As much I look up repetition within my art, at one point my worklife got overloaded with the type of repetition I found hard to handle. 

In my job in market research, the only way to get away from the calls to customers, was by making coffee. On my desk there was nothing more than a box of tissues and a spoon, to make my coffees with. Those two objects became my tools. Collecting at the end of every day the napkin I rested my coffee spoons on. A growing pile of napkins I treasured as the most valued objects I owned.

Scores were written down hourly and you felt the pressure of this act, the notepad of the manager filling up, whilstww thrown away in time with an ease that bothered me. When quitting my job I took one of the pads. The scores created a soundpiece to go along with the napkins presented in the exhibition.

Market Research

The book Woolgathering was the starting point of this piece. The title caught my interest and the process was originally a response to the definition, however turned into a nearly opposite reaction to the book.  

Upon first reading the book I wrote down all the words, phrases and references, that I did not understand. Sometimes due to the poetic way it had been written, or just because of the English language that is not my native language and thereby the inability of finding the Dutch translation whilst understanding the word in English.  

The lengthy list of words and phrases got calculated into a sound piece, voicing my confusion and oftentimes frustration, in a page-by-page format.

Lisette Put's Album

Woolgathering

Having been writing a lot of poetry based on my feelings and events in life, I wondered why I wished to share it, however wished it even more to be hidden. How could I be spending so much time on writing and correcting and improving the texts that I only shared with myself?

I searched for a way to share the emotions without revealing it all directly. The build up of poetry has a rhythm and this rhythm I showed through layering the text, showing the sound of poetry. With the existence of the image I created the sound through using a grid placed over the image and dedicating the Y-axe to the tone and X-axe to timing. Making all poems being played at once in just 17 seconds by piano’s.

Whilst working on the translations from text into sound I feared for the piece to become dishonest, as I wished the process to be influenced as little as possible by emotions but just the more by data and calculations. For this reason the title became ‘contra+facere’. The combination of two Latin words, the origins for the term counterfeit, Wondering if I had created a fraudulent imitation of my own feelings.

Contra Facere

For 30 days I drew myself daily. A repetitive act, to collect data to research the influence of the moon on our mental health, As the drawings had only the function to register how I looked at myself and thereby the type of mark making I would use for showing it, there was an ease in drawing them quickly without any expectations.

Whilst I lived on a boat in a marina at the sea, the changing of the tides could not have been a more natural informant to the moon phases. I used the tidal information to create a sound to go along with the data of the drawings. Creating a sound piece that slowly shows the changing of time, the phase of the moon and the possible changes in how I experience myself.

Tidal Mind

The repetition of thought, that can bring us down like an unseen intruder, whilst you cannot hide from it. Is in general the type of thought that disturbs us and are never to be shared. Maybe for good reasons. However, we seem to have them all in some level or another. Writing all the thoughts that intrude my mind and disturb me or the balance I try to find, I noticed there was no way I could share them directly with people either. However I believe that the emotions and feelings as anxiety are caused by those thoughts, can be presented in a way that are covered whilst open.

The book bound on both sides is containing all the shame I hope to not present directly, however the sound notation of the texts is to be interpreted by musicians, as to see how much it will show through.

Unheard

For the first time in my life I was living in a white room. This strange clean space had a massive influence on how I felt and worked. Feeling like an intruder at ‘home’ made me not being able to work in the same ways I had done before. Trying to find my rest back, I started meditation and the simplicity of the drawings came about. Taking the time to think, the drawings became an expression of my look onto the day and myself. Creating a drawing in the morning with my expectations of the day and the evening as a reflection. In this way I tried to find a structure and aim that I felt I was missing at the time.

The cubes are like little diaries to listen to. They would fill up a clinical white room, reflecting the space they have been created in. They are dark intruders in a space that does not allow emotions.

It's All Black And White

Lisette is a Dutch artist living in London, with a background in graphic design. Her state of mind, surroundings, daily life and thoughts are the sources for her projects. Through repetitive acts she pushes herself in uncomfortable and often humorous ways to confront what she experiences and create a record with potential insight to her life and mind.