Systems Aesthetics: A Psychogeographical System: Blurring Parochial Domains

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Heimbold Visual Art Center on the Sarah Lawrence College campus is widely criticized by the student body. Its unpopularity is in large part due to the fact that various parochial domains functioning within the space do not intersect. Painters, sculptures, film students, professors, random passers-by and so on, interact and work in separate spatial realities with no reason to leave them. Most of these groups are not familiar with environment and people in other bubbles/zones. As a result, the center is far from being a creative hub and a well-functioning public space desired by the majority of the students. The conference system initiates a series of communitarian derives that lead to playful intersections of Heimbold’s parochial domains. Passers-by are given a choice to continue to walk to their respective spaces or to participate in an adventure that leads them to environments they rarely visit. The journey starts on the bottom of the lower staircase in Heimbold. The participant of the performance walks through 5 stations located around the lower level where they are given materials to build musical instruments/simple art pieces. Each station is marked with cardboard arrows and enables the participant to rediscover the visual arts building. On every station the person is given the option to leave the performance. Created musical instruments have the potential for further communitarian engagement and provide memory of the intersection of parochial domains.

 

List of requirements

-encouraging in changing traffic flows/intersection of parochial domains

-social object – engaging with people around

-spacial object – engaging with the space

-divided into steps/stations

-requiring personification/uniqueness

-able to to be kept after the performance

-easy to construct

-cheap to construct

-entertaining

Plan for stations

  1. Cups
  2. Filling/beans/noise making elements
  3. Personification/decoration – paint
  4. Personification/decoration – stickers,glitter
  5. Top for the cup+tape to close

List of materials:

-40 cups + containers

-40 tops

-few bags of beans, lentils, rice

-8 large cardboard arrows

-markers

-glitter

-stickers

-paint

-paint brushes

-duck tape for floor

-duck tape for cups

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Author: Weronika Kosior