Just hear me out

So my progression for 406 has moved to sound. Or I've started experimenting with sound as an alternative approach to image making. Staying close to my senor show project I started by recording sound in the gym. I was initially thinking about how we have the ability to mentally construct an image with our imagination. Then I started thinking about the confidence and the athletic mentality> this led to recording some of the athletes. Basically I wanted to hear their mental space or what they were thinking to themselves before competing or while practicing. I wondered if it was a lot like the same things I used to think about back in the day when I played competitively. And I got exactly what I expected ...a series of encouraging phrases repeated over and over (your own personal cheerleader). Then I started doing research into mental coaching. Mostly these techniques are used as self help- self esteem boosters. Psychologist and self help coaches have used these techniques to help people with confidence problems. The concept itself is called "self talk" and it is something that everyone does. Based on The law of repetition which is one of the three laws of memory...we have this internal dialog with ourselves in order to firmly convince ourselves of something we want to believe. By repeating it over and over to our brain it becomes true. Thus we boost our own confidence.

Now I know what your thinking "what the hell Stephanie what does this have to do with advanced digital" well... I don't know but that's a damn good question. This is more of my process as it evolves into a workable project.

So with all this information i started thinking about what i could do with these recording or if I really needed these recordings. I thought well maybe these recordings plus an image or multiple images as stop motion or video. But then it all led to a very clique like athletic based piece which I am sure it has evolved from. What I like is the intensity these girls have when they are "self talking" out loud it kind of becomes about that instead of the fact that they are athletes. So I went to a friend for a different perspective... a very good perspective. Who suggested I keep the intense and athletic type of self talk but apply it something/ anything else. Since i'm also interested in the build up or hype you get out of hearing this self dialog the idea was to apply it to everyday or mundane actions. So now i'm finally in a happy place. Excited about making this sound plus image work out.