Plaques for Plaques

Below are the photos I included in the exhibit. There’s much more I need to document, but that’s ok. 

While walking home, I put the (still-warped) global warming plaque besides its original, and I have to say, it’s exciting to see.

Today I nearly ruined my final sheet of acrylic. The laser cutter's heat bent the sheet in a way that confounded Mike. I had to find a way to flatten the sheet. Mark in the woodshop told me to put in in an oven at 180 degrees for an hour. So, that's what I did. Turns out it really works. So, in short, I've been putting plaques in an oven today. Baking some plaques.

All this plaque-baking could have been avoided had I ordered an extra sheet last week for 50 dollars. But the company I order from is hit-or-miss with the plaque colorations, and I couldn't risk buying a sheet for that much only to have it be useless. Besides, I really assumed that nothing could possibly go wrong. And really, nothing should have gone wrong. But I pushed the settings on the laser cutter probably well beyond what was necessary. Now I've got tomorrow morning to engrave the last plaque and cut out the final two. 

What I'm really scared of is the idea that I get all the photos I need printed and in hand by Friday, and WAP John can't get them mounted for me in time for Monday. That really freaks me out. But at this point, a day behind, even if I get all the plaques cut and painted tomorrow, renew my camera rent at ECHO, and skip my morning class to take photos of the plaques in the wild, and somehow manage to get ALL the photos before 1PM, and THEN after the dinner with Brian Selznick, go BACK up NORTH around midnight and PRINT these photos, and have them to give to WAP John FIRST THING FRIDAY MORNING...

...There's still the chance that W.A.P John can't get all six photos mounted in time for Sunday. And let's be honest, if anything in that process goes wrong– if tomorrow is a shitty rainy day (which it will be) or if I can't get to every plaque within an afternoon... It could be trouble. 

But none of this is impossible. 

Today I did a few important things. 

I got in contact with Franc's friend W.A.P. John at Grafaktri, to talk about the possibility of using Sintra mounting board and 45 degree floating mounts for the photos of the plaque locations. I need to get back to him with specifics so that he can provide a quote. 

Dana Natural Science Building Plaque

I also made a draft of the Global Warming plaque to accompany the original outside the Dana Natural Science Building.

I’m not a fan of the cramped typography caused by the long word “manufacture,” although I’m proud of the text. The illustration also needs to change. I want to make it resemble the tree as it is today, taller.

C.C.Little Science Building Plaque

I also updated my C.C.Little plaque design and text. Above are three versions, oldest to newest. 

The more I researched the man, the clearer the case against him became. Often the discussion around renaming or removing memorials and buildings brings up the counterpoint that if we scrutinize all of our heroes from the past, we will have to remove them all. People were “of their time.” 

Not only does this argument distract from the issue of praising certain figures over others, it doesn’t hold any weight against a man like C.C.Little, who even with the benefit of the doubt was well behind his time, and knew well what he was doing when he joined the Tobacco Industry Research Committee. He chose pride over integrity, money over science, personal gain over public health. 

https://www.michigandaily.com/section/administration/group-submits-official-request-rename-cc-little-building 

The request to rename the C.C.Little building, co-written by a group of university professors, was a major resource in writing this plaque. This plaque is speculative. It imagines a possible future where the building does get renamed, and, as proposed in the request, a plaque would be placed in the vicinity to inform people of C.C.Little’s legacy without praising him.

I had drafted an earlier version in a serif text, but it feels cleaner and more appropriate in Univers, to more closely resemble the C.C.Little Science Building sign. 

Plaque Parallels: Two Buildings, Two Plaques, Same Story

Today the metallic acrylic panels arrived! I tested how they’d look laser engraved. 

My test being engraved.

It came out alright, but I want to see if I can’t get more depth out of the process. The contrast isn’t great either. I borrowed some acrylic paint and tried to darken the engraved areas.

I think the process helped make the plaque look more authentic and readable. 

As you can see, there’s not much depth I was able to achieve from engraving it. I have an idea of how I might be able to get more depth, but I’ll have to test it later. 

Metallic Acrylic

Spring Break is nearly over now.  I dropped ~$150 on the metallic acrylic, and because I couldn’t order samples ahead of time, I’m holding my breath that they’re quality. 

Thesis Writing

I just met with Allie for more writing advice. My Methodology section is a jumbled mess, too in-depth in some parts and lacking in others. Allie tells me that I have the opposite problem of most students: having too much to say, too much research, too much work. The trick is in figuring out a concise structural way to tell it all so that the reader doesn’t get lost.  Allie’s advice is to make a reverse outline– reverse engineer the outline of what I’ve written so far, warts and all, and then write what my ideal outline would be. That is my homework for next Friday. 

