My Burning Question:
In a message dated 4/18/02 8:23 PM, Willpap writes:
Re- 2 questions Time and Place
<<OK, my question for divining:
What is the situation of my work?
where
"situation"
refers to
situationist
location artwork
occupation trajectory
Pomer>>
The question, "What is the situation of my art?," arises in a moment of career difficulty and a perceived need to make a choices. The question is connected with a range of issues including occupation, location, lifestyle, practice and subject matter. To make my artwork, to know the direction I should take in my artwork, what is the situation that will be most conducive? I am confronted with a choice between attempting to stay in my academic position at the University of Florida, which has become difficult to do to personality conflicts, or to make a move to York where I have begun to set up a studio, and pursue a new life. In terms of artistic practice the question carries with it the developments arising in my work while at the University of Florida, such as this is very collaborative work with FRE, exploration with webcams, or pursue some new unknown form or content of work. The tenor of the moment seems catastrophic, as if efforts to build a life/art/occupation in Florida where being destroyed/blocked.
In a message dated 7/1702 4:08 PM, Willpap writes:
<<Greg,
One important item I missed in my it pom pom chronology that figured very importantly in my mind and interests in doing a memorial with pom poms was an application/proposal to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) submitted the previous March, 2001. (see attached to Microsoft 2001 word document with images). The LMCC offered a yearly artists residences on the 92nd floor of Tower One. I had visited a friend in the residency there in 1999 and had been considering site specific ideas for the proposal the previous spring.
There were two proposals I submitted, one involving webcams associated with each business in the building and the other to install a huge "image" made of pom poms which were to be distributed to each business within the building and displayed in each window. The resulting displays, one colored pom per window, in theory, would create a wraparound image around on the entire skyscraper. The image, interestingly enough, was yet to be determined and my proposal was never accepted.
Through this process there was at some level a kind of emotional investment and bonding I had with both the artist program and the buildings. After September 11th I reflected this proposal, in particular calculating the number of windows in each building, the haunting psychological image of the windows broken and the pom poms scattered across the area, had I executed my project. Additionally there would of been a high likelihood that I might have been in the buildings when they were hit. (One of the artists accepted, Micheal Richards, was in fact killed.) There was also the unfinished in question of what was the image to be? I suppose this is all part of my burning question.
WPr>>