Final Project Proposal

Questions

When addressing site-specific installations, it is difficult to interpret the connections that will be made by each individual. You can only hope to strike a chord with each viewer with the intention of conveying a specific concept. The installations that have effectively conveyed this idea have been Sid’s intimate installations within her claustrophobic studio and notes of memorabilia and also Justin’s multiple wall projection of the creepy fish tank. They both made me forget of my surroundings and I felt immersed in their environments. In both I was very aware of my own part of the space by way on intimate interaction or total immersion. I also like how Adrianne’s first sketch with scale had all of us move through the entire space and really explore the size of the raw space. I tried to do something similar by using the raw space to allow my first scale piece to feel even smaller than it already was by putting it on the far end of the room. By forcing the viewer to move through this large dark space allowed their eyes to slowly adjust and allow the clarity of my piece to unravel just as slowly.

What I have yet to fully explore, is what does the space itself mean to the concept of my piece. How does it add to the read of the work and or how do they feed off each other with the presence of the viewer. I understand that there is a great connection to be made within the space and installation, but they both are transformed by the presence of the audience member and the work's ontological recognition is possible because of that viewer. The audience is what makes the space come alive and through their interpretation, if successful, it allows your concept to come to fruition. A few pieces that could further explore this idea through more sketches would be Darren’s wall mounted commercial eating cloud, my television altar, Adrienne’s bike part sculpture/projection, Amanda’s wall piece and Chris’s water bottle boat. All of our pieces were conceptually strong but didn’t directly address the room or the presence of the viewer in the space. The opportunity that we all had was to release any limitations we may have put on our project to better convey our concept and apply it to the use of the space. Some of us used a portion of a space but didn't really address why it was used or what influence it was supposed to have on our work. 

I have enjoyed the work that we happened to walk into as opposed to giving us a chance to approach it. Justin's mid term was a great example by using a transitional space to house his installation. We the viewer walk into a space expecting to view work in the body of the space but are confronted with a work of audio, engaging us from both sides of the walls. The reason I liked this so much is because it was so unexpected and I felt, for a moment, caught off guard. Amanda's revision of her wall piece was also successful in the way because we didn't know there was an audio element right away. We want to look at the work from afar, but the faint sound element really drew us into the core element of the installation, the heart. I think that there is a real opportunity with the element of sound and I think there were some great ideas thrown around about how to make that happen.

In all I believe that we are all on a steady path to creating another round of sketches that further explore the meaning of space and how it can be enhanced by the viewer's presence.

Concept

I want to address the center pillar of the raw space and use it to hold a majority of my installation. I would like to also use the projector and screen on the adjacent wall to display videos that I will have created in my Experimental Production class this semester. In class I will be creating visual poetry from abstracts pertaining to my religion (title in progress). My abstracts are still being worked out but will cover intervention in human existence, the aura of our lords, Gifts of knowledge from our lords (agriculture, technology, mathematics, astronomy) and a retelling of stories that present themselves in multiple religions (the great flood, ascension, angels, demons, virgin birth, etc.). I will also be making printed 3D icons/idols depicting the lords of my religion, I will also be printing reliquary and “archeological findings” of my imagination that show the religions’ past. These will all be installed in cases that I install onto the center pillar. The parts of the enclosures that are not glass will be covers or etched in either my own created script (fake language) or cuneiform script. On the east wall of the pillar will be the “altar” along with the controls to change the content displayed on the screen. Embedded into the altar will be a monitor to assist in the interaction with the piece.