Finishing Up.

Did the bulk of my assembly today. I had way too many bottles to do just one water fountain so as of now I made enough to do at least 2.

My process was pretty basic, with only one major alteration along the way. I had originally wanted to connect the bottles to make letters with super glue, but that was taking way too long to dry and was not as strong a bond as I would have liked, so I switched to duct tape. It may not look as clean, but it works much better, and I suppose the wonky look sort of fits....

My installation plan (since the art install forms haven't gone through the dean yet) is to place the bottles under two fountains on first floor Lawrence just before class on Tuesday, so that hopefully they will stay up long enough to be seen during the critique. After that, I will just wait and see how long they last.

Progression.

so its been an eventful week.

my original idea was to create a super-glued arch of empty plastic bottles around the drinking fountain in first floor lawrence. the idea is to promote awareness for how many plastic bottles we go through every day. i currently have two 30 gallon trash bags full of bottles, all collected in one day around campus.

so i have all my bottles for the sculpture, but was told i have to wait two weeks to get a building art installation approved. so in the meantime i came up with a backup proposal that can be easily moved.

i am calling this 'the refill project', and this idea would be something like the word 'refill' spelled out of all my bottles, laid out on the ground in front of the water fountain. there would also be a space so that people can still get through.

i have also made up a few posters to inform at and around the sculpture location.

feedback is appreciated. i ams till going through with the art install process, but assuming that takes the full two weeks, i will have this plan to fall back on.

project status

i walked by lawrence today to try and get into the classroom where all my bottles were, only to discover the classroom is locked for the weekend. so i tried to busy myself with other things.

sculpture project is currently pending a meeting with the aaa dean's office to get the sculpture placement approved. but they said approval takes around two weeks to go through....

may have to start without them? well see. here is the proposed site though.

in the meantime, came up with a little campaign poster to place around the building. rough design so far....

working....

took today as a work day. decided on a definite format for my project.

my whole focus is going to be on raising awareness about how many plastic bottles are wasted on this very campus every day. i have spent the last few classes running around campus collecting plastic beverage bottles from the recycling bins. these will eventually compose a sculpture i intend to create in lawrence. i really want people to think about how easy it is to reuse plastic bottles, so i am going to make sort of an arching cluster of bottles over the water fountain just past la 177. this will be accompanied by 'campaign' style posters with some startling plastic usage facts on them, posted around the building. it is my hope that this will get people to think about how quickly we go through plastic and how easy it really is to cut down on this immensely.

at least that is the plan so far. john tells me i may have to reason with the dean's office before getting the official okay. but that is my thinking so far.

Excess of Consumerism - 3 Solutions

1. I will make a series of campaign posters to promote people's awareness of their excessive consumption habits. Posters will have a simple design, consisting of one image accompanied by a short tag line or slogan. They will probably be 11x17" prints and I will post them around campus.

2. I want to do either one of the following:

a. Build a massive sculpture out of plastic beverage bottles (water, soda, juice etc.), highlighting our excessive use and consumption of these material goods. The sculpture will likely have the form of a large bottle and will be constructed with super glue. I want to place the sculpture in one of the following locations: the lawrence gallery, the lawrence foyer, or along 13th in front of a high-traffic building on campus. Along with the sculpture/tower would be a description of the meaning of the project and some numbers that correlate to plastic bottle use statistics. There will also be a correlation to how many bottles I use in the sculpture.

b. As an alternative to (a) I would take the plastic bottles I have collected (again, the number I display will have a significant correlation to some statistic about plastic bottle use) and place them on the ground somewhere on campus, preferably the lawn outside the library and the museum. Again, I will have an information sheet so people can see concrete data and have some numbers to relate to the spectacle.

DIY - CD Clock

For my DIY project, I decided to make something that would get rid of some of the junk I have lying around my apartment that could be re-purposed. The CD clock was the perfect solution. I have an IKEA clock with no place to put it for a few years, as well as a gratuitous amount of CDs from my band's last 2 albums. Here's how I did it:

1. Materials: clock, 2 cds, superglue, marker, scissors, ruler....

2. Disassemble clock mechanism from base....

3. Take 2 cds and draw lines, dividing each disc into 8 pieces....

4. cut along the lines and rearrange back into a circle....

5. superglue the pieces along the base of the clock mechanism....

6. reassemble the hands and then you are done.

Possible Solutions - Awareness

For tackling the excess of consumerism and consumption, I thought it would be best to work toward awareness of the problem before jumping for a solution right away. I have come up with two main ideas to increase people's awareness of the problem:

1. With a series of campaign posters, I will highlight certain products/product families that are especially problematic when it comes to excess of unnecessary goods. These posters will be posted all around campus. The design will be simple, with a single graphic accompanied by a short, poignant catch phrase, getting people to think about these commodities they buy and jsut how necessary they really are.

2. As a more installment-based project, I want to compile a large amount of one consumer good from a variety of different manufacturers (i.e. water/soda bottles, shampoos, etc.) I will then assemble this collection of objects into a form and place it somewhere on campus, along with a description of how wasteful it is to have so many different brands of the same thing. I have also thought of breaking this up into several smaller installments, again to be placed around the campus. The point will be to have a large, bold and attention-grabbing form that will really get people thinking.

Tackling Excess

My focus is broad: the excess of consumerism in the United States. i.e. people buying too much stuff they don't really need, which drives companies to create more and more products that people could really live without. this creates an ongoing cycle of over-production and wasted resources that clutters our lives.

I aim to approach this problem first with awareness. My initial idea is to create a series of campaign posters highlighting the problems with excess consumerism and our harmful consumption/production habits. They will be aesthetically simple and blunt to get the idea across.

Mind Map