art448discoveringplace

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Final Project: Typologies of Walking/Not

Chalk For Change

For this project, I decided to revisit the area where I first walked for the first walk for senses. I wanted to walk around where I started this class to see if anything had changed for me in terms of my surroundings and how this project was different.

So, for this project, I decided to create murals on global warming as sort of my "mark" while I walk. Each one I created was a different environment about global warming, including a desert showing how hot it becomes from the sun because of global warming. I also did a forest fire to show that global warming causes fires and so much more. I thought it would be really important because of where I am and how dry and hot it is this time of year, especially in the afternoon or the hottest time of day, when it could get up to 120 degrees outside. If you don't know what it is, global warming is a long-term heating of Earth's surface observed since the pre-industrial period and due to human activities, primarily fossil fuels burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere. Generally, it means that because of the amount of fossil fuels we have, even hotter weather, you can see more in bigger cities like Phoenix or Tucson.

I kind of wanted to show my mark through my murals, like the artist Francis Alÿs, who created a piece called "The Green Line" where he walked through Jerusalem carrying a can of green paint with a small hole on the bottom and as he walked the paint would fall creating a thin continuous line. But unlike his piece, I decided to use chalk to really show that eventually we could hopefully change, and someday try to use less fossil fuels and stop global warming from happening. I was also inspired by our course reading by McKenzie Wark titled "The Beach Beneath the Street", especially the part discussing how art is a lived experience and to embrace art as a transformative force including when talking about Asger Jorn and his idea that art should not be separated from the world but should intervene in it and to play, spontaneity, and experimentation and to propose that cities themselves could be canvases for creativity. I am very interested in using the ground and the areas around me while walking as my canvas instead of a chalkboard. I want to bring in my concept of using chalk as my way of allowing nature to eventually have the chalk fade, unlike paint, where it stays for so long. I want it to eventually dissolve and create its own way of going back into nature. I want to show my community what is going on with global warming and what can happen not only to our environment but with others.

I feel like when I took this walk and started to create murals, I noticed a lot more from the first walk in module one, I took through this same path. I noticed more of the environment and more of my surroundings, and how much others notice what you are doing and what is going on around me while I was creating these murals. This project is about making something from my surroundings and still having that awareness I had on my walk, and what's happening on our planet now, and to hopefully get the message to others. It is almost like using our senses to see things around us and creating things from our environment to broaden our perspectives.

These two images are some of the murals I used to mark my path/walk to show others about the effects of global warming.

After creating these murals, I went back to look at them, and because it rained the next day, they were all washed away, as if they had never been there before, as I had expected.

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Final Project: Proposal

I did put everything in this google doc because I was pretty sure not everything will fit on Tumblr

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Writing 3: Witnessing Each Other

While reading Affective Composition and Aesthetics, Stevphen Shukaitis shows use the idea of aesthetic politics is an affective composition and where art is not only about content but about relations, experiences, and interpersonal skills it generates. he highlights art as a tool for collective self-organizations. and a way to build common spaces through shared presences rather than passive consumption. He decides to emphasize his usage of "performer" and "viewer" instead of "audience" and "spectacle" to show how artists are like radical marching bands that dissolve those roles. It starts to create environments where political subjectivities and communities can start to emerge. The author starts to point out that these conditions for connection and collective feelings can not only deliver a message but to create these ideas. My experience with being louder and expressive in public and quieter in private helps me claim that these small performances really help highlight the idea of social awareness and getting those experiences and disrupting expectations.

