Evaluation

The theme I was intending to explore is social interaction; I found this area extremely interesting after spending a week in New York. In New York I noticed a lack of social interaction in places known to represent the buzz of New York such as Times Square. This contrasted dramatically to other places like Harlem which had everyone trying to interact socially with us. This led me to want to develop my ideas around this area. I intended to break down barriers between people and create more social interaction. I looked at a lot of different artist and movements to try and inspire me to create an outcome. After seeing some of JR’s work in New York, I was interested in his work and wanted to find out more. I found out JR’s intentions where for world peace by breaking down barriers between people. This message was something I tried to carry across into my work. I hope that by giving people an environment to interact in and create something such as a ‘happening’ for people to talk about would lead to the breaking down of barriers and more social interaction.

Another key artist I was looking at was Yoko Ono; her work interested me mainly from her strong feminist messages. However I was also excited about was her performance art, this lead me to want to create a performance piece as my final outcome. I also wanted to do it over a long set amount of time, I was after looking at Art/Life where two artist tied themselves together for an inter year. It would of been impossible to do it for such a long time. However I still wanted for my interactive art to be created over significant amount of time to make a similar point as them and try to blur the lines between art and life. On from this I found an interest in Gillian Wearings work, as she intends to draw out things about people, which they would not naturally disclose. I think this idea is very exciting and that is why I decided to ask people to tie their wishes on a tree. Once the participants have tied their wish on the tree it then becomes anonymous, I think this lead people to be more open with their wishes. After my event, I then asked people to write another wish in tutor time, this gave them time to reflect more on what they were wishing for and make the wish more meaningful and even more anonymous. Another inspiration for the development of my ideas came when I looked at the idea of a ‘happening’. I wanted to create something with a buzz around it and my research into this type of even was a starting point. I intended to build this up through various different marketing strategies, like Gillian Wearing I wanted to create little tiny invitations, which not many people would see, alongside bold posters and personal invitations. I also looked at Grant Kester's concept of challenging the conventional aesthetics. By suggesting that aesthetics is more than an outcome it is a process really interested me. Particularly the dialogue and interaction between viewer and artistic creator becoming intertwined in the creation of an outcome. I think this is extremely linked to the concept behind my work. The breaking down of barriers in a social setting lead my intentions towards my final outcome being more about the concept and emotion than the physical piece of work.  This is why I thought that the planning, preparation and staging of my event was extremely important as it was that which would facilitate the creation of dialogue between people.  The ‘happening’ in particular had to be something bold, innovative and different in which people would hopefully talk about afterwards.

Through out all my artist responses, I tired various ways to break down barriers and invite  people to start talking and to blur the lines between myself the artist and the participators. I think all these prossesses helped me deveolp and think of ways in which I could try to break down barriers between myself and people in easy and accessible ways. This project has allowed me to explore themes wider than conventional athletics and I have strongly developed my skills creating a performance art piece; this is something that I intend to explore further through out my study of art. The most challenging aspect of this type of process however, is that it is considerably much harder to document the stages and development. Therefore if I were doing this again, I would try and record conversations between myself and people in addition to people’s conversations between them as this is what it is.

The key message was conveyed finally by the happening event which allowed people an opportunity to interact and an environment which they could talk about and interact with. The main challenge I faced was the concern that my happening would only be successful if people came and supported it. Due to my large amount of marketing and word of mouth a range and large number of people came and took part. After my event, I had people talking to me about my happening and I heard people talking about it which really demonstrated that I had started to achieve my goal. Again the challenges was trying to document these conversations, as these are evidence of the breaking down of barriers. I am happy with my outcome, as I believe I created a form of social interaction effectively. If I had the chance to develop my work further I would hope I had more facilities to document the event in different ways such as, filming my happening from a variety of angles and perspectives. However working from what I had the video in which I created does capture the event successfully.While believing the event was an outcome in its self. I decide to develop a video from the event to support and document my final piece. I created the video for various reasons. I wanted to draw out the emotion which I felt the physical piece created. Also the video allowed people to see the happening as a whole, allowing myself and other to reflect on the piece. 

In the video I used serious different film techniques to try and make the film as effective and emotionally provoking as possible. wants looking at the original footage, there was black space around the edges. I did not like this framing of the footage there for I decide to have the film as a three was split screen. This was very effective as it allowed there to be multiple images, wishes, text and footage on at the same time. this technique was useful as it also lead the film to not being very long however still effective in creating emotion. I deiced as so many of the wishes were so interesting that it would in text to have some of the wishes appearing on the screen, this allowed views to what other people had wished. As well as celebrating the huge variation in the things people wished for. On from this I began to thing about what sound I would like to support my footage. As when the participants were taking part in the happening I had various different people saying wishes, I though it would be interesting to record all the wishes participants added to my tree at the happening and after. Originally I simple played my voice reading out the wishes one after another, however this did not create any build up. Therefore I decide to overlay my voice to create a sense of tension. This lead the film to seem more like it have a narrative therefore lead to the creation of emotion and tension. However all though the sound of the wishes was effective it was not strong drawing out emotion in which I intend this lead me to think about music to support the piece. After watching various different short films which provoked strong emotion and found a strongly supporting sound track which aliened this the narrative the voice over was creating. I think the sound track is extremely effective in create an emotional response from the views. I just of various different film and editing techniques also support this. I change between colour and black and white, keeps the view ingadjed in the video. Also the editing of the images on the wishes makes the seem delicate and the star-like. All of this factor work together in my video to which would further break down barriers and to create an emotional response from the audience. The video also allows participants in the original happening to see the scale of the event and how it all came together in the end. 

Over all I believe my outcome of the happening was successful and it allowed people as say in which to interact therefore leading to social interaction. Also due to the amount of people who came and supported the event largely added to the success of it. However the video outcomes is also successful in creating an emotional response and allowing participants to see the coming together of the happening, as well as seeing it as a whole.

I have found it challenging to think about how I wanted to present my final piece. Two different ways: 
First way:
I wanted to present the video in a small space in darkness with a small screen and headphones to listen to it. I chose to present it this way because I think it reflects the interment of the piece and would give people a really chance to reflect on what the video is about. Next to the screen I would place a small box, with wish tags around it so that people could write more wishes and post them in the box. 

Second Way: 
I would want to present my work on a big screen from a distance with the wishing chair inbertween the projection and the screen so that it would create a slight shadow on to the screen, then I would have a table with wish tags on and invite people to write and tie their wishes on to the tree again. This would strongly link to Rafael lozano-hemmer who presenters his work through projection. This would also lead to further interaction between people.