this point, I came to the conclusion that, in order for this idea to work really well it has to be contextualised into a workshop, where I would ask people to do -from the outset- what I did, on the basis of their own interior monologue. Otherwise, re arranging the 'Stream of consciousness' artist book it is going to be just a re arrangement that does not necessarily communicate self awareness through a stream of consciousness. Rather, what it does communicate is individuality as well as the difference between the unconscious and the background -cultural or other- of each participant. In addition to that, coming up with sort of playful 'arty' (artist) books it is a bit shallow, and something 'limited' from the outset.
To sum up, the problem of 'Concept 2' is that while it is about the Stream of consciousness, its ontological context limits the concept by asking just for a re-arrangement of a predetermined and pre-associated imagery.
Nikos Georgopoulos,
London,
April 2012
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