Outcome

This film is a short representation of a theory of Jarry's - that there is no night or day, and that life is continuous. It also represents the surreal quality that is found in Jarry's work, and the blurred border between real life and fantasy. I feel this is what sums up Alfred Jarry in a way, as he lived his life walking (or cycling) along the divide between dreams and reality, constantly challenging the world and traditional science, and the beliefs and values in society. This film includes the logo of a spiral shape, which is the emblem belonging to the College of pataphysics. The reason a spiral was chosen was because it represents something potentially infinite, and ever growing and expanding, which is appropriate because of the nature of pataphysics-always developing and pushing forwards. I think that the symbol represents Jarry too, as he was continually growing along with his work, and questioning everything. He was also of course very absurd, and confusing when looked at for too long.

Solution...

Due to the vast expanse of Jarry's work, and the fact that he did not just write plays, it is very difficult to focus on one aspect of him to communicate within my final piece. I think with any person it would be impossible to create a 'biography' as such, which included everything about them. I will aim to create a representation of an interesting aspect of Jarry by the most appropriate means. I am still most intruiged by his philosophy of life, the mind that created such diverse work, and pataphysics. I hope my final outcome will be successful in communicating these things in a visual way.

Developments

The apsect of Alfred Jarry I have found most interesting, and most challenging to understand, is his philosophy of 'pataphysics. The fundamental things to understand are that pataphysics describes a world additional to the 'traditional' world - crashing the barrier between reality and fantasy. It is the logic of the absurd, the science of imaginary solutions, yet it seems to make a lot of sense to me in terms of contemplating the world-although the language is often hard to decipher. A definition I have found to be very accurate when looking at Jarry's work:
'Pataphysics is a kind of "spiritual freedom, born of a detached contemplation of the kaleidoscopic spectacle of life (or of the essential 'theatricality' of existence) and of a detachment, ultimately, from one's own 'self'".
(from Alfred Jarry: A Critical and Biographical study, Keith Beaumont)
Much of Jarry's work is about freedom - from the world and from the self - the end of this process being death.
Even though his work is often challenging to understand, I like his ways of thinking, and the simplicity with which he makes such unique observations and conclusions.

Jarry project

Here are some items I have found in the research process of this project. The absinthe is a key point to look at because Jarry drank copious amounts of it. Through my research I have come to the conclusion that the state of mind you are in when having drunk a lot of absinthe is not dissimilar to that of the state of mind of 'pataphysics. A kind of spiritual freedom - a detachment from one's self. I think that this is a refreshing find, as it enables me to comprehend the mindset of Jarry and the mentality behind his work.
You may be thinking that I have just gone and got pissed but that is actually not the case - I have only tried absinthe once.
I have also found that Jarry was horrified by the idea of physical existence, which explains his theatrical personality, his constant facade, his consumption of alcohol, and the way he lived in general. Jarry was very much caught up in his imaginary world, which comes into being in his plays and various works.
The other image here is the character King Ubu, which Jarry actually created from a woodcut he did. King Ubu epitomises all that is ugly and mediocre in the world. He has a spiral on his belly, which is now the symbol of the College of Pataphysics. It signifies a movement outwards, which is potentially infinite in it's expansion.

Jarry

The results of a google image search on alfred jarry include black and white portraits of him, some unusual illustrations, and an image of John Peel reading Ubu Roi - the play that Jarry is most famous for, because the first word in the first act is Merdre (shit). I am a fan of Peel so this interests me further - i wonder if i will have time to read the whole play by the end of the project...So there was a riot when this word was heard on the stage, and people booed, though it marked the beginning of experimental theatre and, soon after, the Surrealist movement arrived. Jarry did not just write plays, he wrote novels and texts, and developed his own theory of 'pataphysics' - a philosophy which concerns itself with parodying science theories and metaphysics. so in the loosest sense of the word he was a theorist. I need to look into this in greater depth as it is the background from which jarry took his ideas, and the ideology behind his work.

New project: Biographies

The name I have been given for this project is Alfred Jarry. I had not heard of him before, so the first thing I did was to look him up on Wikipedia. I was expecting to be able to access some pictures from this page, as I enjoy looking at images to give me ideas prior to reading up on something. However there were none, so I read the wikipedia article. Content that I had consumed a nicely sized summary of who Jarry was, I went to check my emails, and found that I had recieved mail in my designers are wankers account. Went to look at that and found an invitation to an exhibition by Fiona Gall called the Emerald Faerie. The emerald faerie is locked in a bottle of absinthe. Gall bases her light installations and 3d light pieces on her experience of absinthe - just as Jarry was influenced (and under the influence)by absinthe when he wrote his plays and thought up his theories. Jarry called absinthe the 'green goddess'. It is likely that his love of absinthe and drugs killed him. I thought this would be a great start to my research, and to compare his work to that of the present day will give a different perspective to my outcome.
Here's the link to designers are wankers:
http://www.designersarewankers.com/profiles/profile.jsp?profile_id=5374

What London listens to

the next step

Now all i need to do is decide which method I think is more successful and carry out more research on that particular thing in order to collate my information and present it in a visual way. I like the idea of taking photos of the people I ask and making a booklet, or making a mix cd of all the tracks people listen to. On the other hand I could create a geographical map, and map the lyrics of the songs directly onto the place I met the person.

what are you listening to?continued

This is a series of videos I took on the second day when interviewing people about what they were listening to on their headphones. This proved even more difficult as not many people were willing to be filmed!! Thankyou to those that did.
I also sent out an email to some people in London, and also to the designers that I know, to see what they were listening to at that moment. I like the idea of focusing on one question like what are all the girls i know listening to right now?

What are you listening to?

This is the question I want to ask. I want to know what London is listening to. Over two days I have gone about researching this in a few different ways. I began on the 31st October in Trafalger Square asking people what they are listening to on their headphones. I then recorded their voice saying what they are listening to. This proved slightly difficult as some people did not want to be recorded. I wrote down the time, place and date as well as the track name and artist.

New direction

I have thought more about the project and what I specifically want to find out, so I have decided to go out around London to gather research. On the first day I just listened to what was going on around me and took notes. Then I thought I needed to pick an aspect of the sound in London that I could record something about, rather than descriptive words, as this would prove difficult when it came to making a map.