Tuesday, April 27, 2010




I was feeling drowsy and didn't want to go to sleep yet, so I went for a walk to the track, where I went for a run. Then I came here to the Tech computer lab in order to scan in the copies I did today. You would think a student who did as much scanning as I did would own a scanner.
But instead I go to where a scanner is. When I want to run I go to where the track is. And I can never keep track of a pencil sharpener, so I leave whatever I'm doing to find a pencil sharpener, or buy more sharpened pencils . . .
Thinking about this sort of thing, I realized that I have a tendency to let places happen to me, or to let circumstances control my place. And then, whenever it's up to me to create a place for something, like a pencil sharpener or a route to run or whatever, I don't do it.
This made me realize that my Place project is basically the antithesis of Matt Blache's place project (and upon further consideration I realized that we are sort of artistic opposites - he creates work that's elegant and simple, formal and universal, whereas I create work that's clumsy and convoluted, contextual and personal).
The definition of place Matt is working with assumes or creates order. He's creating a place, and creating the thing that goes there and defines it as a place. And the piece itself is a real object with a designated place - the classroom and/or a gallery.
My piece on the other hand . . . I'm removing the only places that I could be said to have had any large part in creating for myself. I'm becoming even more passively placed. And the bulk of the piece itself is a virtual object whose place is wherever it's viewed.
It's funny . . . Probably a way more challenging endeavor for me to attempt would have been just to try to get organized and find places for all my stuff. While I am pushing myself to do something that will be somewhat difficult, at the same time really aren't I just indulging in escapism? Maybe I'm leaving the places that are mine because in those places I am confronted by myself. Not that I think I should be organizing my stuff for this project. That wouldn't be very much like me, and so it wouldn't be my work.

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