This idea is reflected in the video Krysztof Wodiczko: Projections, which follows the artist's large-scale projections on public buildings and monuments. He would create real-life scenarios onto important governmental or authoritarian structures using a message to connect each one together with something important politically. He reveals people's experiences who are left ignored or forgotten, like immigrants, the homeless, survivors of all sorts, etc. He uses these ideas that monuments and civic buildings carry quiet ideologies that we experience in public life. By showing others these stories, who create these stories as memories and empathy from these human voices. This really reflects Shukaitis' idea that publicness can just be given easily, but is created when we engage and disrupt that balance. This shares with the reading and video because they are both about using art to invite people to attend, participate, engage, and not just observe. They share an assumption that creates this temporary ground of possibility through moments of emotional and sensory intensity. I think when I was being a new version of myself through slight changes in my everyday life, it really highlighted how I wanted to be heard and participate in that sort of way. Most people, as well, when I tried to be more expressive with them, though everything was the same with me, but when my family started to notice, I felt like I was being heard, and this idea of having social awareness helps with that to in the video you can see how when people would use there voice Wodiczko would help them create art to share their voice with others and participate and help others be more aware and disrupting the expectation of being alone and not being heard politically and just humanly in public.

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Walk 6: With(in) Daily Life

This walk was really fun for me, because for my performance, I really wanted to experiment. I noticed in myself that when I am by myself and in public I speak kind of quiet and don't like to really talk and when I am with family I speak loudly and am more expressive.

So, for five hours, I decided to switch them without telling anyone and see what would happen.

I started by being in the car with my family, who were a little confused because I was not really talking, and they thought I was kind of down or upset. I started with being in the car because we were on our way home from being in Minnesota for a week, and I started with kind of being quiet in the car and not saying anything, unlike my usual self. At that time, though as well I was more focused on looking out the window and kind of whispering my answer and being very introverted.

Next, we went out in public for some food and errands, and I started being very expressive and more loud and upbeat in public than I usually am, and they started to be very concerned since I am more quiet and closed off in public because everything is usually overwhelming to me. But I started talking more with strangers, helping me in stores or waiters, just people I was not familiar with, like family or friends.

After that, I would just continue to repeat this process of being quiet privately around family, when it was just us, and then very expressive in public, eventually though they started to notice this, and asked what was up with me because they were family, they really noticed how different I was acting so after the five hours I did let them know what was going on.

But this performance was very interesting for me because I got to come out of my comfort zone and got to work on my social anxiety, and got to really experience a new side of myself. Although if I were to do this again, I would probably want to do this in a different place and time, especially since most of this I was on the road because I was trying to get home from a vacation. I really wanted to see just how much I could really get through with this experience without a lot of anxiety built up, but it still was interesting just to see how long I could last.

This performance was very fun to try and do around both in public and with family to really see if my family could notice, but also to see how long my social anxiety could take it, and how much I could take since I am such an introvert.

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Walk 5: I Walk in Your Name

So, for this walk, I decided to walk for my mom. Because this week we're at a resort with family in Minnesota, my mom suggested I walk around the resort and look at the lake. She wanted me to notice the sounds and not just focus on all the bugs, but notice the fish and plants, since we are so used to living in Arizona.

This is the map of where I walked around, and I was suggested to walk around. She also told me to notice what I smell as well, since it is very humid and more forest-like here. I did notice the smell from one flower, and it smelled like pineapples. She also told me to just go on the dock and look at the different animals and plants I find, because we are not used to seeing ducks or pelicans.

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Project 1: Ephemeral, Site, & Social Space

"Disc-Carded"

I really wanted to show the plastic in water and how much plastic and trash affect beaches and wildlife, mostly in places like Minnesota, with over 10,000 lakes in the state alone. With my CD I went around a lake and around some forest and tried to capture where trash or a CD could be left after storms or being discarded by people and how it can eventually blend with nature and how sometimes you can notice objects that are not only in nature but in urban areas like porches or flower pots. I also wanted to show how a CD and trash could be used for recycling, so hopefully we can stop with littering in bodies of water like oceans, lakes, or rivers and start using trash for things like vases or maybe like wheels or something. I also just wanted to explore my area because I am in a foreign place myself, and not where I am normally. I really wanted to see what I could use around me, like the forest of sand forest and the lake.

