Romanticization is a delusion.
It’s a source of pain in misremembering ambivalent
feelings about the past and longing for an unrealistic
future, culminating into an unsatisfied present.
It’s the problem but also a solution.
If it makes you feel better or makes life worth
living, buy into the nostalgia and idealize your life.
When grounded enough in reality, romanticization
becomes small actions, and actions become change.
Indulging just a bit is fine.
Romanticization is a prevalent concept in our lives because of things like popular media, and we also may use romanticization in an attempt to make our less than perfect lives a bit more bearable. It is both a coping mechanism and a self-sabotaging tendency depending on the extent to which a person, situation, or idea is romanticized, and although it has significant negative potential, it’s arguably a necessary part of survival. Romanticization encompasses several concepts, such as idealization and nostalgia, which I have taken an interest in exploring through the capstone. Since romanticization, idealization, and nostalgia can be difficult to discuss and explore their duality verbally, my capstone will attempt to do this through artistic processes including visually, auditorily, and contextually. In order to consider romanticization holistically, this capstone will include pieces dedicated to several concepts including romanticized lifestyle, culture, and aesthetic as well as the romanticization of trauma as a coping mechanism.
Skateboard
Skateboard deck featuring two characters, who can be inferred to be close with each other; they have modern midwest emo vibes and are sharing earbuds. The deck is covered in overlapping tangerine slices.
There are many different types of love, but mainstream media tends to focus disproportionately on romantic love which also tends to have too much of an emphasis on sexual relationships. Friendships are often treated as a means to a romantic end or as something that is secondary to romantic and even familial relationships, but they’re not inherently less fulfilling than romantic partnerships or family. Platonic love is also deserving of recognition and celebration as a form of connection that is capable of serious depth and commitment.
Themes:
- Void characters
- Projecting ideas and ideals onto someone with minimal background
- Midwest emo
- A cultural phase that became nostalgic quickly and resurfaced as an aesthetic not very long after its popularity
- Love
- Shift away from the highly romanticized and idealized standard of romantic/passionate love and grand romantic gestures shown in media
Motifs:
- Tangerines and Earbuds
- Small gestures of love and affection
- Connection between people
- Grayscale
- Visually void of certain information and characterization that would come from color
Photo Book
Photo book featuring images of different rinks my siblings and I grew up playing at. 1 img of the rink entrance + several mundane shots from different rinks that have significance to me or one of my siblings (example: the piss water fountain, forbidden bathroom, and first concussion at All Seasons). The photo book will be annotated; the context is part of the art.
Themes:
- Interplay of nostalgia and trauma as experiences that are not mutually exclusive
- Context as a form of non-traditional art/story-telling
Garment
Garment that romanticizes top surgery as a means of coping with the anxiety of impending bodily trauma. Embellished with embroidery and beading to make the sort of violence of incisions and blood something that’s considered beautiful. This pretty harshly contrasts the ugly reality of what surgery and recovery are, but it also complements the idea of surgery being an act of self-care and self-love in a kind of twisted way. You knowingly submit to temporary harm and pain for a better long-term outcome. To romanticize this I need to focus much more heavily on the “self-care” and “better outcome” aspects, and I’m hoping this will be romanticization to healthy extent because it’s both rooted in truth and pretty impossible to forget the “harm and pain” part. I’m a notoriously anxious person, so I hope this can actually help me accept and be ready for what I have to go through.
Audio
Concepts similar to chrysalism can be applied to things like audio/music edits made to sound like the sound is coming from off in the distance, from inside a bathroom where someone is singing in the shower. Although it’s not “amniotic,” it’s related to a sense of safety and tranquility found in dulled or gentle sounds which often come from fundamentally “human moments” (struggling to describe this; one time I got out of an exam at night and somewhere on campus some band was playing “Wonderwall,” and it’s very human that while I was feeling like garbage after a rough exam, a low quality version of a song that’s become a joke made me feel better).
Certain types of ASMR are, in a way, built on this feeling of calm and safety and romanticized mundane scenarios which we don’t have access to in that particular moment. There’s a lot of ASMR content about “living in X city” (or the countryside) and “sleeping next to your s/o” which are romanticizations of realistically attainable things, and it is, in part, the romanticization of the scenario as something that has not been attained which makes the ASMR content cathartic. The location and s/o are void characters in this instance because they lack any context which could shatter the illusion of idealism.
