Final Project

My final project consisted of adding a digital interface to my analog street art project. Part 1 of my analog project consists of a series of photographs taken around the Lancaster area that depict the little things (that I at least found enjoyable) that I feel most people walk by every day without noticing. Most of these little things consist of natural elements creeping in through the cracks in the infrastructure of Lancaster. I took these photographs (from the Invisible City project), laminated them, sliced puncture holes through them, and hung them with red yarn on a poster board fence frame on the corner of 36th and Lancaster. I felt that this was interactive and allowed people to pick up the photographs physically, turn them over in their hands, and pick up others. I also wrote "This is Lancaster" on the back of the photographs to show people that these photographs of beautiful things are actually in the Lancaster area, which is not terribly well known for having beautiful things at all. It was also a tribute to a friend of mine who, upon looking at these photos, exclaimed, "This is Lancaster?!" Yes indeed. And so, as an affirmation to anyone who looks upon them, this is, in fact, Lancaster.

My part 2 for the photo project was, again, analog. I plotted out on a map where the physical locations of the photographs were in Lancaster, took a black sharpie, and wrote physical directions to each location on the back of each corresponding laminated photograph so that people may find the actual locations and see what I saw. I find that a big part of the disparity between photographs and viewer is that people often have trouble imagining that these photographed places really exist in real time, and further have even more trouble imagining what the photographer must have seen to warrant taking a photo. I want to take people to these places to show them that they do in fact exist and that there may be a large difference in perspective of environment between a foreigner with a camera and an everyday resident. I realized in the middle of my endeavor to transcribe all these locations that some of the directions were wrong. I gave directions using blocks (i.e., travel 3 blocks north, turn right, head east for a block and a half, etc.), not realizing that I determined the blocks by street number instead of actual physical block. Because the streets are numbered (i.e., 35th, 36th, 37th, etc.) I used those to determine blocks, but realized halfway through that there are streets in between the numbered ones which people will count as blocks, and so 3 blocks west doesn't get me to 39th, but actually gets me to 38th or so because of the streets in between. I corrected my mistake but the incorrect directions are still on many of the photos, unfortunately.

My 3rd and final installation is a digital map of my photo locations on UMapper. I made a virtual map of all my photo locations and, with little markers, posted descriptions of what I saw when I was at these locations and took these photos. I also made a little path to take people around to each photo location which links them all together. Even if people don't want to take a photo tour, this is still a lovely walk to take just for fun. In order to make my project applicable and accessible to the general public (at least, the general public with smartphones) I generated QR codes, printed them, and cut them out to place them around on each photo and at each location I photographed. I wanted to put photographs in the places I marked off on the map but, for some reason (even though I fixed the photographs to be the correct accepted file type) they are not uploading. Even my computer science friends are stumped by this, so I know it's not just me being stupid and forgetting something. Alas. I shall post the photos here I suppose, of both my photography in this art installation and of the installation itself. The installation, although put up about a month ago, is still largely intact, which is surprising but hey, I'm happy about it.

Here's a link to UMapper, in case you missed my earlier post and want to visit my collection map:
CLICK ON ME!

And check these bad boyz out: this is the actual selected photography from my Invisible City project that I picked to illustrate the character of the neighborhood. If you've seen the Invisible City post, you might find this to be familiar. If not, CHECK IT OUT HERE! There are a lot more pictures to see there anyway.
*ALSO* These photographs are in chronological order for the UMapper walk, so keep these in mind if you visit the map site and want to know what the photographs actually looked like (since the site is still being DUMB and not letting me upload photos...)
Enjoy :)

the lancaster manifesto

THIS IS LANCASTER.

it shall be a realm of disaster, destruction, and diplomacy between the natural and the constructed. it will be a world of life hidden beneath crumbling facades, and culture behind closed doors. it will be revealed through the lens of a camera, and it will be seen through the eyes of the foreign photographer. it will be shaped through art and decay, through new growth and the changes time brings. it is a world of green and gray. it will be a place on the beach, just by the water's edge, constantly reshaped by the hand of time. and in its constant change lies a people of constant nature, seen only in its multitude of layers with the art that courses through its veins. it is the yin and yang, a balance of creation and destruction, a child of shiva's own nature, constantly created and destroyed and rebuilt over and over again. it will be staunch and unchanging, yet ever shaped and reshaped. it shall be revealed in the art of the foreigners, and it shall be shaped by the art of the foreigners. it will be lancaster, and it will be influenced by us, but never quite ours. it is a river, always there but never quite the same from minute to minute. to know the place is to destroy the place, and to know the place is to reshape the place, and to know the place is to create the place. one must be the grass creeping through the sidewalk cracks, destroying and reshaping and creating new surfaces and new facades. one must become the vines that creep along the walls, blanketing their faces and dressing up dull brick patterns. one must understand that with the passage of time, the flowers that currently adorn the wrought iron fence will one day consume and destroy it. change is the core element of its existence, and consistency is what continues it on through time. this is lancaster, and it is defined through the artist and the resident and the nature that will forever flow through the cracks of this mosaic of culture and history. even that which is written in stone will someday fade.

