Maria Cepeda

It’s hard to believe almost a month has passed since the beginning of the residency- time does fly by! I began the first week building some objects with wire and paper, and then I decided to concentrate more on the wearable sculptures that I would be making. For the wearable sculptures I wanted to work with modular pieces, so I began doing several small sculptures to then assemble them together and make a larger piece. This process of making the clay shapes, waiting for them to dry and then assembling them togethers has been what’s taken most of the time that has passed so far. I have also done a couple of tests with the 360 camera and then playing the video into the Virtual reality headset to see how it works- it’s actually really cool!   As to when I’m not in Derby, I am also working from Leeds. At home I am working focused on materials other than ceramic as I wanted to mix different materials into the project, and unfortunately trying to make everything out of ceramics would be too heavy/unpractical. So far I have two “characters” and their accessories almost ready and two that are halfway there. The hardest thing so far though, was thinking that I wouldn’t be able to work with other people, as this was an essential part of the project. However, Artcore helped me find a couple of really good volunteers- one of which made me feel more at ease by telling me her

Where are you based? I’m originally from Colombia but I’m based in Leeds How you would like to use this residency to develop your current research and how do you think the time spent at Artcore can benefit your process of doing? My current research deals with the idea of a saturated self that receives so much stimuli and information from its surroundings that it becomes an abstract entity that takes on multiple identities. I’d like to use the In Real Life residency to develop this by relating it directly to the cybernetic world we are all a part of- more specifically linking this idea to video games where players take on a