Artwork #3: Intervene

My intervention project was inspired heavily by guerilla street projections featured in the tactical media documentary screened in class. The scale and inherent impermanence/non-criminalizing aspect of the intervention specifically appealed to me. I didn’t feel comfortable or safe involving my body in an intervention so the relative anonymity was also attractive.

Recently I’ve been very focused on bringing attention to the realities of transmasculine discrimination and oppression. I’m very frustrated by the fact that little people seem to understand our experiences or acknowledge our specific oppression. Throwing up a huge projection about those experiences for all to see felt like a good way to channel that frustration.

I wanted to use text that could be easily read and digested, so I took statistics from the 2015 and 2011 Trans Equality Reports, as well as some general truths and imperatives pertaining to transmasculine people. They are as followed:

video

I planned to laser cut the text and place it on a LED light box to project, so I created the designs in Adobe Illustrator with a laser cut-friendly font. I didn’t realize that the resulting image would not be magnified or projected strongly enough to be seen on a building (or at all, really). After running into that roadblock, I decided to utilize a projector, and edited my designs accordingly. I filled in the text and converted them into a PDF that I could blow up on my screen and click through.

I had trouble finding a room in Northeastern that was open at night and also had a big window that could be fully opened. I ended up testing the intervention in Kariotis. Only the top half of the window in the classroom opened, and it was not feasible to point the projector out of it. The projector could not project the image through window glass, either. I improvised by projecting the text across the room from the window, so it was clearly visible to anyone outside the window.

At home in Mission Hill, I attempted my initial idea. It worked to an extent, but because of the window screen on my window, the image was dimmed considerably.

video

I didn’t get any candid interaction (that I noticed) with the projections because it was late on finals week/late in Mission Hill.

At one point, while going outside to take photos, I found myself locked out of the building, and while that was really frustrating because all of my things were inside, it made me think about the prospect of having the projection as a running installation this way.

If I was to do the intervention again, I would secure a room for a day (or a night, depending on whether  the projection is sufficiently visible at day), possibly locking it from the inside, and set up the projector and laptop. I would edit the designs into a looping GIF that clicked through each of the designs at a readable pace. I might choose a higher traffic area if I could one with a window with such high visibility from the ground.

I’m very happy with what I’ve made and would love to run it again. I think with the proper circumstances and resources I could do similar in scale to the tactical media projections with my designs!

What I decided to do for Artwork 3 was making a poster that says “Write down your ideas! What sort of RA/RD event would you actually go to?” and a lot of blank space underneath for in order to let people write underneath. I only did this for the third floor of WVE, which was conveniently the floor I lived on, because it was where the main RA (Resident Assistant) and RD (Resident Director) office in the building are along with the only laundry room and main common area.

It was a little hard to develop the project because I don’t like to take up space or gather any attention to myself. So inspirations of how the project came to be came from From Jen and Derek’s presentation, I noticed that Tactical Media the line ‘anger is an energy’ and ‘create spaces, channels, and platforms for power reversals’. In terms of wanting anonymity, I looked at Michael Rakowitz’s parasite and decided that it’d be less stressful to leave a platform and let others use it how they choose.

Something that always irked me was that the RAs would make events that no one would be interested in and practically no one goes to and the money they’d use for that is chipped in from every resident on their floor. The RAs are nice and always say that we should email them if we have any ideas, but it’s not anonymous and that makes people uncomfortable.

I didn’t want to show myself and keep anonymous. So I decided to make project to at give people a way to write down their ideas and not interact with a human being.

Documentation:

The plan was to keep the poster taped on for a few days and then collect it. I taped the poster near the door of the laundry room which is close to the other areas.

Some of the things written on the paper on the first day such as “bring back the free succulents” and “pizza night, every week. (Just for our floor)(smily face)”. There were more jokey inputs, but one revealed more about problems that needed to be solved such as “free beer, hockey tickets, (I couldn’t read the last thing)” and “return my laundry dollars”.

I kinda hoped for more things written on paper due to the foot traffic to the laundry room, but then I realized that no one carries writing utensils with them when doing laundry and probably don’t want to go out of their way to get one out of their bag when dredging themselves back to their room.

If I was to do this project again. I’d pin a pen near the paper so it’d be more accessible and maybe add the words “collected in # days” like a countdown to give people some sort of urgency to put their ideas down.

It’s no surprise that college students are often sleep deprived because of their courseloads. I’ve been under a lot of stress recently and certainly experienced this myself, which is why I wanted to do something related to sleeping, specifically in a studying setting like the library. People fall asleep there often, so I did something that would draw more attention and seem more deliberate; therefore, I tried to recruit multiple people, and had them use pillows and blankets, set up near the entrance where most people would see.

Some of the project was vaguely inspired by the homelessness-related tactical media projects that were presented to us in class, namely the works of Wodiczko and Rakowitz. Though the underlying message differs from mine, it inspired the thought of playing with where people and certain daily activities belong, primarily sleeping. Usually, a single homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk doesn’t attract much attention and blends in; I wanted to put sleeping people in a context where they would be noticed.

Groups of people doing unusual things is fascinating to me, especially the happenings by Kaprow. While mine was less absurd, I was still inspired by his works and the public disruptions he and other Fluxus artists led.

While I wanted it to stand out, I was also wondering how much this intervention would blend in. I wanted to see at what point it does become unusual. I couldn’t get many people for mine, but someone was already sleeping when we arrived, which helped set the scene and almost made it feel more acceptable. The most common reaction would be someone staring as they walked past, or pairs of people staring, whispering something about it to each other, and moving on. The best part, however, happened at the end, when someone who works at the library approached. They stood by for a bit, looking concerned, before kneeling next to one of the participants, watching him, and then approaching me. They first asked if it was “protesting something,” which fascinated me, since in a way, we were, and it was interesting that someone would guess that just from people taking a nap on the floor. I felt like we were going to be asked to leave and we had already been there long enough, so I told them we would be leaving soon.

