Living apart together: A reflection on being the same
English revision of a new project application
LIVING APART TOGETHER: A reflection on being the same
Introduction
'LIVING APART TOGETHER, a reflection on being the same' is a project that makes use of the 'blending methodology.' Through dialogues with others and connections with neighbours, family, friends, social workers and even some celebrities during the process of making these works, blending offers different perspectives on events portrayed and give more depth to the works as result. Blending can enhance the process through the use of the computer and smartphone or deviceless in public space and can change or alter consciousness directly. Continuous steering and alteration is of influence to the form of the works this results in.
Final product is a paperback publication with a graphic novel and the original works which serve the goal to integrate new-life and post-life within existing (national) traditions. The boundaries of existing realities and religions as well as a self-made belief-system that makes use of language programming is the theme that will be researched. By using the language codes this system provides as variables a personal variety of this dynamic belief serves as a guide that can be connecting and healing and influence the remaining path too be followed.
My own experiences with water, light, air, gas, animals and trees and their potency to be at rescue are factors I consider as elemental influences that are of influences to the occurences and to the works presented as well.
In the initial rough sketching phase very intuitive sketches were integgrated on landscape A3 dimensions.The result being images in which feelings and associations that arised with a multitude of influences around.In this phase I tried to fully surrender to the blendingmethodology which comprised of a blend of simultaneous feedback through technology, soundscapes and screens. The intention is to further develop the expirementationwith techniques as the editing process is developing.
International positioning
'I consider myself to be, more than anything else, a free spirit that has, through a multitude of circumstances, found himself in a reality with others, and felt the need to give expression to that process and note down what this has resulted in a long the way. I think the observation of the subjects and changing realities as they gather in my surroundings as well as the determination to not use the computer in these images can be interesting.'
The background of this project was a phase during which fake news had somewhat crippled traditional media sources and this had caused a great uncertainty and confusion among many people. At the same time codes, such as IS and IT had become vague understandings that were being used in so many contexts and with so many meanings, without any of them being the same for all people. Brainwashing, coincidence, simplification and binary thinking methods led to new language innovations that were incorporated quickly by new emerging subcultures and (undocumented) immigrants.
This innovation in language and coding incorporating artificial intelligence have had Dutch roots and have started to reach a wider audience organically that came about since the impact of the last financial crisis. This project and the products it will deliver will register and bring about more insight into how this alternative language came about, which was partly a response to overly complex thinking and writing in fake news that arose in the years before (NA-thinking).
At the same time I am very critical with regard to the Netherlands and this particular influence during a time when globalisation and new power structures had weakened it as a nationality, and some insights would deam this confusion was created a method to create diversion. Because of all this, I am currently not able to leave the country and I was administered to psychiatrical clinics without there being a psychiatrical disease present. Techniques such as blending and tuning and language coding interferences are being denied. (NOE-thinking).
I have tried to see these influences as a feature, much like AI is one, and tried to deal with it. Language has a healing, steering and connecting role that has been proven to be capable of changing the feeling of humans and the space around them, to adjust and improve it, or do the opposite. With this knowledge I experiment by inventing a fictional modus operandi that regards its surroundings as a kind of machine that can be adjusted at any given time and influence the passage of time and environment and circumstantial factors.
In the illustrated story, characters that originate from different locations that offered them an alternative upbringing meet and are confronted with new life conditions and choices.
Background maker
Leon Mussche was born on My 17th 1979 in Geertruidenberg. After a career as a sole proprietor having worked as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines in the Netherlands and abroad, such as in Belgium and Great Britain and the United States. He worked for titles such de Volkskrant newspaper and magazines among which Humanist, Flair, Psychologie magazine as well as for ministeries and governmental publications on a weekly or monthly basis on subjects such as automatisation, financial policies, city management, cloning and cryogenics for titles including Computable, Rabobank magazine, Ministery of Education, Culture and Science. Consumer Union and Merck. Besides that he ws responsible for the redesign of the Safety on Board Cards for the fleet of KLM royal Dutch airlines and has made icons and infographics for NS-hispeed and Intercity Direct, new high speed rail connections for the Netherlands railway system NS. Leon looks back on these years as a period in which he has worked with pleasure and dealt with a large network of clients and colleagues. Cretively, he became more well-known with a technique in digital drawing and the simple silhouettes and lines and layers these compositions were comprised of are something he wants to leave behind him definitively. 'It was also a very busy period with a lot of deadlines in which there was often limited time for experimentation and depth in terms of content or form. The images and the production of them had become routine-like and after a certain time this formula was not satisfactory anymore and the images are in general not of any relevant artistic historical value.'
In the past years and after his career as an illustrator he has played a voluntary role being an intermediate in life cycle management, IT and media cohesion while being unemployed. He has dealt with authorities and invasise psychiatrical and health care regimes and privacy breaches and has since this period written a book on his experiences during this time called 'Untitled 1.'
Infographics created for Intercity Direct, NS Dutch Railways.
'Cazzo Says Pass Out on Whiskas' (Adobe Illustrator) and a sketch for a bitmap style graphic cartoon.
Present conflictions
In the past 2-3 years Leon has made the decision to end his work as an illustrator for media and commercial titles with the goal to initiate a modest career as an autonomous artist, initially creating works on paper. Having worked solely with computer created graphics and vector based illustration software he has picked up drawing and working with structures and and materials in several series of works on paper. Working with dry materials such as pencils and crayons and the layering and expression these can produce has been an exiting venture. 'Often I have a very specific type of image in mind when working in this rather primitive style, it can take a long time before getting it right. I can be a perfectionist in trying to create something that is also lacking in certain respects. In the series I produce I try to reach a balance between the expression of feeling and emotions and the initial pictured I wanted to portray.'
