Suburban Utopia, An Infertile Place (SU4IP)
Lyndon Watkinson
Lyndon Watkinson (1999) is an artist, designer, writer, and musician based in Sheffield, UK. Democratising art and art context through artworks, publications, graphic design, articles, and sound. Creative director and founder of the online arts organisation SU4IP. His work is characterised by a desire for precision, often depicting aesthetics that celebrate and criticise the absurdity of corporatized identity, calling into question the necessity of creating false exteriors when what is not seen is often just as important.
In late 2020, a blog post entitled Suburban Utopia, An Infertile Place formed part of the wider inquiry and development of his practice for his bachelor's degree in fine art. As his work matured, he applied this term as a formalisation of his creative endeavours, later abbreviating it to SU4IP, now used as a digital alias and publishing entity.
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About
01:15 - 01:31 Series Binder
Overcoming motivation is an integral part of creativity, and an important factor that can often determine the success of artistic endeavors. While at university, I implemented a strategy to prompt the creation of new artwork. This came in the form of timestamps, accompanied by a short sentence, each derived from a sound piece that delves into the philosophy of the grid, and how it influences human ingenuity and creativity.
Each work created in response to a timestamp was named in correlation to where it appeared on the track, often differing greatly from the original subject matter. As part of the series of works, I would also create art with more traditional names, inspired by impulse, and outside of the rigid structure I had set for myself. In doing so, I would have the means to create work, whether or not I was feeling inspired.
This first implementation of this strategy culminated in the 00:03 – 01:05 series, which contributed to the final year of my degree. After graduating, I sought to continue this structure as a means to maintain my motivation, despite the lack of deadlines and curriculum.
I found myself gravitating away from the rigid structure I had created, producing more emotionally driven works under a more traditional naming scheme. The series of works featured in this book is a product of this change in circumstances.
01:15 – 01:31 heavily leans into the works designed to be created more freely and with fewer restrictions, symptomatic of my transition away from the structure of university, and into the volatile field of the creative arts. As a result, only three works created in response to timestamps exist in this series; the rest were created in response to emotions, experiences, ideas, or dreams.
Each work within this series is a checkpoint within my creative journey, transitioning from an educational setting to a more open, independent state of working. I invite you to immerse yourself in this series of works, with the hope that the ideas, compositions, and concepts within will act as a vehicle for empathy, understanding, and exploring new ways of interpreting the world around us.
By binding these works, I hope to create a tangible, tactile, and accessible environment to increase immersion, and consume its contents in any environment you are in. The accompanying drawings and doodles between and around the words are added to ease a restless mind, facilitating reading between the lines, both metaphorically and literally.
Printed on 300 gsm (cover) / 170gsm (inner) recycled paper and bound using a metallic wiro spine. Each copy is hand signed by the author and is posted using environmentally friendly packaging. Dimensions Approx. 18.5 cm x 18cm @ 1cm thick.
