Presentation

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AQ8E7eI4kaI0ZGdtc2RmenJfNTBzcXNnMmZoag

A Refusal To Be Prisoners Of Plastic

A Refusal to Be Prisoners of Plastic

Monument Proposal

1. Introduction

        30 Million tons of plastic is thrown away every year in the united states, much of this garbage is shipped overseas and during transport, millions of tons are dropped into the ocean creating the “Pacific Garbage Patch”. The only way to bring about a change of consciousness in regards to the trash problem is an interactive monument that offers the experience of a life time. An Ode to the Pacific Garbage Patch is Monument to be built in the San Francisco bay on former alcatraz island to act as a consistent reminder of plastic excess.

2. Background.

        The Pacific Garbage Patch is a result of the excess of waste in the United States. The patch, larger than the size of Texas, is a large swirling slurry of anything that happens to fall off the garbage barges going to Asia to be processed. Once the garbage is in the ocean it is left to for animals to gobble up, mistaking it for food, as well as entangling animals or photodegrading to the point of leaching chemicals into the ocean water. This degradation of the ocean surface results in mass deaths of sea life and even remote bird colonies 2000 miles away from civilization.

3. Description

The Pacific Garbage Patch Memorial seeks to bring to light this tragedy with the goal of curbing plastic use and manufacturing. The monument will not only sit in on top of the former Alcatraz Island, reminding people that we are all “prisoners to plastic” But will be able to be visited by locals and tourists. The monument will be constructed from approximately 30 million tons of entirely recycled, locally sourced materials. The structure consists of a large pool of various garbage items. The water in the pool will consist of a slurry much like what is found in the pacific. The pool will also house items people will recognize as stuff that is thrown away everyday. A few red plastic cups from last weeks party. Sunday’s newspaper that you didn’t quite finish. The lawn chair that was broken when the kids jumped on it. A tire from the last time you decided to do your own car repair. A water bottle as a constant reminder of the consumer driven aspects of plastic production. And lastly a Seagull as a reminder of the destructive impact on animals created by the garbage we throw away. Large wooden lettering occupies both faces, declaring a changing of ways, “Reduce - Reuse - Recycle”. A glass arch extends over the whole structure to give a glimmer of hope that someday this disaster will come to an end. The entire structure is accessible via boat and an elevator that goes to the walking area. The boats that get to the location add another level of experience as they are small garbage barges, much like the ones used to transport our waste to Asia. Visitors would come upon the barge and be able to interact with all kinds of hazardous-free garbage. To encourage seabirds to bother the barges the barges would smell like a freshly thrown out fish dinner. The whole monument is 3000’ long, 2000’ wide and over 1500’ tall from base to top of arch. 

4. Benefits

        The benefits of this monument will be the increased knowledge and awareness of this disaster happening so far away from our immediate environment, helping visitors create a physical relationship with the consequences of our “throw-away” culture.  Placing it in San Francisco will also give tourists a feeling that SF cares about the environment and is willing to contribute to further knowledge about the Pacific Garbage Patch. 

5. Estimated Costs

The materials, although recycled, will cost the following

Recycled Plastic Bricks (Polli-Brick): $432,000,000

Glass: $155,000,000

Garbarge Barges: $300,000 / boat

Yearly Operating Costs for Transportation: $200,000,000 for wages and operating costs. 

5. Timeline

Year 1-2: Demolishing Alcatraz Prison

Year 3-4: Inital building phase of pool and port.

Year 5: Filling the pool and building of glass arch.

Year 6: Final Touches and Opening by end of year. 

Generative Art

Outside Event: Kal Spelletich

I went to UC berkeley's Art and Technology series which featured robot builder, Kal Spelletich. Kal's work involves hydralic robots and sculptures that he encourages audience members to experiment with. Combined with fire, these sculptures border on dangerous. His work explores the space of robot human interaction in a very performance based way. Other themes include playing with fear and interaction. Kal's work is also very influenced by the punk scene, the above piece for example takes on the issue of drinking in the scene. His work was pretty inspiring to see, as i am very interested in build similar robots. Its really nice to see someone else exploring robots in an artistic way.

