gibsonma

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My intervention project was a game of hopscotch that was carried out in front of Ryder Hall out near the Centennial Quad. However, this game had a twist where on each square that each player landed on, they would have to strike a dance pose. The players would take turns throwing a rock down the length of the hopscotch game and then hop down to it, pick it up, then return to the start of the game.

My main inspiration for this intervention piece would have to be the video clip we watched in class of people dancing along a crosswalk in the middle of a busy city. It really intrigued me how people could be so carefree and open while others were busy hurrying to and from work and other obligations. This scenario could easily be recreated almost anywhere, but I wanted to have similar implications on campus. I studied up on the areas around Northeastern and deemed Centennial as the spot that saw the most foot traffic during the day. I had originally planned on preforming the piece inside Ruggles station, but I soon noted that people would be so busy trying to get from one space to another, that if I was in the middle of such a small space, dancing no less, people would get irritated fairly quickly and that was not the point of the piece.

I drew out the hopscotch game on the sidewalk with chalk and labeled each square with a certain dance move. Each move was fairly simple in nature to allow for a low-level barrier to entry and would allow for more people to join should the need arise. While the plan was to have more people join in, many just watched and continued to walk on to their classes or another destination. There were a few times when a person would walk by and try to copy the moves I was doing, but other than that there was no interaction.

I later realized that my piece was probably not done during an appropriate time. After having finished the piece, I learned that there had been a tragic accident inside of Ruggles station. I feel awful having done something so childish and carefree while such an accident happen. I feel as though it would have been ten times worse had I carried out my original plan of conducting the intervention inside of the station.

This whole intervention and experience has made me think a lot more about planning out a piece and not just coming up with an idea and immediately carrying it out. I now know to plan for more circumstances that could change the meaning of my intervention or could interfere with it in some way that makes it lose its original good-hearted meaning. I only wanted to show that even in an adult’s hectic life, there should always be some time for play and relaxation to go back to childhood and remember the simple games that made them smile.

Rules:

Under 10 seconds = 2 points

Under 5 seconds = 3 points

Under a foot away from previous player = 2 points

Under 6 inches away from previous player = 3 points

This piece was fairly hard to start. I thought that I understood what Dada and Fluxus were, but then when I had to create a game based on the ideas of these ‘movements,’ I was completely lost. I started with the one thing I definitely understood; find appropriated objects or something that may not usually stand out to me. I looked all around my room and soon discovered a set of safety pins and a washcloth. To me, these seemed like the most acceptable objects to use in a game. The next step was to figure out how to use them. I spent a fairly long time trying to determine what to do until I visited our class’ website and saw the short excerpt at the top of this project’s page. ‘Use the transformation of these objects into the materials of a game to critique, subvert or call our attention to their original meaning.’ This gave me the idea to write down all of the uses of a washcloth and safety pins and once that was done, I was able to determine which aspects I wanted to completely change. Safety pins are usually used to pin items of clothing together so that they may be sewn into a different size or shape and to alter the clothing for a better purpose. I wanted to create a game so that the safety pins would be used in a way that was actually detrimental to the players.

Learning about Dada and Fluxus was definitely a huge help in creating this game. Usually I would think up some game story and implement it for a single player. I learned to love the idea of using random objects found in the world to create a game. Fluxus taught me that games didn’t always have to be digital and that they could be cooperative with no real meaning, as seen in some of the happenings we learned about in class. Dada also taught me to turn things on their heads and create new meanings where some people may not have been looking for them.

This game was heavily influenced more so by the Dada movement than Fluxus. I wanted to turn my game into more of a random one than create a happening, but I guess during my playtest it sort of turned into a happening anyway. I had a set of rules for the players to follow, however, I like the idea that this game turned into a score with appropriated pieces.

I learned that this game should probably be a bit safer to play so I decided to experiment with different objects. I came to the conclusion that a long piece of fabric would be a better choice so that there was no chance of a player getting stabbed with a safety pin. I then decided to use a long scarf that the players would then have to use to tie knots around their wrists instead. This game went a lot quicker than the previous iteration and seemed to be more enjoyable for the players.

Buy a pack of Post It Notes

Draw a small character on each sheet

Walk down a street

Place a Post It on everyone who passes

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Essay:

A few different things inspired this piece. One was Yoko Ono’s Pea Piece in which she wrote to by a bag of peas and leave one everywhere you go. I wanted to create a piece that copied the idea of leaving something behind as you go throughout your day. Originally, my idea was to bring around a marker and put a dot on everyone I passed, but decided that may get me into trouble. Another one of Yoko Ono’s pieces that inspired me was her Tape Piece III. In this piece she encourages the reader to tape the sound of snow falling and use the tape roll as gift-wrap. I loved that this took a simple object, which usually has a certain use, and uses it in a completely different fashion. I decided to write a score in which the reader would take all of their professional documents and pieces of artwork, print them out, then use them as pieces of packing paper to send in packages. Gift-wrap is meant to be thrown away, yet a recording or photos are usually meant to be kept and preserved. I wanted to do the same thing and take a professional and personal thing and essentially have the reader turn them into trash.

I decided to combine these two scores into one. The resulting score was Post It Piece. I wanted to take the element of turning art essentially into trash from one piece and the idea of leaving something everywhere I went from the other. In this piece the reader takes a pack of Post Its (of any size) and draws images on each one. Once they have completed this, they must go out into the world and as they walk around, place the Post Its on unsuspecting civilians. This way people aren’t as prone to start an argument due to the temporary state of the object left behind.

I, personally, am not a huge fan of going out in public and interacting with many people I don’t know. I wanted to create a score that would help people overcome that feeling and allow them to interact with people in a light-hearted way without specifically conversing with them. Also, as a person with an artistic side, I love the idea of sharing my art with the world, without necessarily throwing it in people’s faces and asking for compliments. In some of the readings we’ve done in class, there have been mentions of artists that put something personal in every piece of art work and I believe drawing on small Post It notes and spreading them around is the same thing.

As I went around, I realized there were a few affordances that came with using Post It Notes. For one, they would not necessarily stick to people’s backpacks. It would fall off almost immediately, therefore I had to try and stick it to articles of clothing instead. However, when I did this people would notice and would give me unnerved and confused looks that eventually made me stop playing out the score.

The point of this score is to help the reader overcome the shyness as well as lighten up the world by adding little smiles here and there through unexpected art. It certainly helped me. At first I asked friends to help me, or even friends of friends until I realized that this wasn’t the point of the score. I decided to go out and try it in the real world, and that made all the difference.