FINAL PROJECT! YAAAY!

So I decided that I wanted to have a digital component to my final project. I incorporated the directional aspect from my part 2 of the Put Something Here by creating a map on UMapper and posting the locations of the places that I photographed, and instead of the soundwalk idea I had previously entertained, I decided to instead write a description of my thoughts on the area before photographing it and pin it to each location. I also included an approximate pathway that I took on my original photographic endeavor so that people who view my digital project might take the same path.

follow me!
PAULA'S MAP!!

Reading things...

Mimwon Kwon:

A lot of what is said about site-specific art makes sense to me. I believe, having done street art before, that the placement and the environment in which a piece of art is placed/done is just as important as the art itself, and essentially becomes a part of the art. The democracy of a space, however, is another entirely different matter. I feel that in terms of public space and common property, the property that is not owned by one specific person should be deemed pubic property and should be treated as such. This is why I don't understand the extreme presence of police officers at property that people don't own and change it. I think public art in these cases challenged these borderlines and what it means to really be public property.

Critical Vehicles:

I do relate a lot of what Krzysztof Wodiczko points to in his article, mainly the points concerning the foreign nature of aliens and the ways in which they have a pretense as to how natives should treat them in conjunction with the natives, who have a pretense as to how the foreigners should behave. I feel this way about our projects on Lancaster, which basically make us, the students, into the aliens and the residents into the natives. Not only do we misrepresent the other, we also expect the other to behave in ways that it naturally wouldn't, which creates and perpetuates this divide between the Lancaster neighborhood residents and us.

Put Something... HERE!

My "Put Something Here" project was basically sixteen of my best Invisible City photographs, laminated, and hung with red thread on a fencepost that regularly holds messages and posters. I wrote on the back of the laminated sheets, in black sharpie, "This is Lancaster" so that anyone who saw the project would know that these photographs were taken right here in the neighborhood. I got the idea for the project while I was with a friend of mine. I showed him the photos and he took a look at them and exclaimed incredulously, "This is Lancaster?" I feel that people might have the same reaction in seeing some of these photographs because, frankly, many of them don't look like they belong on Lancaster or were even taken around the area. There's this large misconception that there's nothing beautiful in Lancaster, but I beg to differ. I think there's plenty of beautiful things, but they're merely overlooked by people who see them every day. I wanted this project to be semi-interactive and have people pick up the pictures, turn them over in their hands, and pick up another. I want them to see that this is indeed Lancaster and that these beautiful photos are, in fact, their own neighborhood.

*UPDATE*
Part 2 of the project was to add something to the site, and I decided to add the physical location of the places in which these photographs were taken so that people who wanted to find them could see the places I took the pictures. I wrote the directions to the location of where the pictures were taken in sharpie on the laminated back of the corresponding photograph. The only twist is that I didn't use an address or any universal geographic location to help people find the places I took pictures in; instead, I gave them specific directions from the art project itself directly to the places. I wanted people to take initiative, to follow directions in an analog way through their own free will if they so chose, and to see what I saw in the same place that I was in when I took the pictures. I wanted to give them a sense of the photographer's eye and what exactly is involved in taking photos like the ones I have.

Neighborhood Walk thoughts...

I very much enjoyed the neighborhood walk and found it to be very insightful into the nature and history of the neighborhood. I did not realize how rich the culture and history was behind each building, and I realized upon a closer inspection that each facade was unique and had different character from other fronts. I suppose I was reluctant to pass through the neighborhood too much and missed out on the diversity of the  area, which was revealed to me during the walk. I feel that there are probably plenty of outsiders who don't know the exact history of the neighborhood and therefore don't understand it, which is a shame because they pass judgment on people they don't even understand. The pride the residents feel about their home is electric and almost tangible when walking through the neighborhood itself.

Sound Walk

I feel that I owe a description at least for my soundwalk because it's literally impossible to upload the audio onto a website (or online at all, for that matter). The device I recorded the walks on is an old analog sound recorder with no computer interface, so it can only be heard on the recorder itself. I suppose a short description of the sound is in order:
I made two recordings, one of me walking on UPenn campus and one of me walking on Lancaster. Listening back, one can very distinctly tell the difference between the two just by the sounds heard on the recordings. Only the sounds of wind in the trees and distant cars passing could be heard in the UPenn recording, while the Lancaster recording contained numerous passing cars, street activity, and other loud surrounding noises. The striking differences between the two recordings shows the very staunch separation between sound environments even within the space of only a few blocks. It also helps to illustrate hard boundaries between neighborhoods, boundaries which perhaps completely divide the people within them from the other.