Outside Event: Houdini: Art and Magic

I recently went to the Jewish contemporary museum to see the Houdini exhibit. I've always had a bit of a facination with magic and therefore knew of Houdini, but this exhibit gave me a full picture of the kind of person he was. Houdini was not just a magician, he was an artist. His canvas was his body and the situations he would get his body into. The true art form was the way he got out of them. The idea of body as art is not unfamiliar, artists all the time use themselves in their art to express feelings of internal conflict, etc. Houdini's work is extremely valuable to the idea of the body as art, and the theatrics their-in. I admired his use of essentially wiggling to a fine craft.

Outside Event: Marc Horowitz

I went to a talk at UC Berkeley for their Art and Technology series. The featured artist was Mark Horowitz, a new media artist working mostly in video. Below is an example of his antics.


Marc works alot with the internet and how the internet and new media is changing our relations. Most of his project interact with the idea of how to connect with people over these networks. One project, called Talk Show 24/7 used streaming media and chat rooms to have a 24/7 talk show for 3 months. Marc was basicly on call for the duration of this time, constantly being asked to perform.
Another project dealing with a similar concept a website called "The Advice Of Strangers" dealt with for a whole month, Marc would ask an online community a question of what he should do. Below is the result of one day's adventure.


Lastly another project that was intriguing was the "Signature Series" where Marc wrote his name on a map of the united states:

and traveled along his name, doing nice things for cities along the way.

I liked this talk not only for the silliness, but the way Marc takes on the idea of making situations. It seems he is going in an almost dadaist method of interacting with others, the ultimate goal being to excite a reaction out of the process, either through allowing others to control his life, or breaking regular people out of their comfort zones.

Monument Idea

My idea is to do a monument for the Pacific Garbage Patch. Below is a quick sketch of my idea, that would feature seagulls, garbage, plastic bags and plastic bottles, all larger than life.

Cross border collab project

Myself and my partner joe decided to do something related to the occupy movements in SF and Vancouver and connect them in a way that was accessible. We decided to show these two projects by displaying the signage of the movements and putting them up in the areas where the occupations were. We managed ourselves mostly through skype, but the idea was a little rushed, due to the time constraints. There was clearly a disagreement in goals, as our collaborators wanted to make them more "arty" and take away the message. We of course thought this was a bit silly, and wanted to display the political nature of this protest. It was interesting to work remotely, but it was frustrating to work out details and i would have spent more time on that for sure. I think what would have helped is a mash-up of the groups based on interest rather than randomness. Overall i got a good project out of it and it wasn't too daunting.

Occupy SF and Vancouver

My idea is to have each group map out the occupy movements in their respective city. It would include an outlined gps track of the space being occupyied and photographs from the occupations.
Lastly, the outlines could be laid over each others occupation, to see which one is bigger and any similarities.



OccupySF

OccupyVancouver

Augmentation Final Result

Transhumanism Explored

I'm very interested in exploring the ways people can change their bodies through their hands. I feel that hand modification through the addition of sensors and electronics that react to the environment are very interesting,

This person i find most interesting, Lepht Anonym:


She is exploring what she calls "practical transhumanism", not by waiting for technology to catch up to implement body modifications, but using today's technologies to implant magnets in each of her finger tips. By doing this she can sense magnetic fields around her. Here is a video of someone performing the proceedure



Another thing that is inspiring is the rfid inplants by Amal Graafstra, he has implanted 2 rfids in his hands that allow him to unlock his computer and open doors:

This is all very exciting territory yet i can't help but think that these "experiments" in rfid tagging will soon be standard in place of id cards or transit passes. We must understand these technologies enough so they do not get used against us.

Logo Heist Postup

I wanted to post mine in a space that would give the sense of what the future would be like. I don't think it would be out of the question to have parks that were sanctioned as being "safe" for kids by chemical companies. Seeing this sign, you know it would be safe to let your children roam free without their biosuits.

Short Documentary about Ai Weiwei

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ai-wei-wei/

Chance result

After one pass

after 5 passes

Logo Heist

There are few companies widely despised as monsanto. A multimillion dollar agricultural company, they have had their hands in everything from agent orange to patented seeds. Monsanto is a major player in current agriculture at home and abroad which makes them a perfect candidate for a heist. with this i plan to use illustrator to convey their actual practices and put that into logo form.

