Today I learned to have a better understanding of some of the things that really stood out in my life and I got an idea for a fun little art project.
I'm going to make a big boy collage. I'm calling it that because it's based on a similar childhood class project but digital of course so I can include moving images and sound. The idea started after I sent a small video clip of Bill Murray singing Peace, Love, & Understanding in the film Lost in Translation to a couple text threads over the weekend.
I had that one fresh on hand because I had just read an interview with Sophia Coppola. I keep a small little arsenal of recognizable gifs and videos as a way to have more complex reactions than text or emojis. I like to clip these from things that resonate with me for whatever reason. This really years ago when I started clipping random scenes from games, films, and music as a reference. You'll see them scattered throughout this site and I try to keep them short so they'll work in text threads and because I'm referencing them fairly and not just publishing copyrighted material. It's usually just enough to convey a message.
In a way, this website is just a digital scrapbook or big boy collage of sorts. I first referenced my original childhood project back in 2009 in Hopes for the Future1 because I think I published the photo on Facebook because I thought it be funny for my 'friends' to see what I'd wished for juxtaposed with how they are turning out.
In some discussions with the better half and my text threads, I've noticed while we have individual experiences, we also sometimes share them... especially when it comes to some cultural references. My wife and I started pointing out the things that have had influences on us to date. And as I looked up some of them, I found that the way I've interpreted it over the years has changed. I'm particularly fond of revisiting these key films to reexamine them as an adult. I think one of the first one's I did was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 20162. Another pretty revelatory film was Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator because I realized that in the mid-80s I had just been sold an idea of what was 'cool' using slick graphics, juvenile humor, and a little action. Although I was mostly a poser, acceptance is a bitter pill, especially from the vantage point of Gen-X media hype. I'll likely skip my commentary on Knight Rider because who doesn't like a futuristic badass car?
Some things exerted influence which I can't understand exactly why and others are plain as day now. Some films or music have entirely different meanings for me now. I took my mom out to lunch yesterday with a friend and his mom. The conversations invited this sort of reminiscing, so I went digging for references. I re-watched a scene I had stuck to memory from New York Stories last night which likely had more of an influence on me deciding to go to art school than I'd like to admit. There are quite a few things that had influence that I don't like at all now. I even went in and started adding some of these to my existing lists to paint a truer picture3.
I'm not sure how to go about compiling all of the most important or influential elements into one single big boy collage. Right off the bat, I've noticed the influences I had very little say so in like the wallpaper I had in my room as a kid or the shows my dad watched on television. This should be fun. I'll cut the media into one video and summarize it in an essay.I'm thinking just top 100 or something with a mix of events, things, books, comics, films, tv, and music. For now, I've started the list @ /lists/influence4, but I think it'll take me a little bit of time thinking about it to get it right.
Footnotes
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Hopes for the Future - https://davidawindham.com/in-the-future/ ↩
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E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - https://davidawindham.com/et-extra-terrestrial/ ↩
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Lists / Art / Motion - /lists/art/motion ↩
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Lists / Influences - /lists/influence ↩