Introducing America To The Americans

I am particularly interested in the photograph, the roll of the photograph in American society, and it's nature of representation. So when I considered how a photograph may be incorporated into a work of public art, I immediately thought of the photograph as a sort of mirror in which we as Americans may peer intimately into our own society.

This has been done before, though under much more dire situations. During the 1930s the U.S. Government began the Farm Security Administration as an effort to combat rural American poverty. They hired 15 renowned photographers to travel the midwest photographing the American families living within the notorious "dustbowl." What they produced was an intimate and sometimes harsh window into the lives of the average American farmer in the 1930s. These images changed the public's outlook on the topic and helped rally support for the government New Deal. Most importantly the work is a snap shot of what is was to be an American. I believe that the concept of being an American has changed drastically since then. Situations for some have become just as dire, and for others the American dream has become a desert mirage.

What I would like to accomplish would be a modern rendition of the F.S.A.'s photo work in the 1930s. I would like to produce a window into TRUE American life and culture in our modern day and age. When the F.S.A. hired their photographers they didn't have digital cameras and computers. In our generation of America, nearly every man, woman, and child knows how to generally work a camera. So what I've done is taken the communal "Netflix" business model and applied it to documentary photography. From a central location I would mail a film camera to an American household. This would be a special 35mm film camera that has had it's wind feature disabled. They would basically have ONE shot and ONE question to answer, with that single photo they may shoot anything they please, as long as it answers a single important question:

"WHAT IS YOUR AMERICAN DREAM?

Once they are done, everything will be neatly prepared for them to mail it back to the central location, where I will personally wind the camera to the next shot and send it off to the next family. This would have to be something people sign up for ahead of time so that like minded and interested people are participating and expecting to receive the camera. Just like Austin's "Car2Go" service or "Netflix" everything should be intuitive ready to go with the least amount of work for the user as possible. Essentially they open the box, snap a photo, and mail it off.


Hopefully in the end, there should be a great community portrait of what it means to be an American in a modern 2011 society. The final work should be presented in a gallery format, preferably in a government public space. The American people will be able to view a collection images produced by the people themselves. The images will not be dictated by major media corporations nor any sort of financial interests. It will simply be a visual representation of the current state of our nation.

Gabriel Sanchez

Calder's Garden

I had the inspiration for this Public Art Proposal when I went to Atlant to visit my girlfriend 2 weekends ago. While driving around the city, I saw Calder's mobile in front of The High Museum of Art and decided to do something similar but that had to do with the environment.

For this project I decided to do a mobile much like as Calder's. However, instead of having plates in each arm's end, it would have "buckets." Therefore, when it rains, these "buckets" would collect the water from the rain and would irrigate a garden below through small holes inside of them. The structure would be centered in the middle of a circle with 8 meters of diameter and would be 5/6m tall with 2/3 meters arms. The circle would also be delimited with white rocks. In short, the structure would serve as a watering can to the garden. I had this whole water idea because Austin is a very warm and dry city and people are suffering with the lack of water. So after it rains, the buckets would be filled with water and will be able to irrigate the garden for a couple of days. By doing this, the plants will not suffer that much with the heat.

Materials:

The whole structure would be made of steel, including the "buckets," and would all be provided by manufactures. The "buckets" would be hung with steel cable so they stay in place and are not stolen. The garden below the structure would have flowers and plants typical from Austin. Therefore they will not suffer too much with the heat and with the small amount of water.

Location:

Regarding the location, I chose Zilker Park as the site for this work of art because it is a big and open space that receives a lot of people during the spring and summer seasons, which is when this work of art will be more noticed. So the audience for this work would be people running/jogging in the park and people hanging around, relaxing a little bit from the stressfull day of work. I also hope that poeple get some inspiration from this work of art. I hope people will stop and think about their water use and see that water is a scarce resource that we need to save for the future. This work of art will of course be a big structure, however, people may get inspired by it and create some smaller scale structures that they would use in their houses to give the used water another use.



Alex Bueno

EnLighting Forest

The inspirations form my work of art comes from Jeanne-Claude’s Gates project in central park. The idea behind my project was to create a work of art that would create consciousness and inspire people when it’s being admired.

The Audience for my proposed work of art would be people running, or walking around a park. This could be either people jogging, people walking their dogs, or people that’s just wondering around the park.

The location I have chosen for my project would be the ladybird lake.

This is a place I feel really connected and familiarized with. Has a great flow of people, so in this place the impact of my project would higher, providing me with a higher level of satisfaction.

For my project I’ll use modern outdoor lighting system. Aside from it I would design a modern lighting chair that would be connected to the lighting system that will control all the lighting for the park. For this project I would not be working with recycled material or craving carving some source of structure. Everything will come from manufacturers and I will only install these objects around the park. Although it will still be a work of art because it will send a meaning and will interact with its surroundings.

All the parts or lights I will be installing around the park will be composed of all sources of landscape lighting and this special chair I will be creating that will send messages to the public. Aside from that I will be installing solar panels all around the park so this work of art could be self-sustainable. .

The plan is to illuminate the park so that at nights it creates this atmosphere of an electric hunted forest. Aside from that, I would install this shinny jelly bubble in which people can sit and kids could play with them. At the button part of these bubbles I will install a small stock ticket displays that will provide with inspiring messages.

A few Examples of these messages would be:

Improvement: You vs. You

"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare."

"Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it."

"Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're probably right."
-Henry Ford

YASSER HANDAL