After typing in this box for what seemed like half an eternity, my computer burped and the words vaporized. Frustation has given way to fatigue and I leave behind me the merest impression of what I will try to recreate tomorrow.
Words
mine, yours, stranger's
strange
strung together
coherence vs. incoherence
Ideas
flier exchange, flier's eye view of the community
plan of action
yours, mine (reverse that)
are there any good ones left???
Art
broad strokes
self
public, guerrilla, natural
words as
NYT exhibit featuring words
Self identity
Framing
10.29.2007
10.16.2007
Extracted Abstraction
You know how the clone of a clone of a clone is a little fuzzy around the edges? Do you think the same thing happens with ideas? I hope not. You may recognize the verbiage in the above photograph of a sign, which was kindly scribbled, posted and shot by ReX in New Orleans.
I met with my mentor again tonight and we had some great banter. Abstraction was again heavily explored. And too, more questions asked. I can feel closure up ahead. It's nearby, but we're not there just yet.
I didn't answer some of the questions I posed in my last entry and I wanted to make sure to do two things: 1) answer them, or if not then; 2) let it be known that I'm processing the answers.
What does this project mean? What kind of changes have occurred in the daily lives of the participants and blog visitors? And does it have any bearing whatsoever on the creators whose messages we have captured and shared with one another? Of these, the last is the easiest to answer. I think the only way this project could have meaning to anyone is if they'd seen it. Right? I'm going to revisit this in just a moment.
The first two questions actually address something much deeper--what is the impact of knowledge? Once you learn something, so what? I need your help answering that, within the parameters more or less of this project. What is it that called to you about this particular project (other than the persistence of a friend)? What did you see in the idea? Did that thing change once you engaged yourself in it?
So could there be a lasting effect on someone who has no knowledge of the project's existence?
I'll leave you to steep with those thoughts for now and with two images. I'm still collecting and posting images as they come in so feel free to continue submissions. And if the inspiration should strike, please share your thoughts on anything I've offered here.
Orangutan exhibit, Atlanta Zoo, 9/2007, Steve
Glimpse at inner thought process of blauthor, Tucson, 10/16/07
10.13.2007
Intersection
Imagine a location where abstract ideas crash into one another. Ethics meets creativity, responsibility meets art. Art meets ethics, creativity meets responsibility. And so on and so forth. Probably more than anything else, these are the ideas which have held me captive since undertaking this project. Of course we've also had the other Cs with which to contend--community, context, collaboration. All of these concepts mingle together, netting us what exactly?
I've been asked, more than once, what this project means, why it is that I felt compelled to collect such trivial things as lost pet posters and images of defaced stop signs. I've been asked who owns the images I've so boldly displayed. I've been asked how the intent of the original message morphs when I remove it from the original context and paste it into cyberspace as entertainment. I've been asked what exactly community means to me.
On the face of it, Have You Seen My Dog? is an exercise in observation, an invitation to take a deeper glance at one's environment of both the mundane and the extraordinary. I've heard from just about all of the participants how great it was to be asked to look at the things we more or less ignore on a daily basis, the blight of neighborhoods or the boringness of traffic insignia. Maybe that's the foundation of community, the physicality of our surroundings, the meticulous infrastructure provided by landmarks and signposts, and the heft of an occasional written message pasted within the landscape. But that's not the whole of community.
But these days, community has come to mean much, much more than the neighborhood where your house sits. Everyone I know belongs to a handful, or a bushelful of communities. We're no longer limited to familial, ethnic or educational groupings, and largely because of the global/local reach of the internet, we can elect to belong to communities which share no physical boundaries whatsoever. Yes, there are those among you who will argue that the earth itself offers a physical commonality, but I kindly thank you for allowing me to discard that fact for the purpose of this discussion.
I'd like to think that I've created a community of sorts here, a place where artists, voyeurs, pet parents and friends have come together to share a vision of how our world truly looks. Perhaps I've done that, but at the end of the day each of us belongs to another community, and one beyond that again and again and again. The artists among us differentiate between graffiti artists and photographers and sculptors. The voyeurs belong to family groups, company groups, church groups. The hub and spoke model is alive and well where the idea of community is concerned. Tonight I'm happy to describe myself with myriad identifiers and among them are: night owl, poet, thinker, daughter, social servant, teacher, artist, provocateur. Which communities can count you among their population statistics?
