Date of Submission

Fall 2024

Academic Program

Studio Arts

Project Advisor 1

Beka Goedde

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Narrative Myopia is a two-part installation exploring the extent to which personal artistic development of nuance can be expressed through a derivative work. It is a personal thinkpiece on the development of an identity that forms through the digital realm–the physical presence and scale of the work, outside in a public space that can be perceived by an audience, and the private studio space which encompasses more hidden aspect of introspection of the derivative media through a defined digital identity. The derivative work is based within a Japanese mobile game called Granblue Fantasy (2014), which exists with English localization. The specific narrative chosen is the visual novel trilogy What Makes the Sky Blue(2017), What Makes the Sky Blue II: Paradise Lost(2018), and What Makes the Sky Blue III: 000(2019), which are consecutive annual story events that add drama and prose to the existing lore of the Granblue Fantasy universe.

The 26 panels of the mural, loosely imitating classical religious paintings with depictions of hyper specific scenes and interaction in graphic fashion, unearth an unfamiliar narrative to the audience within the space. In order to grasp the context, one focuses on individual compositions between panels that can be recognized as movement, some as stillness, and the space that is incorporated between them is expressed through understanding of color, figure, face, gesture. All of this (and more) is meta by which the audience establishes their own familiarity for a specific context they cannot completely comprehend. The scale of the painting itself encourages larger brush strokes that orchestrate the emotion as vividly as the artist interprets, as the composition and craft of painting is an expression of the particular impact the derivative work has had on the artist.

Inside the mind space, the audience is drawn to a more intimate side that motivates the composition of this particular narrative. A built escapism within a digital space. A collection of thousands of hours of illustrative and conversational interaction, recorded through chats, personal online tangents, and digital sketches that are jargon to the naked eye but are equally as valuable as the mural that sits outside it. The careful preparation of context and information work alongside the development of work in studio practice, demonstrating the transitional boundaries of what it means to be an artist as an extension of the inner psyche.

Pop culture, mass media, corporate video games, subject matters that initially seem to betray the originality and individuality of an artist in favor of commodification, slowly become homogenous to derivative works of mythology and religious source material that precedes the contemporary.

By acknowledging both of these spaces together, I personally beg the question of whether the years spent within a digital identity over a derivative work can truly be cut off from the physical identity as a mode of escapism, or if it is an unorthodox mode by which an artist establishes their corporeal identity based on a non-physical space.

Open Access Agreement

Open Access

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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