#keywordsanddefinitions

[katiecrowther-blog]

Keywords and Definitions:  Escapism

My last word is “escapism”, this is a noun I encountered in my studio work during my last project “Documentation and Interpretation”. I was interpreting a David Bowie song “Life on Mars?” which I think is a song about escapism, how our boring everyday lives makes us want to escape to a different world, in Bowie’s example, the world of entertainment.

The definition of escapism is described as the “tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy”. The word “distraction” links to the context in my studio work, as I believe the world makes us want to escape to another space. Furthermore, “entertainment” and “fantasy” links well to my idea of another world, the world of entertainment and fiction. Also, “unpleasant” relates to our metropolis that is the hard, exhausting, chaotic world which overwhelms us.  In conclusion, I think this word means wanting to run away from real life by immersing ourselves in the many worlds of escapism such as entertainment, which is ironic because entertaining such as television, is based on real life and vice versa.

[katiecrowther-blog]

Keywords and Definitions: Metropolis

I came across this word in my contemporary practice in context lectures, it is a word that I had not heard before but the grandeur of it interested me. When I researched the word, the official definition can mean the capital of an area or a “very large and busy city”. To me this word describes an area that is compact and chaotic, I imagine a very hectic environment.

Moreover, this word became much more fascinating because of the context behind it in my lecture, the lecture was about “the everyday” looking into what the everyday is, and how it effects us in our environment. The writers Georg Simmel and Mark Dion, have a shared idea that our world is becoming too urbanised and chaotic. These writers describe our living conditions as a “metropolis”, I only really understood what Georg Simmel was trying to say when I researched this definition. I agree with my interpretation of Georg Simmel’s theory, that the world is too fast and compact for us to mentally cope with, the amount of information and stimulus that bombards our nerves everyday, forces us to escape our demanding world by immersing ourselves in another space. Therefore I used these writers in my last project because I was looking into our urban world and its effects on us.

[katiecrowther-blog]

Keywords and Definitions:  Blasé

I came across this word in my Contemporary practice in context module, and studio practice when I was researching Georg Simmel, a writer that described our urban environment. Blasé is an adjective that has origins found in French and German. The dictionary definition says blasé means “unimpressed with or indifferent to something because one has experienced or seen so often before”. To me this word describes an attitude, it means someone is unenthusiastic, emotionless or uncaring towards something, in my project’s context, we become indifferent to our urban city environment.

I found this word interesting and incorporated it into my last project where I was looking into the idea of the metropolis and how its chaos forces us to want to escape. Therefore, this word links to my project because it describes our attitude towards our urban environment as uninterested and bored because we are subjected to it so often. I think it represents perfectly how we have become indifferent to our world, that we have made into a fast pace, repetitive metropolis.

[katiecrowther-blog]

Keywords and Definitions: Everyday

My second keyword is “everyday”, I came across this word in my Contemporary Practice in Context module and continued to use it in my project work, where I was looking into our chaotic urban world and our repetitive routine which makes us want to escape. In the dictionary, “everyday” is described as a “happening or use every day” and is associated with “chores” and “day-to-day” which is a repetitive phrase in itself. I think this shows how the “everyday” is boring, it becomes tedious to us. Therefore, making us want to escape it, which is the concept of my last project. 

In my modules I was looking at a writer called Georg Simmel, whom described our daily life in the metropolis as “blasé”, meaning we find our everyday lives boring and uninteresting, so we escape them by immersing ourselves in another world, for example, the world of social media is the most common escapism today.

[katiecrowther-blog]

Keywords and Definitions: Time

This is my first chosen word that I encountered in my studio work and context module, the word interested me because it represents something that no one really knows what it is, or if it even exists. I love the notion of time, it is something I always use to question as a child and something I still question today in my practice, ‘what is space and time?’

The dictionary definition for time is “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and future regarded as a whole”. To me this is describing time as the basis of our existence like it is natural and important to all life. However I don’t agree with this, I believe time is a measurement we have created for our world to work, it is more of a numerical language we have invented for globalisation in our urban world that is continuously speeding up due to technology and transport development.