In case you had ever wondered, there were images I chose not to publish here. In the case of a couple shots, they just didn't seem to quite fit in and I had no problem making that decision. In one other case, someone submitted a license plate as a funny sign. I hemmed and hawed over whether to include it and I opted not to. It was a difficult decision from an ethical perspective and I've tried to explain it a couple times without much luck. Before I go into my explanation, there's a little more background I need to offer. Invariably while I've argued my stance, the argument has come up that I didn't include a license plate but that several of the posters I did include had phone numbers and/or email addresses. Here is my justification.
With a license plate, I can find some very specific personal information by filing a request with my local motor vehicle department (though exactly what's available may vary by state). The registered owner's name(s) and address as well as insurance and lien information is right there on the record in Arizona. I realize that anyone who buys a vanity plate is purposefully exhibiting some kind of information or attitude (and I speak from experience), but it seems like an intrusion to me to flaunt a license plate here. Now, admittedly I made no move whatsoever to ghost or obscure phone numbers and email addresses that were visible in posters. My feeling is this--the owner/author of the sign volunteered that information and opened him/herself up for contact. The argument seems weak, even to me, but the truth of the matter is that when confronted with the license plate and phone number choices, I instinctively knew which choice was right in each case. I realize that choice is mine, and mine alone. Other artists/exhibitors may make other choices and that's fine with me.
I'm leaning heavily tonight on the abstractions behind the project. There's more on the tip of my tongue, but I don't want to wear out my welcome just yet. I leave you tonight with a few new images, weighty or whimsical though they may be. I would ask that you consider a couple dueling concepts as you scroll through the rest of this post: permanence and transience.
Stone & 6th St, Tucson, 10/2007
Lakefront, New Orleans, 10/8/07, ReX
Valley & 6th Ave N, lower Queen Anne, Seattle WA, Sherri
Portable art, Tangerine & the 10, Marana, 10/6/07
I've been asked, more than once, what this project means, why it is that I felt compelled to collect such trivial things as lost pet posters and images of defaced stop signs. I've been asked who owns the images I've so boldly displayed. I've been asked how the intent of the original message morphs when I remove it from the original context and paste it into cyberspace as entertainment. I've been asked what exactly community means to me.
On the face of it, Have You Seen My Dog? is an exercise in observation, an invitation to take a deeper glance at one's environment of both the mundane and the extraordinary. I've heard from just about all of the participants how great it was to be asked to look at the things we more or less ignore on a daily basis, the blight of neighborhoods or the boringness of traffic insignia. Maybe that's the foundation of community, the physicality of our surroundings, the meticulous infrastructure provided by landmarks and signposts, and the heft of an occasional written message pasted within the landscape. But that's not the whole of community.
But these days, community has come to mean much, much more than the neighborhood where your house sits. Everyone I know belongs to a handful, or a bushelful of communities. We're no longer limited to familial, ethnic or educational groupings, and largely because of the global/local reach of the internet, we can elect to belong to communities which share no physical boundaries whatsoever. Yes, there are those among you who will argue that the earth itself offers a physical commonality, but I kindly thank you for allowing me to discard that fact for the purpose of this discussion.
I'd like to think that I've created a community of sorts here, a place where artists, voyeurs, pet parents and friends have come together to share a vision of how our world truly looks. Perhaps I've done that, but at the end of the day each of us belongs to another community, and one beyond that again and again and again. The artists among us differentiate between graffiti artists and photographers and sculptors. The voyeurs belong to family groups, company groups, church groups. The hub and spoke model is alive and well where the idea of community is concerned. Tonight I'm happy to describe myself with myriad identifiers and among them are: night owl, poet, thinker, daughter, social servant, teacher, artist, provocateur. Which communities can count you among their population statistics?
