Assignment #3: Typologies of Walking and Not Walking

For this assignment, I decided to get active, political and relevant. I first created a slogan concerning a topic that is not just being dealt with in Arizona, but all over the country; that of immigration. I then took the slogan and translated it into Spanish, making it equally readable by my two target audiences. I took the slogans, printed them each on their owns sheet of paper and attached them to a folder that could be opened and held easily. I decided to incorporate a 2010 U.S. Census bag as a third object to help convey my message. By using the equality slogans with the Census bag, I took objects used by the "enemy" and turned the objects against them. Thus, parodying their message, demeaning it and questioning it.

With all objects in hand, I had to decide on a location for the performance. The location had to be relevant to the performance, as I wanted all pieces to be linked, making my message stronger. I chose to use my dad's insurance business as my location. You ask "Insurance business? What in the hell does that have to do with immigration?". Well, my dad for the past 15 years, as an individual and as a business owner, has been an integral part of the Latino immigrant community in Columbus, Ohio. He has always supported equal rights, and treats all as human beings, because we are all human beings. 60% of my dad's business cliental are latino, and many of them non-citizen aliens; the other 40% being lower income White citizens, who are often anti-immigration. Thus, I had my perfect audience, those in-support of, the Latino population and all employees of my dad's business, and those not-in-support of, the lower income White citizens.

So the stage was set. I had my objects. I had my location. I had my audience. I had my message. For an hour, I sat out front of my dad's business on a high walking and car traffic street, holding up my signs, silently, unless engaged (when you read the slogan below, this will make sense). My dad came out for a brief period to help document my actions, but had to return inside to get back to work. Though, I wish I could have had a video of the entire performance. Being that it was a high traffic area and I was sitting front of a business, there were plenty of people to make up my audience. I ended up conversating with many individuals, English speaking and Spanish, as Hablo Español un poquito, which came in handy. What I was most disappointed by was the fact that the people that engaged me were all in support of my message. Though, I was very happy that there are human beings out there who care to treat other human beings as human beings. Those who weren't in support, as I like to call the non-human beings, completely ignored me. Happily, my stereotype of lower income White citizens was not completey true, as I was approached by a few who were in support.

All in all, this was a very very successful project, as I was able to engage the public in a manner I never had before. I was happy there were supporters of my message and I hope they take it to heart and do not stay silent. I wish there was someone bold enough to have engaged me negatively, but it is what it is.

Below is my documentation of the project. First, my slogan. Second, a short video clip. And thirdly, pictoral documentation of my objects, my performance, and images dad's buisness's support of the Latino community.

"I am silent. And so are you. We cancel this silence and on that day we shall be perceived as equals. Estoy en silencio. Y tú también. Nosotros cancelamos este silencio y ese día vamos a ser percibidos como iguales."

June 3rd Walk 6: An Experimentation with(in) daily life

For this walk, I chose to wear my t-shirt with the image posted printed on it for the day. Some history behind the image: I created this image in response to pro-lifers that I always see on campus, protesting with images of aborted fetuses and ridiculous slogans. I decided to make a pro-abortion shirt to parody these the ridiculousness of these people. I have always loved making t-shirts and the way people respond to them, thus my choosing this shirt for this project.