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Writing 2

In No Dead Air! The iPod and the Culture of Mobile Listening by Michael Bull revolves around the concept of the way personal devices help people to "aestheticize" their experiences of the places around them. Bull makes a point about how iPods allow users to find that emotional and spatial awareness by transforming what could be seen as mundane, and where there are solitary commutes into a curated and immersive experience. This idea of how mood and interacting with the city in this way suggests that listening to mobile things not just a passive but also an act of self-determination and thinking about space in a different way. I found this Idea to be very interesting about how using devices to see the world in a different light and using spatial awareness while using a mobile device like an iPod can change almost everything you knew before in the location you are walking in. It's almost like when an artist sees a wall in another way and uses that space in different ways and ideas. Both iPod users and artists, although they use a more visual approach they both still use the concept of inserting their own self into a city or landscape that often suppresses that city or landscape's unique attributes. My claim is that having either music, devices, or art can bring a whole different approach to how we can really see the small and unique attributes of cities and urban locations.

In the documentary Style Wars, music would be used to bring people together, bring dances, and new ideas for ideas on what to tag onto trains. It talks about how music can help to find something to do when you can not sketch or paint. Music can help them represent themselves and feel represented. Usually, when people "bomb" (paint) on train cars, they are silent and try to be sneaky. It is always done at night so that they can not be caught by law enforcers. I think it is very interesting how people can still create art through music, and it really helps my claim because, as I said before, not only do you need art to create things, but using these ideas can help explore more of urban locations and find small attributes like graffiti, even though it is hard to create graffiti and having the risk of being caught it is still a small unique detail of a city or urban location. I think that all art can help create those tiny details in a city and I still think so today, either when you are listening to an iPod or creating music and graffiti, you still make an impact on the city and get that concept of having an immersive experience and thinking about space in another way.

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Walk 4: Cocooned & Engaged

For this walk, I decided to explore Park Place Mall in Tucson, Arizona. It would be an interesting experience to really find one of the most social places in Tucson.

Hour 1: Cocooned:

For the first hour, I decided to walk around with my headphones in and looking at my phone while walking. It felt like I was the only person in the room with my headphones in; I could only hear my music and myself. It felt even more like that when I was looking down at my phone, and my feet, it felt like I was alone with no one around

I was listening to music I enjoyed, it was mostly music that was trending at the time, and just some music I enjoy listening to, and also reading books on my phone really helped with that feeling like I was the only one there, more intense. When I listened to music I was not used to or was not into it felt very different, like the environment felt almost wrong to me, like I still felt I was the only person in the room, but it also felt very different from before, like it was not right or uncomfortable.

Hour 2: Engaged

For the second hour, when I took off the headphones and started to look around, it felt very intense and overwhelming with all of my senses working at once, including my sight, smell, sound, etc. But when I heard everything and all my senses were being used I had an even harder time hearing my own thoughts and it was frightening because it was just too much to handle everything happening

Like I could hear people talking and see people walking around, and how some people were giving perfume tests, and kids screaming and laughing. With the food court smelling of so many food scents, and movie theater popcorn, since there was a theater next to the food court. When I looked at people in the eyes, some would smile, some would start talking to me like store helpers, some people would look away, and I would get some people would not even notice me.

When I was engaged, I almost wanted to go back to that cocoon of wearing my headphones and looking at my feet and phone because it was so much more calming and serene than all that overwhelming others were in that moment. I definitely think that being engaged is very good with being apart of your community and being engaged but I also really enjoyed being cocooned in my own thoughts and in my own world but still being apart of it and I know that sounds strange but it was also really nice to have that serenity instead of that overwhelming feeling almost like anxiety of everything happening.

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Walk 3: Social Territory

So when I was choosing a path to go on for this walk I decided to focus more on the road trip I took rather than one simple area because I was in one area in the car but still going by so many different things and noticing so much at the same time including different communities and different environments. One day on the trip was really memorable because it was when I went from northern New Mexico all the way to Tucson, Arizona, and I saw a lot, not exactly community-wise wise but environmental-wise wise I should point out, and the social aspect of being on the road. including stopping at gas stations to seeing pick up trucks stopping at rest stops.

