Flash Mob at Grand Central

Check this out, this is the video i brought up in class. Really awesomesauce

Variation 2

Click HERE to view the website Briana and I created to detail variation 2 of our project.

try to save it for monday ;)

Enjoy!

yes, no, maybe manifesto

i was really inspired by the Yvonne Rainer's NO Manifesto. Thus i decided to do something of the sort.
enjoy.

Yes
Our voice is not the only voice. The voice of those who choose to speak is a powerful one but not the only one. Krzysztof’s idea of healing a city through the voiceless is a compelling one. Yes; we should take it in our own hands to help these people speak. When we dig deeper into the spectrum of history books we miss out on much more than the simple words that are already on the page. What has been said is fraction to what needs to be said, especially relating to the past. Yes, people are scared. In general, most people are scared. I believe it is our duty to find what’s buried underneath; to go out and seek the untold.

Yes, I will listen. I will listen to strangers. It is more relevant to me now that strangers have a certain connection to me that I am not even aware of. To find this in another human being could create a bond in which in return would rectify the perception we have of each other. Yes, there is too much labeling between strangers. Yes I engage. Engaging the next person might invade the personal space in a positive way. The gap between the unknown and the known needs some mending. Yes inside this sharing of ideas is a narrative that when told, could lead to nothing but new ideas and smiles.

No
We cannot just pretend. Art must be a critique but life is not necessarily depicted solely through the art of the current time. I do not completely believe in the fabrication of something that is not. The visual stimulus provided by art is something that’s worth can only be measured by one’s own eyes. Whereas I believe the physical or relational stimulus provided by art is surely up to more of a critique. Henri Lefebvre brings forth the idea of everyday life and its value to art. That “critique of everyday life encompasses a critique of art by the everyday and a critique of the everyday by art.” No. No, I don’t agree with the first part of his quote, that critique of the everyday encompasses a critique of art of the everyday. No we cannot study history and pretend something is happening that is not. Every day is unique, so unique in fact that every second of everyday by every person is so incredibly different and therefore, in these differences, we cannot critique it this way.

Overtime, critiquing becomes harder and harder because more and more styles of art are spawned every moment. No, we cannot pretend to know what life was for an artist just by critiquing his work against the current time period. No, Henri Lefebvre was not completely wrong. I believe that there is more to his theory than I obliged. Art can however critique the everyday, by defining the everyday through its medium. Riding a bike through Washington spamming chalk messages about the president is truly showing how art can critique how not only the artist feels about the everyday but how people of the everyday feel about the current time. These acts or drawings or paintings or viral videos or whatever it may be, is the critique, not just the art they create.

Maybe
Daniel Spoerri had it right. Maybe to be more than what we are as people today is to show the world exactly what we are. Is it something as simple as an act of drawing our space? Is space really so relevant? Maybe. The only way to overcome these feelings I have is to be aware. Our art is more than a perception of how we feel about a specific topic. Maybe space is just as much of a tool as a paintbrush. Without the right settings I cannot begin to have the clarity needed to design. The room must feel right. Spoerri simply showed the world a setting; a space in which someone had lived or been around. The space is essential for understanding how our own minds react to the world. If I see a beautiful sky that reminds me of an April day when I was 11, you might see something completely different. Thus every piece of furniture and every piece of everything around you effects how your art will develop, and this is because it directly effects you.

Maybe I don’t fully understand art. Art should reflect aspirations and goals. Art should reflect feelings and attitude. Art should reflect everything that your life is not. Maybe I don’t know what else if is supposed to represent. And yet I wonder if maybe life is nothing more than billions and trillions of atoms interacting with one another only to die and then spawn a new. Then again, maybe it’s not.


yes to compiled thoughts
no to being scared of the unknown
maybe i can become something more than this


yes i will defile your conservatism
no i will not subdue to one system
maybe there is always another way


yes i will begin to observe more
no i will not pretend
maybe ill catch the eyes of millions


yes there is more to this than we know
no science does not solve everything
maybe there is a reason for the discoveries


yes this auditory 'stimulus' will make me content
no it doesn't have to be the old
maybe i can do something with this


yes i need these people to survive
no this is not all of them
maybe more will come of this


yes nudity and rawness
no complete censorship
maybe you will see the beauty


yes i enjoy being free; completely free
no i dont need it
maybe they will combine


yes i want to expand
no i will not calm down
maybe then you will see what im trying to do

Following

This is Strawberry Cookie Dough. Of course, this is not her real name. A matter of fact I don't even know her real name. This was the nickname I gave her because she was wearing a red jacket. And i decided that my subject would be some sort of cookie dough flavor. However, SCD(shortened) became my attention for an hour and a half crusade on Saturday leading from College Ave student center all the way to the ARC on Busch campus, and then the LSM Library on Busch.

After picking this lady for the project, I did my best to stay out of sight. Not even knowing where it would end, I sat in the back of the A weekend bus while SCD road along with me.

We eventually ended up at the ARC and I continued to use my Ninja-Camera skills (learned from a previous life) to document her. We ended up in LSM after a short walk from the ARC and she headed upstairs. Not wanting to be too noticeable, I did the same, but with a much slower pace. Unfortunately i forgot to bring a book-bag or even a book so I may have seemed obvious.