The experiment started soon after my shower this early this morning at noon. My mom was the only one home today as my sister and dad were at work. So, as far as the home response, she was the only one available. "Oh my god... I hate that fucking shirt" My mom has seen it before and this is always her response. She is a pro-choicer, yet is easily offended by anything, but she doesn't really care what I wear, as my parents are very loose in their "rules". I proceeded to tend to my garden I am growing this summer for about two hours until my doctors appointment at 2:15. I anticipated this visit immensely as I have never worn this shirt in a medical setting, so I did not know what to expect. I arrived at the office 15 mins early, got out of my car and walked into the building with a big smile on my face, as I hoped for a response. I entered the building, proceeded to check in, the lady did not notice my shirt. I sat in the full waiting room, not just waiting for my name to be called, but also waiting for at least a look of disgust or a smile from a supporter. My wish was granted. The soccer moms in the office did not appreciate the shirt what so ever. Receiving the looks of disgust I wanted, I smiled rewardingly and continued to wait for my name to be called. Time passed... "Matt Shifrin". I stood up, flared out my shirt, making sure it wasn't wrinkled or tucked in, so it could be seen in all of its glory. "That's me". I walked to the door where the nurse was waiting and proceeded to follow her to the scale in the hall and then to one of the med rooms. "Get on the scale". She weighed me, still nothing, other than a comment that I had lost weight since my last visit. I followed her to the room. "Sit on the bench, I need to take your blood pressure... oh my god what is that on your shirt?" Being that I am in central Ohio, a lot of people are pro-life so I was hoping, hoping so badly, for a negative response :). I proceeded to explain the concept behind the shirt, but did not tell her about the experiment, as stated in the instructions. "Well, that is interesting. Do you know how offensive that is?" Of course I did. "The doctor will be in shortly." and she left the room. I got my offensive response, but still did not receive the conversation I wanted, that of pro-life vs pro-choice. I ruffled out my shirt again, making sure the image was clear. I sat patiently for ten minutes, waiting for the doctor to enter. Dr. Hua enters. "How's it going today Mr. Shifrin?" Not too bad, I tell him. He proceeds with normal operations, asking about health, prescriptions, etc. Still no response. The appointment went normal... sadly. "Have a good day Matthew". Dr. Hua is a professional, moves very quickly, and is often looking down at his tablet pc, so it is understandable there was no response. I walked out of the building happy that I got one response. I proceeded home, sat around for about an hour and then received a phone call from my friend Adam asking me if I wanted to do lunch at Raisin Canes. Of course. I love Raisin Canes and this provided another opportunity for the shirt. "I'm on my way over to pick you up". 10 min later Adam was here, called me, and I went out to his car. "Are you seriously wearing that shirt out?" :) I laughed, as I usually do with any response. "You are seriously messed in the head." I just continued to laugh and we proceeded to Raisin Canes. Now the great thing about this place is that all the workers are high school students and young 20's, so I was hoping for a positive response, as people of this age group tend to like offensive things, other than Adam. Canes was empty other than us, so no opportunity for patron response. Luckily, my stereotyping of America's youth was correct. It was my turn in line. "What can I get for you today?" I ordered the Caniac Box combo, which had gone up in price sadly, since being in Arizona. "That'll be $7.24" I handed the kid a $20. While getting me my change, the kid looks up and I get my response. "That shirt is hilarious. Did you make it yourself?" I proceeded to tell him the reasoning behind the shirt, but yet again, not revealing the experiment. "Dude, I want one." I got the kid's email and promised him a print for the low price of $10. Waited for my food, sat down and ate. Adam was just shaking his head the entire time, in awe that there are others in support of the pro-abortion movement. We finished our meal and he dropped me off at my house. I went back to gardening, took a shower after, and ended up changing my shirt. So that was the end of the experiment.

I wish I had more to do today out in public to get more response, but ended up happy with what I got. I love when t-shirts make people react, or think, as they are very powerful tools. And this proved it once again. Something as subtle as a shirt can affect someone's entire day, including my own. In conclusion, it was a very successful experiment with very successful results.

Whitney, Shukaitis, and PP2 Analysis

I am going to start this analysis by first commenting on INB as a political organization. I personally find them to be obnoxious, pompous, selfish, invasive, demanding, and most importantly, hypocritical. Their goal, as I understood it, is to disrupt what they find to be disrupting. By doing so I feel they are not parodying the enemy, but instead, becoming the enemy. Their creation was based on the WTO’s coming to America, of which they found offensive to their belief system and flow of life, as they do not agree with the WTO’s ideals. But, by creating this large mass of nonsense and noise, they are interrupting the flow of life others; not taking into consideration their fellow human being, which they are saying they are doing. I feel they are a dirty hippy, drug-fueled group who are too egotistical to realize and actualize what they are doing. I do not find this to be peaceful protest, thus I categorize them with the Man and those who they are “fighting against”. Now that I got that off my chest…