In this period, he developed more insight in the three-dimensional space and developing an eye with a more advanced look on the space around him with changing emphasis on different matters of aesthetic and technicalities as well as augmented reality environments. All this while time and place and new-life and a changing (understanding of) space became the first cautious subjects with which he worked. 'Determinism and coincidence are metaphysical questions I had never really bothered with. Now I often sense my experiences have to be measured against a ruler that is drenched with a number of doubtful factors, and I try to play with the results that stem from that.' Blending can work as a reality check and by sending and receiving there is a form of collusion present. 'Blending can make drawing almost impossible, because peace and quiet within and around are more ideal circumstances for that. Sometimes the divertive impressions are less present and at other times they can feel like an invasion.' Not everyone is familiar with blending and language programming and it is a sensitive issue for many. 'I have experienced intense moments in clinics and have spent time in isolation cells. These are experiences I also want to process with this project.' We have chosen to take all this background noiseto the foreground in the content of the story because they have been of influence.'
Drawings in sober colours in conté crayons on paper that were made on two different occasions
after visiting this square in the centre of Amsterdam and serve as a research into time and differing circumstances and perspectives of one square in the centre of the city.
About bro's & ho's.' Series of works on notepad paper. These have changing views on sexuality as a subject.
The content
Living apart together: A reflection on being the same.
Initial sketches that were made for this project.
Preliminary script of a section of the graphic novel with captions as per initial sketches
A passer-by standing on the foreground with avatar behind him visible in background
Passer-by:
'Loe-der!'
Avatar:
'Now what did I do?'
Caption:
Outside on the street I gather all kinds of conversations by pedestrians. It is as if they are talking to me or they express strange words.
Avatar continues to walk on the street and look in the direction of another passer-by
Caption:
Sometimes I also see people that look like other people or celebrities but then turn out not to be.
Avatar in a room sitting at a table with a doctor
Avatar:
'It's like telepathy.
'Caption:
The doctor said it had been a psychosis.
Avatar sitting on the floor in an isolation cell. In this cell there are camera's with buttons marked A, B and C under it
Caption:
I was administered to a psychiatrical ward after spending half a day in an isolation cell.
Avatar sitting and talking at a table in a group room of the clinic with a doctor
Doctor:
'Impulsive behaviour.
''Borderline sexual behaviour
.'Avatar:
'I am not crazy.
'Doctor:
'Safety before all else.
''Baby...'
Avatar sitting and talking at a table with a doctor
Avatar:
'I never had a psychosis before.
'The medication is awful.'
Doctor :
'Ja ja..'
'You need a ring, marriage.'
Avatar sitting in a chair in a group room in a clinic surrounded by talking people
Unspecified people:
'Boe.' 'Huhu.' 'Toe.''Foe.''Ba-bij' 'Is.'
Caption:
There was something going on with language.
Three seated people in a group room with others in the background
Seated person 1 (platitude):
'I'm for the Muslims.'
Seated figure 2 (platitude):
I'm for the Jews.'
Standing figure: 'Faggot!'
Caption: There was play involving race and culture and there were all these foreigners.
Avatar sitting in apartment on sofa with legs on the coffee table
Through the window on the street:
'Joe.'
From the direction of neighbouring apartment:
'Poe1.'
Caption:
On a break back home and the sounds I'm hearing are still keeping me occupied.
Avatar in apartment on the phone in front of a window
Avatar: 'It doesn't ring a bell? Joe? Poe1?'
Voice from the phone: 'No... Joela?'
Caption:Sometimes I ask family and friends if they experience the same.
Avatar sitting in chair looking at a laptop standing on a table
Laptop screen display:
'Corona'
Caption:
Maybe I was living inside my own world too much.
Avatar sitting in apartment on a sofa watching television
Avatar:
'Is that how they change appearance.'
'He says veronity...'
Caption:
Watching Netflix, I was presented with the same impossible reality.
Avatar walking through a residential street meeting a passer-by
Avatar:
'There is something with language.'
'And their faces...'
Passer-by:
'Joh.'
Caption:
I asked others to make sure I wasn't living in a bubble...
Image found online: https://disorder.wiki/dissociative-identity-disorder.html
Blending Note (04-102020)
In the paperback there is a separate section devoted to this methodology.
Nameless3:
-i didn't think we'd do it here-
Leon:
-what was I about to write down-
Nameless-1:
-what you were about to write down is you should write things down-
Rob:
-because he is crazy-
Leon:
-about the thing that happened yesterday-
-when I was talking to the tree-
-just before I brought back in that shadow-
-i didn't really talk to the tree I felt it-
Bi:
-hurry then before you forget-
Leon:
-through the leaves of the tree I saw something that looked like a Gaudi staircase-
Sounds-like-Meintje:
-no I didn't see that-
Leon:
-no I didn't really see that or just very briefly-
-when I looked better it was gone-
Rob:
-this becoming more and more difficult-
Jac:
-don't forget the comma-
Presentation and planning
Because of the somewhat newsworthy creation of this project it is expected there will be public interest in it that will be stimulated in the course of the creation of the drawings by means of announcements through flyer distributions and online posts and publications to announce events taking place in community centers, libraries, galleries and through a communication and networking group by hosting a presentation and showing some of the results and the intentions of this project and the publication that will arise from it. It is the intention to work on (online and offline) events and presentations during the course of the creation of the images and the paperback and maintain a momentum and continue to respond to audience feedback.
Tentative planning of the project: December 1st 2020 – March 1st 2021.
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