Manifesto

So i had a difficult time trying to figure out what actually went into creating a manifesto, here's my best shot:

It is the job of the artist to create no matter what.

it is the right of the artist to speak his/her mind through their work.

it is the right of the artist to reach his/her public.

in order to reach their public, the artist must step out of their comfort zone.

it is the job of the artist to send a message.

it is the job of the artist to push the boundaries in which the general public are too afraid.

artists must reach out to their neighbors and create new neighborhoods within their work.

the artist must be conventional and conceptual in their ideas.

the artist must make their viewer think outside the box.

the artist must explore the territory of the outside realm.

there is always a new public to reach out to.

the artist makes a louder statement than the politician.

art speaks volumes.

i believe all these declarations directly relate to our neighborhood narratives class. Everything included in my declarations have been opportunities my classmates and i got to experience in our own ways. When i first got a feel for this class i thought i was definitely in the wrong one. I never really thought of myself as very conceptual, but after completing assignment after assignment i got a feel for what thinking outside the box and acting outside my comfort zone was really like. I always looked at art as physical objects, but this class opened my eyes and made me realize there's a lot more to art than just painting/drawing/sculpture... it's creating a wave, getting a reaction from your audience and getting your message out to the public. Curiosity is something all humans share and when presented with a work of art or act of art we are curious and usually choose to want to know more, so we investigate.

After placing the picture of my brother on the table at my job while customers sat and ate their dinners, curiosity sparked amongst them. This curiosity was also seen after posting multiple xerox copies of the picture in the mall where he used to work when he was still alive. This sparked not only curiosity but it engaged a sense of destiny. What is our destiny? The question of destiny and destination was presented when Tawn and I presented both of our final project variations. Destiny is something we as human beings consider to be pre-determined, whereas our destinations can be completely altered and tweaked at any moment. Both destiny and destination are very related to one another. I believe throughout life we travel to many destinations which in turn lead us to our destinies.

CREEPER STATUS!

I really wanted to step out of my comfort zone for this project, so in order to follow someone I didn't know I picked a place that I'm not very familiar with, Hackensack. While I was there I saw a girl and her (boyfriend?) walking around. She looked pretty young and I managed to take these pictures using my cell phone, which at times was really kinda difficult because I kept trying to get a frontal view and I would hold my phone by my side and attempt the shot without a flash. I followed both of them into a pizzeria at one point and ate there on the opposite side of the room, I managed to get a shot of them eating, while I was pretending to "look for service" by waving my phone around in their direction from where i was sitting. This project was scary at first, but I'm glad I did it, I found it to be a lot of fun.

Continuation of Put Something Here

For the continuation of the "put something here project" i photo copied the picture I had used previously, and went to the neighborhood and job my brother used to be at all the time. After walking around the mall, i posted them in different places right in plain view. I'm going to go back and photograph whether or not people have taken them down and post them at a later date.

Put Something Here

For "Put Something Here" i chose to use a picture of my oldest brother who passed away in 2003. After talking with one of my managers i convinced him to let me place it on one of the tables at my restaurant for the night and let people eat next to it. This sparked questions amongst people dining such as who is this? and why is this here? Unfortunately i couldn't convince my manager to let me photograph any customers next to it for "legal purposes" but all in all i think this was successful in having a personal connection with me as well as creating a a curiosity amongst the guests.

Questions from Reading - Krzysztof Wodiczko

1.) As strangers, do we all consider one another to be that different? or does our "strangeness" or personal experiences shared, unify us as a whole?

2.) Do you think if more issues and experiences were shared through design (public art) as a way to deconstruct life, we could reach out to our fellow "strangers" and connect with them on a personal level?

3.) Do you think our public artwork could be viewed by those "aliens in transit" and give them more information about a difficult experience more so than any text book could?

Human Interaction

My friend Tim, My boyfriend Chris and I decided to spend our Wednesday building a snow fort. This took more than 3 hours to do, but we were all interacting with one another and here are some pictures from that day:

Questions from Reading

"The human being is historical and its historicity is inherent to it: it produces and is produced, it creates its world and creates itself." -Henri Lefebvre

Much like art in the past, we can recognize who and where it came from and at what point in time it was created, what will historians of the future characterize artists of this generation as, by looking at their work?

Why do you think, over thousands of years, art has been one of society's most prominent forms of growth?

Do you think all art today is relational since not much hasn't been done already?