As far as “public space and private space, and ones in between of uncertainty”, I feel our American society has separated these places purposefully. That being, for a civil society to exist, one is allowed rights as long as they respect the rights of others. In reference back to INB, I feel they have invaded that of the private space purposefully with their actions. It was said in one of the articles, prior to heading to the WTO meeting, they entered a Starbucks, played some “music” and told people they weren’t going to work today. This is offensive and seems nonsensical, rude, and, again I will repeat it, hypocritical. Our society has created these two spaces to secure a stable homeostasis. Whereas, the private space is yours to create and do with whatever you want. This space is for you and this space becomes your own universe; as long as you do not negatively affect the public space from within the private space. But, once you step outside of this private space, you are now dealing with the public i.e. society itself; meaning, larger populations and more diverse opinion. We do as a society allow for peaceful protest in the public space as long as you are not damaging or disrupting others’ property or others themselves whom occupy this space with you; infringing on their rights. For example: The KKK is allowed to protest at capital buildings all around the country. Even though I disagree with their message, I believe they have a right to do so, as long as they within societies boundaries. They are allowed, by society, to use audio, imagery, and organized action to convey their meaning in an organized manner without disrupting the rest of the flow of society. This then makes the idea of physical vs. psychological a main issue. If they were to start killing African-Americans, Jews, whomever they are hating nowadays, in this space, or even in private space, they then interrupt the established flow of the greater society that exists beyond their subculture. I am a true believer in freedom of speech as it is in our constitution and if this was actually implemented as originally planned, without our modern day censorship, then this would be realistic rather than ideal. The fact is, people are going to be offended by opposite opinion no matter where you are. It is society who chooses how far this “offending” is allowed to go. I am offended by both Fox News and CNN as I find them both to be irrelevant and politically driven. But, due to the society we live in, I must coexist with these two stations, respecting their rights, they respecting mine.

As far as using the public space, rather than a venue of sorts, to protest, there is obviously going to be a larger audience; and not necessarily of like minded people. This allows for more massive transmission of ideals to those targets of your choice. By being contained within a venue, you are most likely going to be dealing with just your peers. You are limited to the fact that these people already believe in what you believe in. The purpose of protest is to raise awareness and inform those who are not already informed, and in the end, through political process, because that is how we operate, changes that you want are made. By entering the public space, you automatically engage the public, allowing new comers to join in if they choose to do so; those who disagree with you to disagree…; and those who don’t care to ignore. I feel what the INB did was uncivil and went beyond protest; almost into revolution, but I will not give them that respect. They forced those who did not want to participate to participate in some manner. This interferes with our established personal rights. They brought on large volumes of police, taking them away from their main jobs of protecting the citizens of this country. They interfered with traffic; people driving to work, or possibly to the hospital because someone was having a heart attack. They just had complete and total disregard to the rest of the population and did a very hard thing to do; that of invading public space on a large scale. All this got me thinking about the political activists of the 1960’s in comparison to the INB. I felt the hippies were more respectful to the rest of society; more often than not being the ones attacked rather than doing attacking. The INB attacked the streets of Seattle, yet their goal is to better the way of life for all human beings. Instead of achieving this, of which they could of done so by going to the areas where the WTO are effecting the world negatively, they invaded a space of which was irrelevant to their cause. I’m being redundant, they are hypocritical. Deal with it .

To continue with the discussion points, audio can be very powerful when used correctly. Audio can be speech, or music, or noise. It has infinite possibilities. Audio is one of the main forms that humans communicate so of course this is the case. If you want to convey a message, use audio. I personally find speech and music to be the most powerful ways of using audio. If you look at our history, not just as America, but as Earth, the most massive changes started with a speech of some sort. In our own history, we have the Emancipation Proclamation, the I Have a Dream Speech, Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” speech, Nixon’s resignation speech. There are tons of them, and they all sparked societal and political change. Audio inspires action. Speech inspires action. Music inspires action. The Greeks used music to inspire political change. The slaves had “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”. The hippies had Bob Dylan. The modern day Blacks have used rap (at least in its early stages before it was just about the bitches and the benjamins, but that’s a whole nother discussion). Audio has always accompanied social change. It has influenced it and it has described it.

Group activism can still respect the individual. The movement itself is an entity and the individual is part of that entity; and though often more charismatic individuals do become more important figures than the rest of the group, they are not taking away from the individual. They are used to help represent the individual more and empower and validate those individual’s ideals by becoming the leaders of these groups. You can walk up to a person in his/her 60’s and they will tell you they were a part of “that”, as they are not worried about the authorship of the individual, as it was unimportant to the cause...man. Individuals who find it necessary to gain authorship will seek it out and those who don’t, wont.

June 1st Walk 5: I walk in your name

For this walk, I had to ask my mom what to walk for as she was the only one home as my dad and sister were at work. I showed my mom the assignment and gave her an hour to come up with an idea, not giving any input of my own. An hour later she comes to me and says "I want you to walk to quit smoking". She said that most walks were for cancer, diabetes and such but she had never heard of a walk to quit smoking. I asked her what she wanted me to do exactly for the walk. To paraphrase:"Go across the street to the middle school and run around the track until your lungs burn more than you have ever felt from smoking. This burn will not be the result of the running. It is the result of your smoking. I want you to realize the damage you are doing to yourself." So prior to heading over to the track, I sparked a cig just to push her buttons...

