Daniel Burton BA (Hons) Fine Art 2020
Through the exploration of different mediums, I’m actively searching for new ways to interact with the general public and provide relief from the stresses that day to day life can bring. Integrating music, whether it be embedded within a sculpture, or used within more performative work, within my practice helps in my exploration into people’s relationships with forms of creative communication, and their ability to be used as tools for battling issues regarding mental health; factors such as anxiety, depression and loneliness.
Throughout my childhood, right up to, and most pertinently, this very moment in time, music has been a huge part of my life, everything seeming to revolve around it. Through persona driven personal interactions under an alias, my most common approach over the past year, I have been finding new ways to unpack concepts, explore and develop ideas with my audience. My progression, to further adapt and develop a character for my performances, exploring the extra depth and facets this can provide, using performance art as a critical tool.
Through my concept of musical boxes, designing new ways of transforming depressing civic amenities, such as bus stops, into musical social portals, I hope I can brighten up the dreaded daily commute, using art, and radio as the medium, to boost a resurgence in this slowly declining platform. My use of contextual settings, and the urban interventionist approach to my performances are attempts to merge and challenge the boundaries and misconceptions of what is widely accepted as ‘art’. For me, an important aspect is to bring back things from the past, such as the emotive aspects of ‘radio’, that are sadly dying away and trying to adapt them, to help them exist in a more modern society. In such a fast-paced world of ever-growing technological advances it seems we don’t have time anymore for the analogue. I don’t think we should be so quick to take for granted the things that got us here today, or the struggles cultures, artists, creatives and minorities have had to endure. We take for granted the ability to listen to a whole host of genres on the public radio for example. At many points in history this has been far from the case. For decades people have been fighting battles against racism, homophobia amongst many other social issues to be able to be at a place now where radio and its modern counterparts are more accepting of all genres.
The idea of bringing back something that is held so dear to a lot of people, namely the emotive concept of ‘radio’, really resonated with me. What I found even more striking is that it brings together strangers, often reminiscing over a time when broadcast music was at the forefront of a lot of people’s lives. Focusing on these ideas, and the concept of Urban Intervention, I feel is more vital than ever in the current social climate.