On my map here, you can see how I wanted to focus not only on the truck stops and the gas stations and where cities were, but also when the climate eventually changed from a more grassy environment to rocky and mountain-like. I wanted to show how interesting it is to be from one spot where there was grass to another where you only see rock, and maybe in a small town's gas station, talking about how a movie was filmed there because of how small the town is. I wanted to go with a social aspect I was unfamiliar with and see what it was like outside a place I was always in, and explore how different it is, especially meeting new people. I think the images I show are proof of the environment changing on the journey.

What I saw, though, really opened my eyes to how different communities are and how beautiful all different climates are. I found that it might be seen as difficult for truck drivers to live the life on the road for most of their careers. I think finding that social aspect of one part of someone's life helped me to think about my own social life and my own social territory at home, not just the buildings, but the environmental aspect as well.

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Writing 1: Ephemeral/Site

In Walking the Line, Laurene Vaughan they explore how walking can be seen as more than moving your body but also expands more on diverse things like cultures and traditions. She likes to argue on how walking can be more as shown of knowing where and what you find and see like for example cultures you have never discovered before and just really mapping out the new environments your exploring. One of the artists Laurene Vaughan likes to talk about is Richard Long who likes to treat walking as a way of expressing their artwork unlike most artists he uses landscapes as means for his medium to really get the whole experience of his surroundings and walks around to really start to create something. Often times when he goes on long walks through natural settings he would leave behind subtle temporary marks including lines on stones or paths and places that would look more natural and leave his mark on the earth. His medium is photography to document his journeys when he encounters or traces he created himself. Now Laurene Vaughan suggests that walking helps people experience place in a more sensory experience almost like where Richard Long experiences his journeys he likes to get the full experience Vaughan engages in more of the sensory part like sound, taste, smell, sound, and touch and even feeling the ground beneath their feet to really feel where they are because sometimes we forget where we are and it just helps gain the full experience. This reading really helped me understand what I was trying to say in my own research about this idea where the senses and knowing where you are in the moment using senses and finding paths outside the normal can really help find where you are and experience now because I never really look in the moment and see the small details in the environment. 

You can see similarly in the documentary Rivers and Tides how it illustrates Andy Goldsworthy and how in the film he spends countless hours walking and looking for that perfect spot and materials for his art and how he has to find every detail and feel and sense his environment to really get to create his artwork. He mostly goes through natural settings including forests, riverbanks, hillsides, etc. to search for where he can find this perfect place to create his art but he also does not want to destroy or abstruct nature in anyway with his art but instead trys to collaborate with nature and the environment to really respect its cycles and natural systems. Most of the time he would understand that most of his creations would be reclaimed by nature eventually either by the rain or by the sun or scattered by the wind but it still did not stop him from learning and connecting with nature and his sense of place. Watching this documentary really connected me with that idea that by connected with your environment with your senses and other means and really explore your environment you can create and discover so much of its unique features and systems. 

Both the reading and the documentary highlight how walking is not just a sense of moving but also to really capture the place you are in and environment you are discovering through different means like using senses to capture the world around you and creating artwork by using natures rules and tribulations and how a regular activity like walking can make you really connect you to the world and to maybe a community or two and discovering more about not just the world around you but that one location as well.

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Walk 2: Desire Lines

I wanted to show different sketches of what I saw from using desire lines during my walk, as I was in a very different environment than what I'm normally used to, making for a unique experience.

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Walk 1: Mapping Senses

So after the first walk around my neighborhood, I started to just listen to everything around me and sense just by hearing, and it opened up a lot about how growing up in this neighborhood, community-wise wise it is pretty quiet and very calm and serene in the sense that thee is a lot of animals around me and nature is just very comforting.

Then on my second walk I really wanted to capture the textures I saw around my neighborhood via signs and bark on a tree, etc. I found so much that seemed very textured like the trees or the cement. I used charcoal and paper to really show the texture of things and to get the feel of what is happening around me.