I've been smoking for the past 5 years. I have "quit" several times, as every smoker has. But, this summer, my mom wants me to quit for real for real. No bullshit about it, and I guess this walk was a way to start the process. I smoked my cig and walked over to the track, not changing my clothing as I knew I wouldn't be able to run very long, not even bringing a water bottle with. I knew this was going to be a short "walk" but an effective one. To make matters worse, school is in session and all the kids were outside playing during recess, making this extra embarrassing. But, I had to do it. I had to complete the "walk".

I put my right foot on the starting line of lane 4. Took a last deep puff of my cig and threw it to the ground. Then...I ran... for about 10 seconds... and started to slow down. God damn I am out of shape, but I had to keep going til my lungs burned. I couldn't stop after only 10 seconds. That would be disrespectful to my mom and to the assignment. I decided 2 minutes was a good goal :). I took out my phone to keep track of the time and kept running... if that is what you want to call what I was doing. The two minutes were up, and I was in a deep sweat, huffing, choking and then... I puked up a ton of mucus. Bleh, I felt horrible. Struggling to walk the 500 feet back to my house, I knew my mom would be waiting for me at the door to see how I did. "2 minutes..." I was embarrassed and I definitely got the point. We ended up having a discussion afterward, setting a goal to quit, making a J.N.C., which is a family promise that if you break, you are basically shunned from the family. So out of this "walk", I am becoming a nonsmoker. I cannot break the J.N.C. and I can't keep upsetting my mom. I also am determined to be able to run for more than two shitty minutes without puking up mucus. I learned more from this walk than I thought I would. So, I thank you mom, as I walked in your name.

[The image above is a scan I did of all the cigs that were in my ashtray at my apt. in Arizona. This has not been a new topic of discussion with my mom and I and I felt the image was appropriate.]

Critical Art Ensemble Analysis

This article was inspiring to say the least as I never knew such like minded people existed in this godforsaken world. In saying this, I do not consider myself to be one of these people or of these people, but I wish I were, as I only read the introduction, as assigned, and skimmed the rest of the chapters. But, I do understand greatly where they are coming from, as I can relate heavily and am now very interested in what they do.

I personally am a very very politically minded person; keeping up with what is going on by doing lots and lots of reading and not just watching CNN or Fox News. This politicalism was not birthed by my own self as it runs in my family. My dad, now a 60 yr. old insurance agent who ended up buying into the man, used to be an afro bearing, pot smoking, psychedelic hippy activist product of the 1960’s. He marched with the Black Panthers for civil rights, was pepper sprayed with Abbie Hoffman at the ’68 Democratic National Convention, went to music festivals, and hitchhiked through Europe spreading the word. I am a very very jealous son. But to continue…

I often find myself using art, not my photography, as I have had trouble with this, to express my political opinions, such as with my last project i.e. the pro-abortion t-shirt. I have done paintings, drawings, poster designs, and t-shirt designs to convey my personal political beliefs, but I have never had the guts to take it to the streets and daringly display to the public. My art covers the walls of my apartment, never to be seen by the public eye. Whereas, these people are active with their beliefs and I have the utmost respect for them for doing so.

What I love most is their ideals and use of tactical media, often parodying the political and social media agendas they are working to rid of. This, I feel, is the best way to get your message out there as it makes said party look utterly and completely brainless. By borrowing imagery and ideals and turning them around on the said party, it becomes obvious who is the target. It creates clarity not able to be created any other way. And by doing so, this helps successfully portray your important, necessary ideals. Again, I have always been a fan of this method.

Going back to my dad’s experience and that of the 1960’s, these people remind me of the Yippy group lead by Abbie Hoffman, mentioned previously, and their choosing to campaign Yippy the Pig for president. They used the methods of our politicians, the enemy, directly by use of very public political campaign and the voting system. They parodied the candidates themselves, directly, by using the pig; relaying the fact that a pig could do a better job than what these old dudes were doing.

It is sad that there are not more people like this in the world; rebels with causes, taking action, using public space, art, and media to spread the word; to actively change the world for the better.