In case you had ever wondered, there were images I chose not to publish here. In the case of a couple shots, they just didn't seem to quite fit in and I had no problem making that decision. In one other case, someone submitted a license plate as a funny sign. I hemmed and hawed over whether to include it and I opted not to. It was a difficult decision from an ethical perspective and I've tried to explain it a couple times without much luck. Before I go into my explanation, there's a little more background I need to offer. Invariably while I've argued my stance, the argument has come up that I didn't include a license plate but that several of the posters I did include had phone numbers and/or email addresses. Here is my justification.
With a license plate, I can find some very specific personal information by filing a request with my local motor vehicle department (though exactly what's available may vary by state). The registered owner's name(s) and address as well as insurance and lien information is right there on the record in Arizona. I realize that anyone who buys a vanity plate is purposefully exhibiting some kind of information or attitude (and I speak from experience), but it seems like an intrusion to me to flaunt a license plate here. Now, admittedly I made no move whatsoever to ghost or obscure phone numbers and email addresses that were visible in posters. My feeling is this--the owner/author of the sign volunteered that information and opened him/herself up for contact. The argument seems weak, even to me, but the truth of the matter is that when confronted with the license plate and phone number choices, I instinctively knew which choice was right in each case. I realize that choice is mine, and mine alone. Other artists/exhibitors may make other choices and that's fine with me.
I'm leaning heavily tonight on the abstractions behind the project. There's more on the tip of my tongue, but I don't want to wear out my welcome just yet. I leave you tonight with a few new images, weighty or whimsical though they may be. I would ask that you consider a couple dueling concepts as you scroll through the rest of this post: permanence and transience.
Stone & 6th St, Tucson, 10/2007
Lakefront, New Orleans, 10/8/07, ReX
Valley & 6th Ave N, lower Queen Anne, Seattle WA, Sherri
Portable art, Tangerine & the 10, Marana, 10/6/07
10.02.2007
Recruitment
I've spent a handful of years working in non-profit social services, most of which operated with large contingencies of volunteers waiting in the wings. To attract all those volunteers, my colleagues and I have had to come with with some crafty ways to grab the attention of passersby and ill-affected youth looking for extra credit in random high school classes. I'm at a loss as to why that vein of creativity didn't kick into high gear when I started this project...I had a great chat tonight with my course mentor who made the suggestion I should create a flier asking people to participate in this project. Duh! Why didn't I think of that?!?!
Well I'm done kicking myself in the buttocks and have created just such a flier (see below). And I find myself asking, once again, for your generous help. I have the document available as both Word and PDF documents and will send one to you lickety-split if you would be so kind as to post one or 23 somewhere in your community. We've still got at least a couple weeks and I would love to see a wider geographical representation amongst our collection. Any takers? Ah, come on! You know you want to!
Well I'm done kicking myself in the buttocks and have created just such a flier (see below). And I find myself asking, once again, for your generous help. I have the document available as both Word and PDF documents and will send one to you lickety-split if you would be so kind as to post one or 23 somewhere in your community. We've still got at least a couple weeks and I would love to see a wider geographical representation amongst our collection. Any takers? Ah, come on! You know you want to!
9.30.2007
Signs You Might See While Driving
I made no move whatsoever to group this next set thematically. It just sort of happened. This is another collaboration amongst veterans of this project with Alanna, ReX and myself pitching a few more captures out there.
I really thought I would see some kind of definitive, cultural boundary emerge in the messages we've found, but a month into it I just don't see that happening. What about you? Maybe it's in the signs we're finding--more likely, it's simply where we're looking. Then again, maybe it's not so simple.
As we near the end (and no, I don't know exactly when we'll be done with this), I invite you to think about perhaps posting your own message out there in the actual, physical world. And if you think of it, snap a picture and send it my way so I can post it in the cyberworld.
"Ork Ahead," 8th St west of 4th Avenue, Tucson, 9/26/07, Alanna
Delano near Los Altos, Tucson, 9/28/07
Moped belonging to my neighbor, Tucson, 9/28/07
8th St west of 4th Avenue, Tucson, 9/26/07, Alanna
Mountain Avenue & Limberlost, Tucson, 9/29/07
"confession declaration or complaint?," Ft. Lowell near Oracle, Tucson, 9/30/07
I really thought I would see some kind of definitive, cultural boundary emerge in the messages we've found, but a month into it I just don't see that happening. What about you? Maybe it's in the signs we're finding--more likely, it's simply where we're looking. Then again, maybe it's not so simple.
