Rachel Meserve

May 7, 2008

Malena Burgmann

Accumulation Proposal

High Flying Thoughts

For my accumulation project I collected people’s thoughts, and in order to do so I utilized my Facebook. Each week I would post all the wall posts I had received that week from friends; those were there in the moment thoughts and were meant for me to see. But little did they know that by posting it on my Facebook where friends can see what they wrote, I was going to display there thoughts very large and in public.

My proposal is to take peoples thoughts that were originally meant for my eyes and (whoever creeps around Facebook reading wall posts) and display them in public in a non conventional manor. I want to design banners that are approximately 150ftx15ft for planes to trailer behind them over campus. This would show people that by placing things on the internet it is not always a safe and secure way of relaying a message.

I think that by doing so, people would realize that when they write a quick note to someone, they are not only writing to that one person, but pretty much anyone can see what they said. This project would be light hearted and a tad humorus, and at the same time who doesn’t like seeing those cool banners in the sky?

how my thoughts changed over time...

At first I wanted to collect people's thoughts, but I couldn't quite find a good or efficient way about doing that. Then I realized that by utilizing my facebook I could take thoughts of my friends at were posted on my facebook and use those, because they are quick thoughts in the moment made by my friends towards me. Then I could not decide what to do with these thoughts... so as the weeks passed I began brain storming, and I realized that these are comments and thoughts for me from people, but they post them on my facebook wall for all to see. Sometimes people assume that when they comment a person others dont take the time to read what they wrote on that persons blog. Theis got my brain turning and I began to think up some ideas to really throw these thoughts into the public. This could create awkward moments and emotions and sometimes those can be quite fun :)

Why I think we were assigned this project...

I think that the reasoning behind assigning us this is because we are used to our art projects taking shorter amounts of time. Malena was trying to get us to evoke thoughts about our piece over the course of the semester. By creating a project that slowly progresses over 3months we as the artist are forced to view our project in different states of mind on a weekly basis. This gives us better perspective and more ideas of where we could take it.

China Adams

China Adams

Why does so feel she has this big obligation for the viewer? She is an interesting woman, she focuses her art around humanity and people in their element. I really like that shetaps into mythology for a lot of her work. I love mythology! I would really enjoy doing a project the focuses around mythology, and all its symbolism.

She does end to work with dead bodies, which is intriguing but disturbing at the same time. I don’t know how I feel about that… Why would she want to work with the bodies?

It’s interesting that she uses her own z-rays and body sometimes in her pieces. She says that she is using her body that will some day be deceased but now she is alive and she is uses her live body on these dead bodies.

Gillian Wearing

Gillian Wearing- I really think that Gillian’s work I important, and that she address important issues in every person’s life. My question is though, why does she do it? Does she feel better from other people venting out their deepest emotions and thought to her cameras? She has everyday people express their thoughts and/or emotions in written text and then they become the subject of her art. I think the contrast is interesting… she is having these people pose with their deepest thoughts and emotions in text with them, but they most likely don’t know her which probably makes them more comfortable to vent. These pieces are then her art work and seen by millions. So people are allowing their deepest thoughts and emotions to be displayed for others to see. Brave? I think so. I was just curious as to what motivated her to focus her work on other people and their problems.

April 28th acc.

I collected about 30 thoughts this week.

eating ads

6'x3'x2' mix media

I decided to do my piece on advertising and how it attacks us wherever we go. It is always in our faces. I decied to do my piece as an interactive piece. I installed it in my friends house where 4 girls live. Everyone uses the fridge to eat, but the ads are so in your face that sometime you might just lose you appetite. I meant for people to realize how rediulous ads can be and how americans are so gullable to comsumerism.