Mia Rhodes

My response to the idea of plastics was to explore the guilt around excessive plastic consumption in a personal context.  I often drink bottled water as a comfort due to the anxiety-related issues I have around food and hygiene. As a result, I accumulate a lot of plastic waste, primarily plastic bottles (including caps) and cling film, so these were the materials I chose to work with. I felt inspired by the documentary ‘Drowning in Plastic’ we watched on the first day as it evoked deep feelings of guilt and sadness. My project evolved into creativity examining my relationship with plastics, mentally and physically as although I initially felt reassured by plastics, I then felt unsettled after researching the effects plastics have on the body. My final outcome is a short film titled, ‘A Quasi-Corporeal Crime Scene’. The film is devoid of dialogue and filmed in intimate spaces with visually confronting, visceral imagery. I wanted to allow the videos to create their own language and engage the audience through somewhat disturbing yet poetic images. To accompany the film, I challenged myself to create audio entirely out of plastics. This method resulted in abstract sounds which further established a link with the bizarre visuals. The audio is composed of scrunched up plastic bottles, labels and the impact of bottles being dropped or thrown. This act of physical engagement in creating the audio inspired some of my more intense visual scenes.I felt deeply inspired by director David Lynch and his unnerving, surrealist films, feeling simultaneously repulsed and intrigued by scenes in films such as, ‘Blue Velvet’ (1986) and ‘Mulholland Drive’ (2001). I was also inspired by the short film ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’ (1943) by Maya Deren and Luis Buñuel’s ‘Un Chien Andalou’ (1929). I felt the ideas communicated in my final outcome were very effective in visually depicting the negative relationship between plastic and the body as well as evoking an emotional response when presented to the other fine art students.