Mapping Images - When words don't work

Abstract: Mapping images – when words don’t work. My master essay is a walking contradiction. It is an explanation of how a non-wordly thought process emerged – but explained in words. Words have never been my strong suit and in my essay I try to illustrate how I use images instead of words, mapping instead of structure, to escape the dictatorship of the written explanation. Where words have a certain linear structure from A to B my thought process is instead a juxtaposed jumble of heterogeneous elements that together create different associations in a rhizomatic and non-structured way. When I begin a project it is always the images that guide my idea instead of the idea guiding my images. In this way I let myself be seduced by the non-explainable atmosphere of the images. Instead of explanations I collect the images in big maps that have no clear beginning, middle or end. I let the images speak to each other, compliment or contrast one another. For me this is a way of keeping my work open as long as possible. As I work with video and narrative structure in the final product, the juxtaposing of images is a way of postponing and contrasting the more closed process of editing on a linear timeline.  I have a strong belief in the power of images. The old cliché ‘a picture says more than a thousand words’ still works for me, specifically because they don’t have to explain themselves or be ‘literal’ (in the literal sense of the word). They allow me to dwell in atmospheres, non-logic connections and open questions. Together, the mapping of images doesn’t create one clear design for my work, but a heterogeneous multiplicity of potential works to come. Sooner or later I have to take control of the process and be the dictator of the images. But my experience have taught me, that the more I allow the images to speak for themselves in all their ambivalence, the more I can infuse my final work with the same ambivalence and open-endedness. My works are not answers, but questions. And the collection of images that guide my work process let me keep asking the questions that words cannot formulate. The essay grabbles with these themes of words, images and process. As an illustration of my process, the essay is accompanied by a visual map, where I have tried to explain the associations that the images create for the theme of my work. I haven’t escaped the dictatorship of words yet, but maybe given the images their proper place within my work process.