A FORT REGENT INSPIRED ART EXHIBITION RECREATING THE STRANGE HOLD CHILDHOOD SPACES HAVE ON ADULT MEMORIES
Lakeman is a photographer who has nurtured an obsessive interest in ‘the Fort’, and has spent his adult life revisiting weird dreams of this iconic building and its heyday in the early 1990s. With the works accompanied by a custom soundscape, smell and touch, Playtime encourages visitors to revisit their own dreams.
The exhibition ‘PLAYTIME’ presents images from Lakeman’s childhood memories from Fort Regent Leisure Centre. Will has dedicated the exhibition to his late brother Matthew, the brothers used to spend most of their time up at the Fort as Will states that “those were the best of times for us.” The exhibition displays a range of images of the fort made from artificial intelligence (A.I) which are an attempt to recreate Will’s childhood memories from his point of view.
Lakeman wanted to recreate his childhood memories of Fort Regent through a series of images. Will “didn’t care if the images he created weren’t correct/ didn’t fit other peoples memories of the Fort because he wanted to portray how he remembers the fort. The images link back to the theme of nostalgia as it will bring back many old memories from the ‘good ol’ days’ for older generations. It will also allow them to explore whether their memories of the fort were different to Wills as the A.I images may not match what they remember.
–Veruca Dip 2022- Will Lakeman
This image was created using AI (artificial intelligence), however it is based on a memory of fort regents swimming pool, as you had to walk in a foot bath before entering the pool and Will personally remembers it as a vivid purple colour, but it was far from that. Not every image that is put into AI comes out perfect which makes unique, for example, one of the feet above has seven toes.
Overall, I enjoyed this exhibition, i thought it was interesting and very different; nothing i’ve seen in an art exhibition before. I think it is clever that you can make art without having to use any physical mediums at all. All Wills work is created online using technology, apart from the initial photograph he takes to base his work off. I also think it is crazy how the AI works, how it generates images, or just parts of images, just by telling it a phrase or a few words of command.