I Want To See You - 12th October

We spent the morning discussing the works of Chris Burden which I found extremely interesting. We discussed whether we found his work brave, heroic or a bit egotistical. I agreed with the point that his piece 'Shoot' was a bit insensitive to those who had to fight in Vietnam as he chose to be shot. It reminded me of embarrassing stunt YouTube channels where men try to prove their manliness by hurting themselves doing crazy things.

After spending the morning discussing our interpretations, we were given the task to start our own 4D project stemming from the work we had done the previous day. At first I felt a bit lost and overwhelmed as I had to use the space around me in a way I wasn't used to. I experimented taking videos including the people in the class and the public - as I wanted my idea to involve unusual reactions from other people. I tested out an app on my phone which zooms onto a face when it detects one and I walked around the room with my phone taped to my arm. Unfortunately, the video was hard to watch as it was moving about constantly. I got a few confused expressions but I was not happy with the disruptive space in-between.

I asked a friend to chase me down the street whilst filming so I could shock some passers by. This worked but I felt it could be developed a whole lot more. Therefore, after researching Value Export's 'Body Configuration', I decided to take images of someone (and someone take images of me) disrupting a social space. That morning I had listened to horrific news on the radio about Sara Everard and the growing problem of women's safety on streets. I wanted to do a performative act that represented this problem.

I wanted to get light red material and tie it around someone's eyes and wrists but I had to get rope instead. However, I preferred rope anyway as it was much more restraining and related to the unspoken rules that women have to live by to feel safe in a public space. I felt like it represented the feeling of being helplessness and not in control. I chose red rope because it looked like blood when hanging of a body. I got a friend to walk down the street (with her wrists tied with bright red rope) and took pictures, then we swapped. I plan to edit these on Thursday.

Reflections - Part 1

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