"I can pay for it myself."

Yesterday I conducted another social experiment at Ambrosia Cafe. This time rather than buying coffee in advance and waiting for a response, I decided to confront people face-to-face in hopes to gain more insight into individual responses to the project.

After customers placed their orders with the barista I approached them and asked if they would be willing to let me buy their coffee for them. Most people took this as a come on and held up their money suggesting they could afford to pay for it themselves and others avoided my eyes completely. About half of the people I talked to wanted to know why I wanted to buy them a cup of coffee, including the first man I talked to, who still refused the cup once I explained it was a social experiment/art project.

Lewis Hyde discusses the erotic nature of gift-giving in his landmark book, The Gift, which was something that I witnessed first-hand. Although two people did accept my offer to buy their drinks (see the receipts above) most people avoided any potential obligations that might come with this gift by declining.

Most of the time, we choose to use our consumer power to remain separate and unattached from the people around us, owing them nothing but the cash in our wallets. They sell their labor while we use a symbol of our own abstracted labor in exchange for consumer products. This abstraction separates us from the person on the other side of the transaction. Much of the push behind the movement to "Buy Local" combats this estrangement from the humanity of our economy.

After the first three customers I approached refused my offers I began to feel extremely sad, disappointed, and a bit hopeless at the rejection of my potential gifts. The second woman who agreed to let me buy her coffee, Kristin, mirrored these feelings in her explanation for accepting my offer. She said that she noticed the negative effect it had on her friends when she turned down their generosity and was making a conscious effort to be open to such opportunities. Her attempt to be more receptive was a foil for my attempt to be generous.

In developing the next iteration of this project I intend to focus on two questions:
How can gift debt be put to use in a positive way?
-and-
How can the feelings I experience while conducting the experiment drive the direction of this project?

Avril 50: Philadelphia, PA

My graduate seminar is in Philadelphia for the weekend and I just stopped into a small magazine, coffee, and tobacco shop down the street from the Institute of Contemporary Art called Avril 50 to test out my stimulus project on a different crowd. 

The owner, John, was very willing to collaborate once I explained the project to him. Post your comments here for all to read. 

Community Stimulus

Moments ago I stopped by Ambrosia Cafe on Maynard in downtown Ann Arbor to propose a collaboration. I paid for the next 20 small coffees and the barista, Jimmy, agreed to hand out cards, like the one above, explaining the project.

If you received a copy of coffee through this project or would just like to talk about it, please leave your comments here for all to read.

Art Hospital $5 Painting Show

Security Envelope for a Brighter Future: Prototype #13 (for coffee lovers)
Originally uploaded by bradwicklund

Here is a little something I dreamed up for the upcoming Art Hospital $5 Painting Show in Bloomington, IN. Be there and support a great venue!

Seminar at the Grocery Store

In an act of subversion, Natascha Sadr Haghighian conducts an interview with Tom Keenan for her New Museum seminar, Night School, at the Whole Foods around the corner. After being denied permission to hold her seminar in the grocery store, she decides to record the interview there anyways with a hidden camera and wireless microphones. The result is an interesting discussion on the politicized image as a stage, overexposure to such images, and how this effects public response.

Check it out here.

We See What We Want to See

In Liberty Square right now with one of my posters waiting to see how people react. Been sitting here about 15 minutes so far and have seen two people actively notice the sign. At least 50 people have walked by. Most people seem to just keep walking.

A third person noticed the sign now. All men. I wonder if this is just a coincidence? Now four men.

Most people look around like they are being watched after noticing the sign.

Another man seems to be watching the sign from across the street now while he smokes a cigarette. Now he's going back inside.

The sign seems to have blended in with the environment already. You would think more people would notice it. Cellphones and iPods preoccupy most people. They have better things to do.

Six men have noticed the sign now. If any women have seen it they haven't looked directly at it. Now seven.

Two police ride up on bicycles. Will they notice the sign? Will they care? I guess I will just stay put to see how they respond. They ride through the park, but may be waiting for me to make a move. They definitely notice the sign. As they rode by because the female cop made eye contact with me.

