Dereck Baron – Visiting Practitioner

After ranting about the other guest lecturers, I want to do another one highlighting Dereck’s lecture.

Their way of presenting was very unique, acknowledging it at the beginning of their lecture, they disclaimed the lecture is going to be the opposite of the way they usually teach as a lecturer at the University. It was jumping around a lot, finding all the tiny “sparks” (as they called them) that influenced their work in a subconscious way. But somehow it made a lot of sense to me and each of these references contextualised the work so clearly. I’ve always enjoyed artists’ work when their mind is a little scattered. The “submerged connections” between each inspirations and how the human mind creates meaning and conjunctions between them is miraculous and in my opinion what makes a person creative.

It is the ability to observe the world we are in but also the awareness of it that moves me within an artist.

Sometimes I listen to smart people giving lectures and I can’t follow, I was recently reminded by Margaret Ng’s recent interview with Denise Ho from Hong Kong: If you don’t understand a lecture, it is because they are not good at explaining their work, maybe they have less content or knowledge than you think they have; and people do often elongate their lectures especially when they have little to actually say.

Margaret studied Philosophy at Cambridge and Law in Boston, she was often intrigued by how much difference it makes in a lecturer their ability to explain their complex ideas to someone with less experience. As a Barrister and an author, she was very inspirational with her way of conveying the ideas she cares about personally to someone with a different political viewpoint.

Back to Dereck, I think most certainly they have a lot of knowledge of music, art history, just history and so much more. But he highlighted his emotional connections with these references in a way that everyone can understand and relate to, which is more important to me than bombarding people with complex contexts.

They were in conclusion to me very fresh to see out of the whole lecture series, they showed an alternative way to approach art-making and music-making. They showed originality and confidence in their knowledge that they don’t have to emphasise at all, which was immediately reflected in their process and inspired me to work that way. Instead of complicated sound theories and requiring your audience to be “intellectual”, how can I approach making more experimental work in a more accessible and engaging way?