So I was rummaging through an ancient hard-drive of mine the other day, trying to see if I had any (100% legally obtained) seasons of Portlandia I could binge watch.
I find it interesting how in the span of less than 10 years, we've gone from trawling through malware-ridden torrent sites looking for that one episode of Community with Jack Black in it (because I know it exists I swear I saw it once!) to essentially paying rent towards multi-million dollar companies who will just straight up show you that episode and make you shout "Oh shit I KNEW IT!!" to your understandably apathetic partner.
Anyway that's not what this post is about. I can't really justify 500 to 1,000 words of Top Ten Lost Episodes of Mid-2010's TV.
What I wanted to do was focus on was the folder of half-baked art school projects I came across after blowing the dust off of the aforementioned hard drive. I just couldn't think of a decent segue. Because I haven't written anything for a very long time.
Growing up in the early 2000's, everyone and their Furby was obsessed with a little known, but well loved book series called Harry Potter. I didn't get it. I liked the first book fine I guess, but my attention span at the time - and arguably to this day - was far too short to put up with anything other than Smash Brothers, LEGO and Coco-Pops. However there is one entry in the H.P canon that I was hooked on. It made a weird little nest in my brain and has refused to budge for about 19 years.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a book written by J.K Rowling, in the guise of famed monster hunter Newt Scamander. Released to coincide with 2001's Comic Relief, Fantastic Beasts is a fictional textbook used by the pupils of Hogwarts School, and contains doodles and notes written by Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Grainger.
I 👏 LOVED 👏THAT 👏 SHIT
This real-world link to J.K Rowling's fantasy stories fascinated me. The book looks like it's been dropped on a platform at King's Cross and chucked into a lost and found bin for muggles to find. Its like a ghost reaching his creepy skeletal hands through a portal and saying "Hoi! There is in fact magic in the world, ya just gotta look for it dummy!"
While I still never fully grasped the appeal of what is now known, somewhat hyperbolically, as Wizarding World. That little peek behind the curtain of Harry's life definitely made a mark on my impressionable 12 year old baby brain.
Ever since then, I've been on the lookout for books from fictional settings that exist to immerse the reader further in the lore of the universe.
The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones was always a favourite of mine now, ironically, lost to the depths of my parents' attic. Supposedly written by the good doctor himself, it chronicles his journeys from his childhood home of New Jersey to completing the search for the Holy Grail, complete with mementos, notes, autographs, pictures and loads of other cool scribbles that build up the "behind the movie" lore of the legendary treasure hunter.
S. Is a novel written by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst, which unlike the previous books I've mentioned, isn't connected to any previously recognised franchise, but still seeks to blur the lines between fiction and reality. Presented as a library edition of fictional novel The Ship of Theseus, S. is filled to the brim with hand-written notes, photographs, letters and more than one code-breaker puzzle. Abrams and Dorst have crafted a deeply intriguing tale of conspiracy, murder, conspiracy to murder, and of course murder conspiracies all contained in a back and forth exchange between two characters communicating solely using notes in the margins of this huge novel.
So, what does all this have to do with my experiences at art school? Well there's a sort of dent in my brain where Fantastic Beasts lodged itself permanently, and where I would eventually make room for The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones and S.
I kept trying to emulate this style of narrative fiction. Little projects that I would frequently describe as "something you would find in a wizard's satchel" or "correspondence between two mad scientists". I love the idea of a children's book that is presented as a guide to ghosts or a beginners guide for adventuring wizards. But at the time, I couldn't find a way to make these ideas tangible enough that I would get a passing grade on them. Chalk that up to student laziness and general early 20s delinquency.
I genuinely understand my tutors' frustrations now - around ten years later - having to deal with high-concept, low-effort projects that were only very tangentially linked to the original brief. Speaking of tangents...
These projects recently resurfaced on an old hard drive I was combing through, and I think there was definitely something to them. Something that I might try and go back to one day. I like them enough to write a big rambling blog post for the first time in two years, anyway.
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