After taking a look around it seems as though they are gone.

I feel like many of the people who notice the sign must know I made it and put it there. They make eye contact with me as they walk by, wondering what this is all about. I should go check my parking meter and walk around to get a better perspective.

I fed the meter and got some coffee to warm me up. The sign is just where I left it. I don't know if anyone would tamper with the sign, at least not in the daytime.

There is an old man standing on the corner by the park and he also seems to be watching. He is walking towards the sign, but just goes past it.

A girl brings her friends back by the sign to see it. "Right there!" she says. She sits down for a moment and then jumps up, not sure what to do.

Not long after a middle-aged man with buzzed hair that is long and combed over in the middle sits down right next to the sign. Like the girl, he sits only for a few seconds before jolting up and walking again.

What is the purpose of public space? How should it be used?

The same man in a black fleece has walked by four times now. Twice in one direction and the second two times in the opposite. He says "hello" to a woman and clasps her hand, but keeps walking, like Venetians passing each other on the street with only enough time to say, "Ciao, ciao!"

The flow of people on the street seems to be slowing down as they sun sets and they return home to their families, roommates, and pets. I should do the same.

Stolen: My Thunder

You know when you have a great idea and you feel like your sails are filled by a gale force wind, blowing you almost uncontrollably towards your destination? That feeling when you know you're on to something special? That you've tapped into the collective unconsciousness and it is speaking through you, the only thing is it is also speaking through everyone else and someone else happened to hear the voice first?

Yeah, well, I had been working on a plan for a group curated show using a viral means of distribution and a group curation process and found out this week that the Brooklyn Museum has a show on display as I write, titled Click, that uses some of the very same ideas of group curation. The show isn't exactly the same as the one I was planning, but somehow after reading about it and listening to the panel discussion, I'm just not that interested in going through with my project anymore.

Enough complaining, because the project is pretty interesting. Just check it out for yourself on the University of Michigan Visual Resource Collection Blog.

A Reminder

Earlier this week, one of my professors, Nick Tobier, passed me a great article from the Winter Issue of Art Journal about the Portland State University (PSU) Social Practices program. The article is essentially a transcription of a conversation between Harrell Fletcher and the first group of grad students in the Social Practices program at PSU. This is one of the places I considered applying for graduate school, since I've created many pieces that could be called "social practice" or "relational aesthetics," but I had a few reservations about attending such a new program:

1. I would be treated more like a test subject than a student
2. I don't think of myself as someone who is only interested in social practice

To make a long story short, I didn't apply to PSU, or the similarly-minded program at California College of Art, opting instead for a different experience.

Here, at University of Michigan, grad students are given the freedom to work in virtually any imaginable way, but the funny thing is, my imagination has been out of commission since arriving here in August. Until just recently, I had forgotten the reasons I was even in art school. I feel as if I've had temporary amnesia for the last six months and as my memory is slowly returning so is my desire to work in a socially-oriented format.

Right now I am working on a plan for a show that would distribute a call for submissions using viral media and will eventually be curated democratically, rather than a taste-making curator. I have been reading and thinking a lot about the nature of power and power structures so my hope here is to plan a show that would undermine conventional systems of power and suggest new ways of distributing ideas.

I also have another, more involved project in the plannings stages, but I'm not quite ready to spill the beans on that one yet.

The article reverberated with me and was a timely reminder of what brought me to this point in my artistic career. I have spent too much time wrapped up in my head since arriving in Ann Arbor and now it is time for some action.

Converge and Emerge

The opening on Friday was a success and the turnout was better than I expected. The first year MFAs also got together on Monday night to have an informal critique of the work in the show. The repeated criticism I seem to be having about my work is that people are confused about its purpose. I am certain about the things I was thinking about while creating it, but those ideas are not coming across in the final product. This is a criticism I have dealt with for many years.

Meaning seems to emerge from convergence in my work. As I am working on many disparate things at once, ideas begin to overlap intentionally and unintentionally in a way that I can begin to direct the meaning. I think the problems I am having now come from the fact that I haven't gotten into a rhythm of working yet that would allow me to draw these kinds of connections.