After going upstairs, I seemed to have lost SCD and had to scan the entire floor via sneaky isle shifting for her. Once I found her again, this time seated at the end of her journey, I took the last picture with again, Ninja-like precision and head home. I apologize for some blurry pictures as my auto focus has about a 2 second cast time.



I really liked this project because of the anonymous-ness(is that a word?) about it. It was interesting to think that SCD could have gotten off the bus and just ended up going into a dorm building, which would of lead to failure. Or she could have kept me on her trail for multiple hours if she had not sat down to study. I had a lot of fun with this one.

Put Something Somewhere, take 2.

This time around, I planned on doing my part in saving the world. Since public restrooms are pretty nasty, especially around Rutgers, I decided that I would help myself to making people think twice once they sit down to the do their business.

I looked up some statistics on public restroom related diseases (thanks, via Askmen.com), especially retaining to students. From this I created this document:

Did You Know

I then went around various buildings throughout College Ave and Busch campus posting them in the men's room (and a woman's room too with some help!), 10 in total. I tried not to place them in the same place in each stall, and only in one stall per bathroom, but mostly in the spot you look the most during your daydream*. Hopefully my crusade will get a few people to start washing their hands more often.

I plan to check back with a few of these places at the end of the week to see if any Graffiti has occurred or if they've been ripped down all together.

Questions for reading March 8th

1. We've talked a lot about History in this class and how history is made up by the "victor" (as Krzysztof suggests). He mentions in the beginning how if we were to "heal one voiceless stranger, then, [we would] heal the entire city". What do you think he means by this? Is reaching out to those who were the victims, the ones with the real stories, the real history?

2. Krzysztof goes on to talk about how strangers and nonstrangers have this separation in between each other; that the "local" is in somewhat 'fear' of the stranger and the stranger feels valueless to the society they have no entered. What is your experiences with this? For example, In class we talked a lot about how the Northeastern area (NJ, NY, etc) that we live in is very susceptible to that kind of behavior, even to other locals that are not immigrants. We talked about our personal space and how when someone tells us their experiences or 'life-story', that it becomes weird. Why is this?

3. When the author brings up multiple propositions to help mediate or mend the gap in between strangers and non strangers or the said and the unsaid, he says we need a communicative instrument. Now think for a couples minutes if everyone on the planet (yes all 90480398402482098 billion) had access to a facebook or something related type medium (possible a giant world-wide forum of sharing). If it was this easy do you think more stories would be told? New truths be uncovered? (through pictures, because we all know that pictures, wall posts, shared links etc, all tell a narrative of their own)

Put Something Somewhere.

This is President Charlie. Basically My one of my apartment-mates bought this for a Halloween decoration. As time went on, we progressively became attached to him and decided to not only name him, but dress him up with some Rutgers gear (and a hard-hat too!) The name President Charlie comes from the internet (of course), because we apparently never leave computer desk and we're not clever enough. Here is the video that the name comes from, although i don't suggest watching it in a school/work environment.

My roomates and I decided that the corner of the livingroom did not suit President Charlie too well so we decided that it would be better suited if we put him in the window. This way, people could think that they are being watched when they drive by, or walk by the apartment windows. During the night it looks more like a shadowy-figure. I dont know, maybe we're a little immature, but we like to hide behind it and yell a lot of [nice] things at people passing by.

3 Hour Interuption

For this project I used Chatroulette, an internet service created by a 17year guy from Russian that allows the user to be randomly connected to strangers around the world through video, via Webcams

With a fusion of using 2002's internet shock-image "Goatse" (I will spare you the actual image), the ManyCam application (allowing me to change the source of my webcam to anything else on my computer; i.e. media images and video), and a video of a girl video chatting on the internet, i experimented with people, what people expect to see and the ignorance of some males. I will thoroughly explain in class. Enjoy

Reading Questions for Feb 22nd

1. How would you, as an artist, critique the everyday life in a piece of your work? Would you show the adaptation of YOUR specific everyday life or the perception of everyday life as a whole around you?

2. What little parts of your everyday life have you noticed drift by only because you remember the final consequence (by the development of these little actions), as an actual moment worth remembering?

3. Do you see it as a major flaw in the society we live in today, that machines have taken over the most basic ways of inner-human exchange? For example, Cell Phones, ATMs, Facebook, all of these being the link instead of the actual interaction between humans (whether or not these interactions were positive or negative)? Why or why not?

Autobiography Map

Enjoy


View Autobiography in a map! in a larger map

Questions for class discussion

Here are three questions that may have some interesting answers during class discussion:

1. What kind of avante-garde art, ads, social movements or whatever medium, have really stuck out as interest to you, and why?

2. If you could for one day, be like Daniel Spoerri and pick one place to sit down and spend the entire day mapping a room and it's objects together, which place would it be, why and what are some quick examples of objects that relate together through the past?

3. Have you ever learned a map outside of the real world? Such as in a video game, online environment, waypoints to a particular place on the internet?

Trail for Truman

Here is the trail that i left for Truman, all of which was internet based. It all started with a Facebook message...

my Jan 26th in some pictures

An archeological view of my day. Click here on my flickr account to check it out.

Hey! im in class right now..

sup