5 4 5 Day 3
Here is the full prompt from the project I chose to execute for the third day of 5 4 5.
1. Pick a neighborhood according to any criteria you choose, but one that has a fair amount of pedestrian flow.
2. Make 50 simple, modestly-sized items to mount/lay/put in the streetscape — something that at least some people are likely to notice and something that will entice/encourage/prompt thought or questions or an exchange or an interaction from members of the public. It will prompt/encourage/entice by virtue of an explicit invitation that is part of your object, or by indirect suggestion. Such as a flower prompts a desire to pick it, a book begs to be opened, bells rung, a chalkboard suggests interaction, a recycle bin instructs your action, a chair invites sitting, a beat box invites participation, etc etc.
3. Install the 50 objects around the neighborhood — installation method should not require subsequent repair or restoration of public property.
4. Observe behavior around your objects and document.
There was a lot to do here. Luckily there is a lot of pedestrian flow in many parts of Brooklyn, this made picking an area quite easy. The next task I had to complete was going to Manhattan and buy supplies. During my subway ride to Manhattan I brainstormed 50 open ended questions to write on my signs. After standing around in Home Depot trying to figure out what size I wanted the signs to be, I bought a 72'’ x 36'’ piece of plastic cardboard, many many zip ties, a box cutter, and a paint marker.


Having bought supplies I boarded the subway with a massive piece of plastic hoping that I wasn’t going to be too much of a nuisance to my fellow riders. Luckily it was pretty quiet on the subway and I wasn’t a complete obstruction. After I got home I began cutting my signs.


I was able to cut the 72'’ x 36'’ piece into 54 smaller signs. After cutting was finished I used the box cutter to punch holes to thread the zip ties through. Doing everything in a very systematic way made this project go quickly enough I could get it done with in the one day time frame. After punching holes in all of the signs I wrote the questions I had brainstormed during my ride to Home Depot. A few of the questions were: Shall we? What can you see? How long has it been? Where is your phone?.
When I started putting up these signs it brought up a lot of questions for me. The most pressing was that of context. I realized that where I placed a sign would have a big impact on how it was interpreted by the viewer. Below are my three favorite placed signs.



I wasn’t able to go back and observe people spending time around the signs due to time constraints but I think they’ll be up for a while. I’ll go on a little field trip and see how people are reacting another time. It makes me wonder, because the signs are up does my passive observation still constitute working on the piece? I certainly don’t know at the moment. I also had many vague thoughts about the definition of vandalism and graffiti that I could spend a lot of time exploring.
Thinking about context lead me to thinking about the authorship of this project as a whole. I feel at the moment that it would be more accurate to call this a collective art project, as soon as someone submits an idea to my website they become part of the collective. Just a final thought.
On to day four!
