Spoken language is intimately tied to the slice of time within which it was uttered and words thrown at us at that moment can pierce a fragile heart. But over time our assiduous brain can purposely shatter these harmful connections, separate the language from its interpretation, and create a new dawn of more positive narrative. We see a set of personal memories, laid bare and with a new visual language attached to them. We are taken on a journey of reinterpretation that is aligned to Judith Butler’s assessment that “Words might, through time, become disjointed from their power to injure and be recontextualized in more affirmative modes.” The artist encourages us to reassess injurious language from our own past and reframe it in a reimagined, more positive landscape.

I know about the horses

Traumatic experiences impact the human brain in complex ways and psychology informs us that these memories are stored as smaller chunks rather than entire events. This may be nature’s way of protecting us against reliving a disturbing past but does it also introduce the potential of adding fiction to the retelling of these faceted stories? This piece explores how a child and adult deal with a traumatic event differently by interjecting their own imagery and symbolic connections to lay down memories in a way that gives them closure. The work itself disrupts the sacred family history and we are asked to consider how shattered memories and contemporary influences can morph how we perceive the past.

It was quite a noisy night

This project is based on the 18th century panopticon design of the former Millbank prison in London. This iconic shape was conceived by Jeremy Bentham as a way to allow continuous surveillance of inmates from a single location in a way that made them unsure whether they were being observed or not.

Since it was devised, the panopticon has become a metaphor for surveillance in modern society, be that via CCTV or the Internet. The watchtower at the heart of the panopticon is a precursor to the cameras fastened to our buildings – purposely visible machines with human eyes hidden from view.

I created a bird feeder as a panopticon motif to capture the random comings and goings of birds as they take the food away. Over the period of a day, time lapse images show the contents being displaced to reveal the sinister shape within. 

This piece questions the concept of ownership of information in modern society. The panopticon is the all seeing eye of big brother but the bird is completely ignorant of technology, boundaries and the rule of law. Despite continuous surveillance, a bird epitomises absolute freedom so we question how collection of our information actually influences our own lives.


Free as a bird

This project centred on surveillance and what it means for modern society. The statistic that the average Londoner is caught on CCTV camera 300 times a day gave a focus on digital storage of our personal data. This led to a download of my personal location data from Google which gave a shockingly detailed view of every single one of my movements over the past 15 years. Every journey and the location of every photograph taken had been recorded. We know this is happening but to see it all together was deeply moving.

The outcome for the project was a trace of that data replicated as accurately as possible. Each trace was painstakingly added to the canvas using a thin piece of thread dipped in black ink. This manual process gave time to consider each of these journeys - what it meant to me and exactly what the data giants could do with this information.

The addition of a single steel sphere is a home location, a 360 degree view of my travels and a distorted reflection back at ourselves to consider what all this data means.

Sign of our times

For this piece I created a horizontal trace of a commuter journey from an urban environment to countryside that is stripped back to show only colour, line and light. The journey is shown as a series of snapshots on 18 semi transparent perspex panels with each panel showing a hand drawn trace of the skyline. Each panel is coloured with the extracted dominant hue taken from a photograph at each location of the journey.

The sequence is lit from behind by a strip of light that reflects through the overlapping sheets to create a mix of colour combinations where the panels overlap. This light source sits centrally in the scene as if it has arrived at a specific location and is currently stationary. This is enhanced by the panels overlapping more towards the middle of the sequence - which gives a subtle indication that time has slowed down where the light source currently sits. The outcome has an overall sense of calm and prompts us to take pleasure in every journey no matter how mundane it becomes following endless repetition.

The impatient consciousness of western society flits between the past and future and neglects the present and has lost the power of reflection and beauty of focusing on the ‘now’. This outcome aims to illuminate the empowerment of taking control of the present moment in our path through life and the harmony with the environment and more importantly oneself that can result.

View from a tram window

This project was a partnership with Emmanuel House which is a charity supporting homeless, vulnerable or isolated adults in and around Nottingham. Up to 13,000 ex-servicemen/women end up homeless and on our streets, many because of PTSD and highlighting this to the public became the core of my focus.

The outcome I created was a set of ice sculptures placed out in the streets. In the sculptures were embedded phrases uttered by homeless people such as "If I could change one thing" and well as camouflaged military patterns.

The public were then photographed as they walked by the melting sculptures and the final dissolved pieces were varnished and framed.

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Richard Hyde