Dark Matter Response

I chose to read the piece about "Dark Matter". This speaks to me especially as a part time zinester and full embracer of DIY ethos.

I agree with the authors upholding of "Dark Matter". I feel that it is through dark matter in which we get art which speaks. True artistic expression is not based on how well the line is drawn, but how the the work fits into its cultural context. To this end, the best art comes out of crisis. Through crisis it is when we see the creativity flow, not out of want, but out of need. It is through crisis that the artist is inspired to further their work. It is through crisis as well that the audience is able to take in the art with the same appreciation.

We can see this in the expressions of art of disaffected workers to protest gear. The group las agencias, reminded me of a group in europe known as "Ya basta" who prepared themselves with huge innertubes to bounce at police. 

Although not directly an art collective, their inventiveness on how to deal with oppressive force in space is interesting to look at in this context. Looking at the dark matter of art, you begin to peel back what makes high art succeed, and if these dark matter elements stream into high art. The further breakdown of high art should be the ultimate goal, dark matter should make up it all. 

Chance Project Directions

Chance project
Tools required:
Camera
Spinning Chair or a safe way to spin standing up.
Computer with photo editing capabilities and internet

1. with camera in hand spin on your feet or in a chair until you get dizzy and let yourself slow down.
2. Once stopped (and no longer dizzy), decide what cardinal direction you are facing. Walk according to these directions.
    if something is in your way, move around it but try to keep a straight path.
    For north, walk 10 steps
    For south, walk 15
    For west walk 20
    for east walk 5

3. When you stop walking, take your camera and snap a photo in 4 directions, don't worry about cardinal directions, but so you get a feel of the space you are now in.
4. Compile the photos (using photoshop or similar) in a landscape style, going first to last
5. Go to random.org, using the random number generator, get a number between 1-100
6. Then go to this page: http://www.anusha.com/top-news.htm, and grab the news story that corresponds with your number.
7. Find a photo that relates to that news story and put it as the last photo
8. save the file and upload it to your blog.

Here is my result:

Lewitt on Conceptual Art Response

This piece i felt a lot for. I very much identify with the concept that traditional art is rational. I've always felt this. The conceptual art genre seems to break boundaries and that is its primary function. I feel this piece is still very relevant, due to the aversion of traditional artists to the conceptual. To many, if it isn't painting drawing or sculpture, it's not art. We as artists are still fighting this, and still fighting the drive to push the envelope. Personally, i feel that the only true art is the conceptual. Always furthering the artist mind set. It is out of conceptual art where new processes come. I also feel that processes in the conceptual can become the new norm, invalidating their former avant-garde qualities.

Facebook Like Button

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/08/who-could-resist-pressing-this-facebook-like-button.html

Sludgehammer Keyboard

The sludgehammer keyboard is a project that questions the ability of technology to make things easier, to this the sludgehammer keyboard does the opposite. It uses rubber and a mallet to make entering text that much more difficult, and does not include a delete key. This project is engaging because it pushes the effectiveness of this tech down considerably.

Mobispray

MobiSpray event of University of Helsinki from MobiSpray on Vimeo.

Mobispray is an art installation that uses cell phones and large projections. The cell phone is the spray can in this case, creating large multi individual pieces. The Mobispray project captures me due to its ability to turn a device most people have into an active art creation device. This kind of public art takes the form of its more illegal cousins and transforms it into something that is a bit more revered than traditional graffiti for example.

http://www.mobilenin.com/mobispray/

The Public Broadcast Cart

The Public Broadcast Cart

The public broadcast cart is a project that allows any pedestrian to become their own pirate radio station. This project uses simpke electronics attached to a shopping cart to enable users to be heard both in person and over the airwaves. This project caught my attention because i enjoy the concepts of both pirate broadcasting, and mobile sound systems. I have done a similar project in oakland called the iRiot mobile sound system that i bring to protests with an attached microphone and fm transmitter.


http://www.ambriente.com/wifi/index.php