These works are part of a two-year research project for Visual Arts in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program in my time in School of the Arts (SOTA).

 

Dealing with the existence of muscle memory, I experimented typing on various mediums including paper, clay and tin foil. Typing for me became a way for me to express my feelings, creating objects that documented the physical force of typing, but not the actual words and phrases I used. This helped me learn how to let go of my obsession with attempting to remember everything, and therefore always trying to document everything. Seeing this as a therapeutic experience, I shared it through a public work in the form of a booth, from which others could have the same experience, and derive their own meaning of it.

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Photo 1: Paper typings by myself

Photo 2: Clay typings by myself and two friends

Photo 3: Tin foil typings by myself

Photo 4: Clay and tin foil typing by myself

Photo 5: Public typing Happening

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The Process:

It first started when I noticed I typed on the keyboard in a similar way that I played the piano: wrists held up, pressing the keys with a soft touch, moving across the keys using the arm rather than the wrists. This led me to learn about muscle memory in typing. I began to test this, dipping my fingers in ink and typing on a piece of paper [Photo 1]. I experimented with other mediums, firstly with clay {Photo 2]. Paper was more compact and mobile, recording the humidity at the time of typing (typings done in an air-conditioned room dried far more crinkly and formed than those done in a more humid naturally-ventilated room). Emotions could be seen in the errant splashes from intensive typing,the length of the typing in the amount of ink on the page. In contrast, clay recorded emotion in the depth of the indents made, information of the typer such as the length of their fingernails could see seen in the small details captured by the clay. In some pieces, parts of the typer's fingerprints can be seen. Indents could be dated as the clay dried over the typing process, and so later indents would be lighter than ones made at the start of the typing, when the clay was still fresh. Another medium I experimented with was tin foil. Tin foil alone [Photo 3] was incredibly sensitive, capturing details whilst making its own creases as ripple effects of the force of the typing. Its sensitivities made it hard to preserve, in which spray foam was eventually added as support. Tin foil with slip (liquid-like clay), and then fired, created a wonderful piece which slowly disintegrates with the wind, each breath and touch, recording its own experience of the environment much later after it is made as a typing. [Photo 4]

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I realized that typing on these mediums was very therapeutic for me: I am obsessed with time, with trying to remember everything. I fear forgetting. But while these typings didn't record the exact words and phrases I used that day, they still contained a fragment of how I felt. I could see through them, that even though the words had left, their presence had left a mark on the paper, the clay, the foil. Even if I forgot the exact events, people and things that made me who I am, it does not remove the effect they eventually had on me. Who I am, and continue to change to become, is a documentation of everything I have experienced. Thus typing became a way for me to let go of my obsession with remembering, to just acknowledge feelings and then let them go. This led to my next work, a month long diary process [Photo 5], which led me to imagine this process as a product, to share this experience with others [Photo 6].

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The whole project culminated in a public happening in school [Photo 7}, where I could share this experience through a booth with instructions, ink, paper and a drying line. Students could follow the instructions to create a typing of their own, then clip it on the drying rack to dry. It was an experience in typing, and a spectacle of watching many peers come across the booth and experience it for themselves. Over the course of a week, I collected 80 typings from students, complete with their names on their typings. Responses from friends characterized the experience as fun, interestingly weird, and therapeutic as well. The experience had been shared, and meant different things.