Help me design a public art project

March 5, 2007 10:37 AM

Please help me come up with a public art project

I’m in charge of coming up with an art project that can be completed by non-artists at the college where I teach. The project could be long term (over a 5 day period) or short term (just a couple of hours). If long-term it would likely take place in a hallway and would be largely unsupervised. If short term it could take place in a studio and could be supervised. The project can be either process or product oriented. I have a budget of $300-$400 CDN and the college has about 1500 students. Students are unlikely to take large chunks of time to work as they will be dropping in on their way to and from class. Visibility would be good – we are trying to showcase a small program. However, I don’t want to get fired for encouraging students to destroy the school.

I’m having a hard time coming up with a practical solution. So far my only ideas are variations on the exquisite corpse, perhaps with a large roll of paper that can be torn off when needed, or a big vat or clay that can be molded by anyone walking by. Can you think of anything else?

posted by Cuke to Grab Bag (6 answers total)

Depending on what materials and technologies you have access to outside of the budget, you might be able to come up with a project that uses the students' existing technology infrastructure to create the work. If you want it to be "drive by" you could create a project that allows students to message text into an electronic "collage" or other format from their cell phones. If you want it to be less interactive, you could permit students to email materials (text or images) into the work to be added into the "collage" either at random or in some way structured by you.

You would need access to some materials and some technical know-how to do these things, but they are probably things your college has on hand. The hard-costs budget could thus be pretty limited. If, on the other hand, you had to BUY computers, monitors or projectors you wouldn't make it in under budget.
posted by The Bellman at 11:08 AM on March 5, 2007

I went into a room on a recent museum visit and the entire room was covered in the silver-filmed insulation used in houses. Probably cost something like $300 for the supplies. The room was *covered* in graffiti made by scratching into the foil. Pretty cool effect. I thought it was a fine art installation / conceptual art piece.

I just really like art you can touch, taste, etc.
posted by zpousman at 11:52 AM on March 5, 2007

I think the exquisite corpse idea is probably one of the most practical ones. You could ask students to, for example, create a long running stick figure animation\comic type thing. That might be cool I guess.

You could have a place where students could write things they believe (it would probably best to provide some guidance so it doesn't end up being just random shout-outs and stuff). At my school, there was a group that put up some butcher paper saying things like "God means..." or "I know God exists\doesn't exist because..." and people sort of completed the sentence (this was a religious group putting it on). In any case, it was pretty interesting to read, and people started getting into conversations and debates on it, which was neat.

For short term ideas, you could, for example, get a bunch of students together (it'd have to really be a lot, so you'd need plenty of room). Give some of the students black pieces of paper and some of them white. Then you place a camera well above them, and provide a monitor so they can see themselves. Instruct them to create shapes, and record the process of the shapes erm... taking shape.

There was an art project I saw once where this woman took a phone booth in NYC and decided she would make it really nice, and provide all kinds of useful amenities to people who used it. She did things like decorating it, providing a pad of paper and pen, a white board, etc. Maybe you could somehow break students into groups and get them to do similar things to various locations around campus?
posted by !Jim at 12:12 PM on March 5, 2007

This is one of those things that, once you start thinking of things, the possibilities are neverending. For some reason, though, I first thought of this installation I once saw where there will a zillion helium-filled white balloons in a room and you could take one and write a secret on it and it was totally anonymous. People love confessing secrets.
posted by loiseau at 4:02 PM on March 5, 2007

One of my friends in college organized an art project wherein several buckets of paint and brushes were arrayed near one of those big wooden temporary walls used to seperate construction sites from the sidewalk. She encouraged people (I forget if it was random passers-by or performers, or a mix) to walk from one end of the wall to the other, painting a line of whatever color and character they wanted.

She videotaped this over the course of a day from across the street, and created a time-lapse video of the evolving pattern on the wall. It seems like a win-win situation. Much fun was had, art was created, and an ugly construction fence was decorated. Yes, she secured permission first, and was on hand supervising.
posted by Alterscape at 7:22 PM on March 5, 2007

Response by poster: Thank you for the suggestions. I'm going to see if I can find any of that insulation and try it out. I also like the balloon idea, I can see it being a hit with the students.

The painted fence idea sounds great but it would have to be reinvented indoors. Thank you all, you've given me more ideas to bounce around in my head.
posted by Cuke at 4:13 PM on March 6, 2007