Graphiti

For the second project I initially wanted to try and play with audience participation which I thought the more successful earlier ones have. For example the project that caused a visceral reaction of someone wanted to stop or interfere with the process. One Idea was to make a mark and that actually be the start of the process and the audience reaction be the actual interesting bit, or "teh art."

One way I thought causing a reaction in the audience was to do something destructive in front of the entire class and vandalizing something. For example taking out spray paint and starting to tag something on the wall or the floor. What would have people done? Would they have stopped me or guessed that I knew what I was doing and let me continue.

What if I treid some less conventional form of Vandalism, like taking out kindling and trying to set fire to one of the pianos. Eventually someone would have stopped me, but how far would the class let me go in the name of art, or in the name of trust.


While I ended up taking the opposite direction to this, partially out of cowardice of authority, I still managed to put a majority of the class on edge and build up some stress before my piece began. While I was setting up my 10lb. wight pendumn suspended from the second floor balcony right next to a very large window, I shared my desire to destroy something in front of everyone with Dean Wilcox. He told me that it would really depend on what I chose to destroy, an I exclaimed that I wanted to vandalizes a significant part of the building. Immediately his mind jumped to the fact that I had a fairly heavy weight suspended right next to a large expensive looking pane of glass. He said "Like that window right there?" To which I responded "Mabye..."

By the time that I actually presented people where standing back and refusing to get close to my project. Once I started it, a lot of people made sounds of surprise as the brush slowly scraped across the canvas.