cha

Final resting place? Probably not... this is shaping up to be one of those open-ended things... but it's been fun.

takedown

Reading from Andy Fisher's Radical Ecopsychology: Psychology in the Service of Life.

climax...?

So the gallery installation is up.
i call it a climax.

Pour Quoi?

And, um... what's the deal, anyways? Right? i mean, it's still just twine, and some knobs. Still no answer. It's all insisting to be seen - has for the last couple months - but, for what?

A friend put it in really good terms. This project is a methodology, not a message. The only message you will find in this is by virtue of interacting with it. i really mean that. i mean, sure, some of the twine has had some really nice formal qualities, and then there's the gallery. But it's not about the object. And if you really want to "get" something from it (which , by the way, isn't necessary), you won't get it by observing from an objective post.
So is it a tease, or an invitation? That part's been up to you since the start.

twiner mctwinerson

And it continues...

Twineing in Hartzfeld

Twine is a really great material. There's something comforting about it, almost familiar. i've come to really dig it. The video below is a recording of an obstacle setup in the courtyard of the Hartzfeld dorms. The obstacle/boundary part was only secondary, and unnecessary, to just the presence of the twine. i have to admit, i was nervous about having this one up. It certainly blocks the way. i became hyper-sensitive to its potential danger level and/or irritation level for those who encountered it. This is pretty funny, considering the big thing i'm interested in is creating scenarios that invite (force?) people to engage. When the bicyclist comes along, you can hear me almost ready to take the whole thing down because of its inconvenience. Silly me.

The video is a bit dull without much sound. But the point is the interaction. After the camera stopped rolling, several other people maneuvered through the twine and chatted us up about what the deal was. There's no big secret: we're playing. Playing with space, and playing with scenarios, to invite participation. It was cool to watch people enjoy the odd arrangement and have a good time with it. i think it's difficult for us to get out of the notions of protected space, or "proper" responses. These pieces invite all responses. Seriously. They're pretty fun.

debrief the drop

Did a little debriefing about the happening. Talked a bit about what went down (besides knobs, yuc yuc yuc), what was the response, how the players felt about it. It's funny. Across the board, it seems, the knobs were written off as an experiment to see who would help. In one sense, i guess it was. Helping would be engaging in some way. But it quickly began to feel like an obligatory kind of helping, with this air of suspicion, and unvoiced accusation that we were fucking with everyone else, that you all were our resentful guinea pigs. Or else it was dismissed as some "art thing," or psych thing.

So, i wonder how to get people to play. How to eliminate the alienating, hierarchical factor, the feeling that you're *just* being fucked with. Something to do just because the opportunity is there, or because it's fun, not because you feel weirdly obligated.

What happens when something insists that it be seen?
What happens when it insists that you play with it?

knobs go flying

Approximately 1:44pm