Final Project:

Opening the Heterotopic: an Aerial Burial

Morning Man in a Tweed Hat: A Follow

This morning I followed a man in a tweed hat from the train station to Bush campus. I choose him because I liked his clothes, and because he didn't seem to notice me.

As I was following him I felt paranoid, less of the fact that he might know I was following him and more of the fact that I thought other people were watching him follow me. jeepers creepers.

I made a mymap of our route.

a follow

Money, the Mobile Memorial

Put Something Here
Goodbye George, Hello Iva.


Iva Toguri D'Aquino

I printed the face of Iva Toguri D'Aquino on several dollar bills. Two of the dollar bills have 3 images of Iva's face covering that of George Washington. For the third bill I cut Iva's face from a fourth bill and pasted it on the image of Washington's face. On the other side of the bills I wrote Iva's name so that people interested in taking the initiative can find out who she is.



Iva Toguri D'Aquino spent 6 years in prinson for wrongfully being accused of treason (Even though she has been cited as doing things such as risking her life to smuggle food to allied POW's in Japan). After Iva was released from prison on parole she had to fight against deportation attempts. The testimonies that put Iva in person were later found to be lies, but none of the witness were prosecuted for perjury. Eva was "pardoned" (pardoning implies guilt) by Presiden Ford 21 years after she left prison. Although she was given the Edward J Herlihy Citizenship Award by the World War II Veterans Committee (months before her death), her story is not remains largely obscured within dominant historical narratives of national heroes. Therefore I chose to replace Washington's face on several bills with Toguri's to memorialize her. My "Something" is intended to be a commentary about history, nationalism and patriotism.

I put one dollar bill in a donation jar on College Avenue.

I used one dollar to buy a bagel and soymilk.

I left third dollar bill on a EE bus seat.

Oh, the Places You'll Go(ogle)!

Google maps is fun. Here is what is so far, a slightly reductive map of my life. I wish I had pictures for Georgia up, but the search is still on for those. Once mbear and I find them I will scan them and annotate 105 Weatherburne Drive with them.

Oh, the Places You'll Go(ogle)!

Lose It and Move It

Before

Mbear was surprised that I was actaully going to share these before pictures on the blog. I think she is embarassed for me. Why is being messy (maybe messy is an understatement for the before state of my room) cause for embarrassment? I think it indicates a perceived lack of one's ability to control. The order of one's most personal space = the order of ones life.





After:
The sorting and the removing and the deconstruction and the reassembly began on Saturday and is still happening. Mbear was a huge help.

Inspired by Richard Long

http://www.richardlong.org/

Today I went to the Institute Woods for the first time to drift and tag. The Institute Woods is 550 acres of preserved space in New Jersey. It is not a park, but the Institute allows the public to use the space for recreation. There are numerous crisscrossing, winding trails which are almost completely unmarked (this posed a problem for me later)!

After about 30 minutes of drifting I stopped to alter and tag a part of my path. I created three "sculptures" from rocks, large pieces of fallen wood, and cocktail umbrellas that I had brought to help me tag. I had red, green and yellow umbrellas. The red ones I incorporated into the sculpture. Because the wood was damp and decomposing, it was easy to insert the umbrella ends into the wood, making it look as if these dead branches had sprouted red paper flowers or perhaps bright red fungi. The yellow umbrellas I stuck in the ground between the three sculptures and the green umbrellas I stuck in the ground leading up to the first sculpture and away from the last one. In this manner I created a sort of "traffic light" guide for anyone who might happen upon my work. The green umbrellas tell them to go, the red ones tell them to stop and examine the work and the yellow umbrellas tell them to move slowly so as not to miss the next one.







Since I had been truly drifting and since the trails were unmarked, once I was done with tagging and ready to make my way back out of the woods, I found that I had absolutely no idea which way to go. I ended up drifting for another hour and a half, trying to stumble upon the exit out of the woods. During this time I came upon a classic example of tagging, and decided to add my own tag to it:


Also, while I was lost I came upon a suspension bridge. It seemed fun until I was halfway across it and noticed that the cables were rather rusted and the wood planks were a bit rotten. I did get a nice picture of it with my poloroid camera though. I had brought a poloroid camera and a digital camera with me . I was hoping to document my work with the poloroids, but the camera's flash couldn't contend with the dimness of the woods. I did take a few poloroids though, and when I was finally back in the parking lot I posted one of them on the information bulletin, as a kind of hint.

I am looking forward to going back in perhaps a week to see how my work has been altered.

NightLights

vertigo.so clean i can...
looking over your shoulder.
find a window in time.
throw time out the window.