Juxtaposition

The Opposite of my Manifesto

After last weeks manifesto, and this weeks research into Surrealist René Magritte, we were asked to create a juxtaposing piece to the negative manifesto we created last week. I decided that, rather than focusing on the content of my manifesto, and creating a utopia based off of it, that I wanted to focus on the space that I chose to work with, as with last week and the week prior, I had been working with very small spaces. 

The style and content of Magritte's work has you believe that it could be reality, and some of his pieces deceive you into believing it is. From this, I wanted to create a piece based on deception, and while I had wrote another piece of automatic writing about what my utopia would be, I decided that I didn't want to do something like that, and that I wanted to do something very simple.

My initial idea was to create a piece that, rather than trapping people in an enclosed and suffocating space, would lead them to believe that they were completely free. I didn't want to make a physical piece, but instead wanted to somehow leave a mark on people which made them part of the artwork without them realizing, and following on with my observation of how people interact, I decided that instead of me marking people, I would ask them to do it themselves.

I eventually decided to have them write their own names on their arms, and had thought about writing the names of those who had written their names on their arms on a piece of paper somewhere, however, I decided to make a projection installation. This projection would consist of videos that would show them writing their names on their arms. By doing this, I then had lasting evidence that people had partaken in my piece, and that it suddenly made them aware of their involvement just by watching it.
My overall idea for this piece was much like Shelley Jackson's 'Ineradicable Skin'. Shelley Jackson started a project in which people would voluntarily have a one word tattoo. It was a 2095 word story published one by one exclusively in tattoos, but it was as permanent for however long people kept the writing on them. This also meant that, however far the people would travel after writing their names, the art piece would go as far as they would, therefore mimicking a sense of freedom, but all the while they were still connected to the video projection. 

While doing this project, it shocked me how willing people were to write their names on themselves, whereas if I were to do it myself, people would, from experience, be a lot more hesitant. Only a couple of people asked for the reason as to why I was asking them to do it, but still did it anyway. More people asked if there was a particular colour they had to write their name in, or if they had to write it with either their left or right hand, but I only replied with 'It's up to you', since I wanted to keep my input to a minimum.

The video was created using the raw footage of people writing on their arms, however I didn't include any sound. I wanted it to be as unobtrusive as possible while it was being projected into a space that had other peoples work in. I thought about adding music, but decided against it. The clips were unedited, aside from removing the sound any time before the person started writing. In total, the clip lasted for around 3 minutes.

I chose to project the video, originally, on the back wall of the 2D studio, but after having moved the projector around, I liked the idea of it being projected onto the ceiling, which also fit with my non-intrusive theme. I directed the video just over the manifesto I created last week, and because of the light fixtures, it cast reflections on the far wall.
I had to be careful of having the projector in the eyeline, as it would mean that people were instantly drawn to looking into the light, which would be unsafe.

Overall I am very happy with the piece, as it was completely different what I usually do, but still allowed me to get people to interact, and to observe them as they did interact.