If I were to do this again, I would experiment with larger groups of people, inviting bystanders over, and/or putting up a sign that acknowledged the people sleeping to make it seem even more deliberate. Interventions generally have a social statement, and I would want to make one about college burnout more clear with other iterations.

ARTWORK 3: Intervention – GTA V Helicopter News

The Premise:

Players have to act as reporters in a GTA Online match and report what they’re seeing in Game Chat

The Rules:

1. Two players (One Pilot, One Reporter) pretend to be part of a News Helicopter crew in a GTA Online lobby
2. The Reporter must “report” in game chat where everyone can hear them
3. Neither the Pilot nor the Reporter can attack other players or return fire if attacked by other players

Artist Statement & Inspiration:

My main goal with GTA V Helicopter News was two fold: One, to create a fun and silly game that forced participants to interact with the extremely hostile world of GTA Online in a different context (as a defenseless spectator), and Two, to force those who commit the actions that make GTA Online extremely hostile to view their actions through someone else’s eyes.

Part of the inspiration for this project came from memories of the mini games my friends and I had come up with playing games like GTA IV. I also drew some inspiration from machinimas like Freeman’s Mind and Red vs. Blue, which usually manipulated the game to create content that was somewhat different from the intended play (more so in the case of Red vs. Blue). The main inspiration came from several role-playing mods that sprung up from games like ARMA 3 (Project Life) and GTA V (LSPDFR), as well as the many videos that sprung up around such mods.

As for broader sources of inspiration, the work of The Yes Men, particularly in regards to the performance where one of their members impersonated a DOW Chemical spokesperson on the BBC, was influential. This performance drew international attention to DOW’s misdeeds (in regards to them failing to clean-up after the 1984 Bhopal Chemical leak, which was caused by a company they later bought), while also showing how they continued to do nothing to mitigate the damage (i.e. Failed to compensate the victims of the disaster). While my project had far lower stakes, their method of using performance art to make a group of people come face to face with their misdeeds explicitly inspired the second part of the project’s main goal.

Play Report:

• Results weren’t bad, but they weren’t great either.
• Plenty of footage was recorded, but there wasn’t much vocal response from the players
• 9 times out of 10 we were shot out of the sky before we could start recording (had to constantly stop and restart due to Xbox Capture limitations) by hostile players in various flying vehicles (Helicopters, Jets, Hover Bikes, etc.) as well as ground-based players with anti-aircraft weapons (Heat-Seeking Missiles)
• Side note: It was also really difficult trying to get helicopters because they were spawning in weird places and I had my HUD turned off to get the best footage

Documentation:

Score:

Take a walk following these rules:

1. Sidewalk Slalom
   1. Walk down the part of the sidewalk closest to the street, swerving between obstacles
2. Moving around a bench
   1. If there’s a bench or some other object to the side, walk the wrong way around it
3. Turn Around
   1. At random points, turn around abruptly
4. Change Speeds
   1. Without warning, go from a walk to sprint and back
5. Walk on curbs
   1. If something is above walking level, walk on it
6. Up and Down
   1. Go down a stairs, and then right back up
7. In a circle
   1. Walk in a circle around things
8. Path Less Traveled
   1. Go off the sidewalk in parks and plazas
9. Hop-chain
   1. When there are barriers with small chains, jump over them
10. Walk Everywhere
    1. Walk to a dead end or secluded alley and back.

Documentation:
Walking Path:

Sidewalk Slalom:

Plaza Walks:

Other videos:

Artist Statement:

Above all other influences: I just wanted to take a walk. It’s a relaxing experience to explore somewhere without a goal. Before you leave Boston get some long walks in. (That goes for everyone reading this) Okay so the inspiration for the medium was my own desires, but how did I put it together?

There might have been a time in life where I wouldn’t consider a walk through a city a valid form of art, but that was long ago. More recently there was a time where I would not feel confident enough that a walk I would do could potentially be considered arts. I have to thank our good friend R.Mutt for that confidence, because his Fountain has showed that anything can be art as long as someone thinks it’s art. There’s something about the absurdist of Dadaist art that connects to the absurdism I was trying to create. Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven certainly encapsulates more than me the absurdist public performative nature I was trying to encapsulate.

Of course wherever Dada goes Fluxus will soon follow, and Fluxus was a larger inspiration for me. If R.Mutt proved that anything can be art Allison Knowles and her dedication to the Tuna Sandwich showed us what anything as art really means. Going for a walk, eating a sandwich, making a salad are all pedestrian activities that Fluxus artists worked in throughout the movements history. This piece also comes with a score, which is certainty inspired by those of Ono. I mentioned Map Piece in my last write up but it’s even more relevant here. The work is a walk following an imaginary map; I continue to walk that path.

The final major inspiration  (although if I would have done further research into the Situationists before going on the walk it might not have been the final paragraph) were performance artists. While my walk was not as impressive or interesting as walking across the Great Wall of China it was still inspired by Marina Abromovic and Ulay’s Lovers. That piece was the first time I learned of a walk that was also a work of art. The goal of my walk was much more inspired by a Monty Python sketch then a 3 month spiritual journey of two collaborators and ex-lovers, but it remains in the same medium.

Oh and yes, here are the two (1, 2) most influential Monty Python sketches. Not just on my walk, but on my life.