As we near the end (and no, I don't know exactly when we'll be done with this), I invite you to think about perhaps posting your own message out there in the actual, physical world. And if you think of it, snap a picture and send it my way so I can post it in the cyberworld.
"Ork Ahead," 8th St west of 4th Avenue, Tucson, 9/26/07, Alanna
Delano near Los Altos, Tucson, 9/28/07
Moped belonging to my neighbor, Tucson, 9/28/07
8th St west of 4th Avenue, Tucson, 9/26/07, Alanna
Mountain Avenue & Limberlost, Tucson, 9/29/07
"confession declaration or complaint?," Ft. Lowell near Oracle, Tucson, 9/30/07
9.26.2007
1411 Miles from North of the Border
ReX uploaded a photo from his project yesterday which, in my mind, dovetails nicely into ours over here on Have You Seen My Dog? There's a real sense of dialogue here--four separate entries happened on this spot. There's a definite give and take, followed up with some communal grist. Is grist a word? If you're not familiar with what ReX has going on, or if you're wondering about the gray/grey, please go check out NOLA Rising.
"Goose Says...," New Orleans, 9/25/07, ReX
"Goose Says...," New Orleans, 9/25/07, ReX
North of the Border
All Tucson, all the time. Well, at least for tonight. There's a sign in tonight's set that I first saw several years ago and it always made me chuckle. I can't believe I forgot about it until this far into the project.
Also included are three signs from my own neighborhood, which is a colorful place. In fact, I've heard it described by more than one source as "crack central" or "the heroin 'hood." Certain parts of the neighborhood probably earned those nicknames, but by and large I'm in an energetic area. One of my first posts was of a graffiti tag down the street with a simple message: "flow." Flow has struck again, just a block north of the previous site. I've also seen "flow" about a mile north of my house, but just off the same axis.
Shooting this set felt both lighter, mood-wise, and truer, artistically speaking. There's some inner process kicking into crank mode. More on that this weekend.
"Coco," Glenn & Fontana Avenue, Tucson, 9/26/07
Delano & 2nd St, Tucson, 9/26/07
"T-Rex" trailer in front of T-Rex Museum, Drachman near Stone, Tucson, 9/26/07
Sale, Grande Avenue south of Congress, Tucson, 9/26/07
Sign en espanol in front of Ward 1 offices, Grande Avenue north of Congress,
Tucson, 9/26/07
"Lost. . . Mix," Delano & 2nd Street, Tucson, 9/26/07
Flow strikes again, Delano near Fontana Avenue, Tucson, 9/26/07
(we're starting to see style and/or signature emerge)
My favorite Tucson sign, Pima near Alvernon Way, Tucson, 9/26/07
Also included are three signs from my own neighborhood, which is a colorful place. In fact, I've heard it described by more than one source as "crack central" or "the heroin 'hood." Certain parts of the neighborhood probably earned those nicknames, but by and large I'm in an energetic area. One of my first posts was of a graffiti tag down the street with a simple message: "flow." Flow has struck again, just a block north of the previous site. I've also seen "flow" about a mile north of my house, but just off the same axis.
Shooting this set felt both lighter, mood-wise, and truer, artistically speaking. There's some inner process kicking into crank mode. More on that this weekend.
"Coco," Glenn & Fontana Avenue, Tucson, 9/26/07
Delano & 2nd St, Tucson, 9/26/07
"T-Rex" trailer in front of T-Rex Museum, Drachman near Stone, Tucson, 9/26/07
Sale, Grande Avenue south of Congress, Tucson, 9/26/07
Sign en espanol in front of Ward 1 offices, Grande Avenue north of Congress,Tucson, 9/26/07
"Lost. . . Mix," Delano & 2nd Street, Tucson, 9/26/07
Flow strikes again, Delano near Fontana Avenue, Tucson, 9/26/07(we're starting to see style and/or signature emerge)
My favorite Tucson sign, Pima near Alvernon Way, Tucson, 9/26/07
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