Right now I have a lot of differing ideas that I am engaging in my studio practice. Here's a few:

-power
-capitalism
-farming
-food
-community
-communication
-connections
-collaboration

I've been looking for ways to overlap these things in the form of physical works, but I'm still having some trouble. I have been thinking a lot about the nature of collaboration and of performance. Expect something related to that soon.

(Un)stuck

In Order of Appearance
Originally uploaded by bradwicklund

I've continued to work with issues of food for most of the time that I've been here in Ann Arbor and the piece I created for our first year show, In Order of Appearance, is an example of that. It is a giant sticker from a vine-ripened tomato blown up to 75" x 50".

In critique last week the general feeling seemed to be that I didn't commit to one specific cause or goal with this piece and because of that the purpose is unclear to the viewer. It's true that I am concerned with many issues related to food culture in the world today and maybe that is the reason that the sticker doesn't seem to have a clear purpose.

I plan to install the piece publicly, but haven't really figured out where yet. The location is something that I hope will help to ground the purpose a bit.

For anyone that is in the Ann Arbor area, come check out our first year MFA show at the Warren Robbins Gallery in the U of M Art and Architecture Building. The opening is this Friday, February 6th from 5 - 8pm. See you there!

What's in a Name?

Here is a list of some of my ideas for the cubicle formerly known as my studio:

-the office
-work
-the box
-the command center
-home
-the base
-the pit
-the cave
-the safe zone
-the fish tank
-the think tank
-the lab
-space
-the room

I'm still thinking of others for now, but trying not to call it a you know what in the meantime. Maybe it would actually work better if it was a verb instead of a noun, like:

-work
-create
-paint
-draw
-think
-play

This way I can say, "I'm going to think now." instead of "I'm going to the studio now." The jury is still out on this one.

Not a Studio

Until I arrived at University of Michigan I had never had my own studio space. As an undergraduate, I shared a studio with three other BFA printmakers, which we all used primarily as storage for supplies. After that I joined the Art Hospital and had a table in a room that, again, I used mostly for storage. Eventually, I gave up this space when I moved into a bigger house with an extra room. This room became my new storage space.

Although I have used my studio here in Ann Arbor more than I used all three of my previous spaces combined, I still haven't quite figured out the best way for me to use it. I am not intent on making images or objects, so a space for mess-making doesn't seem necessary, but a physical space for developing ideas is not something that should be wasted.

Recently, I've been thinking that I should start calling my studio "The Command Center," "Think Tank," or anything else to take away the associated meanings that come with "studio" that seem to stop me in my tracks.

I will post my list of potential names up here in the next week or so. Any suggestions are welcome!

To Be and to See

As my work has become more dematerialized and performative over the years a question has been growing in my mind and it remains unanswered: "Can one both experience something fully and observe that which is happening?"

The flâneur seems to skate the line between these two states, but he does not fully exist in either. He is never fully present, nor is he strictly a removed observer. His ambivalence is what defines him. Personally, when experiencing this shifting role I feel uneasy and transparent, like a ghost resting between two planes of existence. This feeling is strongest while looking through the lens of a camera. Although I enjoy taking pictures, it is not something I have done with great consistency because of the discomfort the camera brings to me. I am more content to set up the camera and step in front of it, than to learn to accept the uneasiness or discomfort that comes with looking through the lens.

As an artist in academia, there is an expectation that students should document our work for the sake of accountability, but creating this documentation is not always easy. When performing or creating an interactive piece, my thoughts have always been more focused on the work at hand and the documentation becomes more of an afterthought; a required last minute addition to the work. Because of this, some of my most successful pieces have been recorded most accurately in my memory or the memory of the participants.

I have been seeking a way to document public or social projects without the altering presence of the camera. The fleeting quality of time is something that I find poetic and beautiful, so rather than attempt to preserve an artistic event, I am often more content to let the moment slip away recorded only in our minds. But how can one remain accountable for such moments?