The strange man…. has once again appeared….
he made sure his entrance was followed with applause and it being the sole and tremendous one for years,
I knew the end of it wasn’t near…
The strange man won’t let me be…
you see he has a lot to say and he is mean and eager to get through me…
you see….
the strange man appears in front of me,
walks around in circle with a malice smile knowing he has it;
all the control over me.
You see the strange man tells me to do things and I have to proceed…
I’ve got to!
He tells me to do things I don’t want to but you see
in my mind… it’s never quiet
So, I have to clear the noise
you see,
from the strange man there’s no escape so, I listen to him.
The story;
The strange man is a story about a man’s dark thoughts and the urge he has to do bad things. This person knows that what he’s thinking of doing is wrong and not only harmful to himself but to others as well.
He is aware of the dark state he’s in and yet he doesn’t know how to escape from this urge. He feels guilty and doesn’t have power over his actions.
The “strange man” described in the monologue is the “bad energy” that the protagonist cannot get rid of, in his mind there is a “man” who tells him to procced with evil actions, that man is, in fact, the inner voice that he cannot fight. The “strange man” could also be seen as his dark side fighting his good side (moral side).
Has the Strange Man ever visited your thoughts?
I think a lot of people have been visited by this “man”, who has poisoned their mind with dark thoughts in some form or another.
But everyone sees this dark energy differently and deals with it differently.
More about the story & how the idea came to mind
The protagonist of this story is quite complex, there is a lot going on each image. You can tell from the face expressions that change on each photo, the colors, the artistic background and all the details that complete the meaning of the successive pieces, each line and figure is well thought.
As an artist, I’ve always wanted to explore different styles in photoshop & create different themes for different topics that people deal with every day, so when I wrote this story, I got inspired by real people’s stories.
I took the things people have told me, songs and experiences they showed me and I transformed all of it into something different, a bit crazy and outside the box.
I just got creative and thought to myself; I’d like to describe this “inner voice phenomenon” differently, in a deeper, darker, maybe disturbing to some, way! I took those stories and presented them in an extreme, twisted way.
However, for me, the art pieces are to the viewer to interpret; through each piece you can observe how the protagonist’s dark thoughts are affecting his personal life,
I think, this story could be relatable to anyone dealing with depression & compulsive thoughts in some form or another, if they feel the images say something different from what I presented, I am just happy people relate in some way and that’s the beauty of abstract art and photo manipulation, you get to have your own point of view.
In the end of the day, we’re all different from one another and our experiences are unique, therefore our perspectives are unique.
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Written, directed and designed by: Dafina Gjikolli @dafinagjikolli
photography: @monstera_production
