The project was to visually represent our mind as an analogy to a house. In order to represent such an abstract subject matter, extensive image manipulation in Photoshop was necessary. My intention for this project was to direct my work not by conscious and laborious comparison between a given room's function and the functions of my mind, but by attempting to induce a particular mindset in my working environment, such that the visual work acted as an extension of this mindset.
The success of my project was the direct result of my ability or inability to put this habit of mind into practice. My two most successful images were those that grew organically out of my mind, whereas the less successful images were those I attempted to consciously plan. I believe that, in my more successful projects, my craftsmanship was quite refined, because I did not limit my manipulations to those few that I could logically explain in the framework of my house-mind analogy. As a student of art, my image manipulation skills grew greatly in the course of this project. I believe that my growth as an artist in conceptual matters was somewhat limited by the limitations on my image library; my concept for the project was securely tied to the few images I had available to work with. Below are the visual allegories to my attic, bedroom, foyer, and salon, in that order:
my attic, featuring Luukie meditating
one of my less successful images, though Luukie redeems it somewhat
my bedroom, somewhat successful,
though it is limited by the degree to which it was planned
the highly contrasting leaves represent the phantasmagoria of dreams,
while to look through the polaroid frame is to see the real world, muted in comparison
my foyer, quite successful
this began as a simple study in Photoshop manipulation, but became my foyer, because it leads people into my unrestrained mind as the foyer of a house welcomes guests inside
my sakib, the most successful by far
