Critical Mass: Art of The UO

I actually got this idea last year but never did anything with it, and actually completely forgot about it until last Thursday when I was looking at a drawing of a skull-thing in a bathroom stall. Basically looking at various visual quirks of the University, and not so much at what I suppose would be called "legitimate" art, such as some of the painted murals around campus.

Maps: Contact Sheets

Maps

Initially the idea that arose from this image was that of being lost: imagery blending together; familiar signs, road markers, telephone wires, all a blur. There's no sense of what's coming, of what's around the corner, only fragmented images of where you've been. In the end this became an image of being lost not necessarily in terms of physical location, but of a person who's trying to remember where he's been, trying to put the pieces together.

With this thought of the image being that of a memory, I took on this idea that the telephone wires were reminiscent of synapses in the brain; thousands of wires connected together. I could imagine the wires all pulling at each other, pulling the various elements in this picture together, but becoming lost in the fog.

When I began working on this image I didn't have any clear idea of what I wanted out of it, where I wanted it to go, I simply started randomly putting pieces together. In the end I find that an appropriate work method for this picture: no clear idea of where your going, or where your at, no sense of conclusion.

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