VISA 0120 Foundations Media: Computation + Art

pdf_final-project_abstract

Link to PDF: Celebration Public Space

Wish Forest (link to pdf file)

Through this project, I hope to change this rather isolated and quiet spot on campus into a place of hope, participation, and artistic value.

Unlike in previous exhibitions of ‘wish tree’ pieces such as one by Yoko Ono, participants are provided with an opportunity to choose to participate in the creation of the artwork rather than being invited to do so in a gallery setting.
Picture below shows how the public would be informed and invited to ‘wish forest’ by following the signs on the street.

Once in the space, participants make another choice whether to actually participate in the project. An instruction will ask one to write his wish on a piece of paper and attach it to one of the trees, at which moment another choice would have to be made.

By emphasizing the act of will and choice, I hope to encourage the participants to become more conscious of each step of the process of their participation. My ultimate goal is to make them conscious of the act of wish-making itself so that they are more prepared for the ritual, both emotionally and spiritually.

I decided to rethink my final project, Made Public, as I felt my original idea was closed off and not open enough. For this past week I did a test for my new idea which concerns some of the original themes of punishment, discipline and torture. For my new performance I plan to interactively have a session of torture on Wriston Quad. The choice of this location serves as a commentary on the punishment and torture related to masculinity and fraternity social organizations.
For my test I publicly whipped myself on Wriston for several minutes and had someone film this event. The reactions were pretty amazing. For the final performance I plan to have raw meat that people will be able to throw at me and a group of others I have recruited for the performance. They will encourage members of the crowd to spit, insult and throw the meat at me as I and the others continue to torture me. Several cameras will be used to document this.

The Tree of Knowledge

Thus far I have (re)investigated the space of the rock in which I will be working, finalized my locations, starting conceptualizing the piece, and recorded images (see below).

The piece will start by me handing out catalogue cards with a poem / cryptic message, ultimately leading readers to the rock lobby’s computers where they will type in “An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation” — and be lead to its location on Floor A. This first stretch of the ‘discovery’ will occur on the periphery of the rock (as in, near the top, in an area that is well lit, etc.):

this is the aisle:

the 1st book and it’s surroundings (the book will contain and OBVIOUSLY PLACED catalogue card with the next message/poem on it, leading participants to next piece). The page in which the poem will be placed has already been selected, and I will have photocopied it, pasted it over the actual page, and “edited it” to adhere to my personal vision of knowledge)

here’s the next placement (4th floor)–> the ascent to knowledge, an upward growth rooted in theory but branching upwards to tangible fact, “The Secret Life of Plants.”

this is the aisle, one that is far harder to reach/find, though not impossible. This struggle captures the final push for knowledge one must pursue:

the book:

the final location, where one will ‘find the knowledge’ ( a video of a tree, morphing and moving, a symbol of the tree of knowledge and the growth to understanding ) will be here, next to a book titled “The River of Life”. This book, a ‘river’, will lie next to my ‘tree’, a clear connection between an element that sustains another: water and nature.

I will have a card-catalogue- comment book placed next to the monitor:

Shrine Builder
Controls:
1. Click and drag white square to move selected stone.
2. Click and drag anywhere else to rotate selected stone.
3. Use the number keys (0-9) to select a stone.
4. Press ‘R’ to toggle rotate mode.

My new piece is an attempt to communicate the most important part of my videos of rearranging stones- the actual process of bulding. A three hour long building and rearranging session compressed into a sixty second video communicates little of the material process and the pacing of the actual construction. Through this interactive applet, the user may hopefully share a some of the experience of my performance.