Artist Statement
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see”. These words from Edgar Degas perfectly introduce this project.
My name is Lauren McLeod and I’m an aspiring student artist based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Art has always been a passionate hobby of mine, and I feel that this ‘Golden Record’ assignment has given me the freedom to explore new areas within my own work as well as the art industry overall. With the different aspects of this task, sounds, text, images and moving images, being related to various medias, objects, groups of artists and environments, it’s been a creative and helpful way for me to experience new methods outside my comfort zone that will now support my work within the near future.
I made the decision to relate my pieces, ‘Expeditions of Human Life’, the decorated poem, the Mona Lisa ekphrasis poem, and ‘The Everlasting Change’, to the theme of ‘Journeys’. I also included my own interests in literature and art to explore ideas about travelling, transportation, individual circumstances, different destinations as well as the impact that certain journeys have on those involved. I feel that my strengths lie in painting and drawing, but this opportunity has challenged me to improve my skills in other areas.
I’ve really enjoyed this recent journey I have been on with my work, and I hope that this unique version of the Golden Record has an effective voyage into the vast universe of art.
This is one of the first tasks I completed within this project. Being influenced by the theme of ‘Journeys’ and ideas about the events occurring throughout lockdown, I worked alongside my partner to create a soundtrack with snippets of everyday sounds, from around the house and outside, to portray what we are accustomed to hearing in our daily lives here on Earth.
Decorated poem- part1 
Decorated poem- part2 
Decorated poem- part3
Following the sounds assignment, I went on to look at how text can be related to the art industry, and what it can do regarding the expression of individual perspectives and thoughts. Being an A Level English Literature student, I used my own resources to find this particular poem, and I feel that it really aided my intentions of highlighting key ideas about travel, memories and ambiguous journeys.
This piece was the second part of the ‘text’ topic, and for this I came up with an original poem describing my thoughts on this prestigious masterpiece. I included abstract descriptions of my own observations as well as some brief context behind Da Vinci’s creation.
Moving forward with my experiments, I began to explore the use of videos and moving images. The initial options we were given was to produce a stop motion, a time lapse or a movie abiding by the ten Dogma rules. I went with the time lapse idea, and with Sam Taylor-Wood as my artist inspiration, I produced a simplistic video that effectively conveys my thoughts about reversible changes, how we alter over time, and how those alterations impact our surroundings- all whilst staying familiar with my chosen theme of ‘Journeys’.
As a final summary of all the work I have produced and explored throughout this project, I revisited previous tasks and collaborated the 3 different aspects of the Golden Record assignment. I used my ice cube time lapse and inserted a soundtrack as well as some text in order to deduce a conclusive piece that clearly depicts my interpretation of art, literature and ‘Journeys’, which I have been striving to achieve during this learning experience.
Sketchbook Work
Despite the practical experiments I have completed over this eventful period of time, I have also had to document my work and my thinking processes in my sketchbook, by creating detailed single or double pages including images, thorough annotations and clear connections to the project and my individual intentions with each piece of art I produced.
Golden Lockdown 