Final Project Proposal: IS YOUR TEMPLE

vein




red blood cells


connective tissue







Proposed SITE: Upper Deck Hallway of the Campus Center.
Concept: A curtain of materials combined reference connective tissue or red blood cells in a vein will be hung in the window (between window & counter.) On the counter top three settings of rocks "dressed" as steaks each on its own sheet of handmade paper.
On the papers are written the words: "IS" "YOUR" "TEMPLE".
MATERIALS:
Fabrics
Vegetable matter
Paper pulp
#3 Gravel rocks
Paint
Handmade Paper
Ink

Final Project: Research & Ideas

Class Topic Offered: Animal, Vegetable or Mineral
Choice: Animal, Biological Identity

Felix Gonzalez-Torres uses multiplicity of material to illustrate "identity" as including multiple parts of a whole. This perspective can philosophically be applied to any range of subjective relationships, people composed of cells composed of molecules composed of atoms composed of particles... yet it is a viewpoint that has been subverted by the enormous implications of itself.

Gonzalez-Torres' candy piles have their own identities - by way of inviting the audience to partake of the candy, the identity lives in a state of flux and decay. The sculpture engages the audience physically and mentally, taking candy represents human desire, sensual pleasure, or reward - laden with guilt and potentially sickness.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres


Untitled, 1991







Untitled, 1991 (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991

Untitled (Beginning),1994

Images Source:http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/FelixGT/FelixGallery.html




Barbara Kruger

Untitled (Your Body Is a Battle Ground), 1989

Image Source: http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/1aa/1aa667.htm

I plan on blending Gonzalez-Torres' expressions with the work of Barbara Kruger. Conscientization is the goal - to make the audience aware of their personal, subjective biological context as it reflects the societal context of biology it is situated within. Specifically with regards to blood, meat or muscle= animal + mineral.

While my ideas similarly relate to transubstantiation, unlike Gonzalez-Torres I am not prepared to address change or decay. I am going for awareness of self-composition and the correlation of flesh=flesh.

IDEAS: Desired location is a portion of the window-seating in the hallway of the Upper Deck, Campus Center.

1.) Dinner settings: Dishes and flatware made from paper pulp and food made of various rocks, all painted in a fashion to "dress" the materials in their new context, (without entirely covering their original material identities.) Menu listing elemental components or biological data of food composition.

2.) Fabricated steaks laid on a "table runner" made to resemble sewn blood cells. Menu listing elemental components or biological data of food composition -or- 1-3 word message in contrasting value underneath tablerunner.

3.) Curtain of cells backlit (burgundy) by sunny window with 1-3 word message in contrasting value through the curtain.