Seeds for Ideas and Projections of Self

So here I am, an amalgamation of notes, sketches, feelings, and energy bound by time. I’m sure there’s blood, fast food, and oat milk mixed in but those components feel less relevant.

It’s exciting to be further along on this series than I was several months ago, though as I scan in old notes and more current sketches and finds I’m caught bouncing back between reshooting some of my photographs out of a desire to experiment with digital rather than film and pushing forward shooting video in small chunks at a time.

I’ve had my narrative for NIGHTMARE PROPAGANDA for some time, my characters and their designs for even longer, and when I think of what's next I find myself focused on presentation and delivery. I’ve spent a lot of time drawing, experimenting with animation, making music, and writing poems in the spirit of the characters I’m sharing headspace with and the process has left me tired some days but mostly full of anticipation for what feels like a family reunion of sorts. I was told recently that embodying the figures in this series gives my nightmares power- still digesting that thought. Thinking it’s time to really put my mad scientist hat on and experiment with how the installation will function with photo and video at it’s center.

-Marcelese

The Road to Thesis

Currently in the midst of the video portion of my thesis project Nightmare Propaganda and as I move forward in preparation for constructing the installation that will house this multimedia project I look back on the texts I’ve read to challenge my thinking in this process and I wonder if I subconsciously knew in the beginning (well over a year ago now) just how comforting working with these nightmarish figures would be for me. It’s odd to feel such a fondness for people who only exist as we imagine or how we experience them, like a campfire story, an urban legend, or a regional cryptid. These figures whom I’ve come to call The Denizens are the focus of the series and I hope to redefine what we as a society consider the nature of a nightmare, we must reconcile with our fears and acknowledge that they serve a purpose.

I plan on documenting some of my thoughts and musings during the second leg of creating the work while I start drafting the written thesis itself. If anything, these posts will help me get some of my thoughts uncluttered while also being documentation of a time where I kept myself buried in books.

-Marcelese