Allie tells me that, unlike other theses, my thesis is part of my work. It wants to be seen and shared. I told her that I was inspired by Jenny Odell’s thesis-length article How to do Nothing. 

So, as an extra bit of homework: See if I can’t make a one page outline of How to do Nothing. Allie tells me that making outlines of the works you admire can help you understand how to do the same for your own writing. I knew this, from creative writing class and from outlining a Radiolab story for my linguistics book– but forgot about it. 

Some lessons you just need to relearn again and again. 

Video Idea

We live in a very audio/visual time, where videos seem to be the ideal mode to communicate brief pitches about complex subjects. I’m inspired a lot by Tom Scott’s short site-specific informational videos about “things you might not have known,” like this one about one place in Europe without street names.

Thanks to a grant from ArtsEngine, I have been connected with videographer/photographer Dylan Hancook. ArtsEngine hopes to document my process and project. 

From looking at previous ArtsEngine IP grant recipients, it seems as though the final product might be a video of me speaking about my work in my studio, mixed with some footage of the artwork itself. Nothing wrong with that. However, a visiting expert recommended I conduct a guided walking tour that people could sign up for in the gallery. If I were to do this in April, I'd need someone to document the tour. 

However, if that idea proves to be too arduous, I had another idea: for each of the ~7 featured plaque locations, I could create 30 sec ~ 120 sec video vignettes where I could speak about the existing plaques and my approach towards making my own. Imagine these videos on a site where you could take a digital tour of these sites? 

This, of course, is something I'd only seriously consider after having made all the plaques– sometime in April when the exhibit is up and all I've left to do is finish writing my thesis. This would be a video extension of my written thesis, a day project easily achievable after I've written everything. I could do this all on my own, but it would help to have an experienced videographer and extra pair of hands to help me hit all the spots on a beautiful day, when I've written about each plaque, prepared to give the elevator pitch for why each of these plaques are compelling. These videos would work without the website. 

Speaking of...

PlaquesForPlaques.com!

I bought a URL for a year! I’m surprised no one bought it before. 

Plaque Writing

There is a lot of this that I just plain havent done. And my brother is coming into town in a few hours, and I don’t think I’ll have any time left this break to work on writing/designing plaques. I’m not going to lie, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t find the time to get that done. But then again, it’s spring break, and I had other fun to have with my parents and with friends, as well as two meetings. So I’m not being hard on myself about it. 

So I just had a meeting with my professors, and it seems like I have a few things I need to take care of this month:

1. Keep making plaques. 

I mean as cheaply as possible, design them, make them on paper, and keep making them. Keep contacting people and getting sources. Maybe make a “hit list” of plaques...

2. Order material samples and keep testing laser engraving.

https://www.inventables.com/technologies/bronze-metallic-acrylic-sheet http://www.acrilex.com/product-category/metallic-acrylic-sheets/ Etc....

3. Keep writing thesis/book text. Get book printing costs sorted.

http://www.blurb.com/photo-books

Today I made my first real tangible original plaque, beginning to end. I wrote it, designed it, laser etched it, gave it a backing, hung it in context, and photographed it. I also helped Laura move the giant plastic sheets into my next-door studio space.

The original plaque is one of the first plaques I found. It hides behind an immovable concrete trash can outside an entrance to the art school. The plaque labels a time capsule placed in the foundation of the building in 1972, the year the building was built. The time capsule contains art from students, and a worried sentence hoping that "creative expression be not artificially limited but responsive only to the human imagination." 

I made the new plaque directly resemble and reference the old plaque, but gave it textual and visual twists that hopefully call attention to 1. the awkward placement of the trash can in front of the old plaque and 2. the way opinions on artificial tools/intelligence in the artistic community (and beyond) have evolved over half a century. 

Old plaque vs New Plaque:

In the first sentence, I dedicated the plaque to the trash can, and in the second sentence, I flipped the old plaque's text to express hope (rather than fear) for the future of artificial influence in art. 

I sent my plaque design through Google's DeepDream algorithm, which uses a neural network to change an image to more closely resemble a second input image. It made a splash a few years ago for the unexpected artistic/psychedelic nature of its outputs. In my case, it seemed to have decorated the plaque with scrolls flowing between words and pooling around the edges. 

Trippy stuff. ...I like it.

As for the old plaque, some context: In the early 70's, automation anxiety was very real. Laser printers and ATMs were introduced, and many people feared their skills would become useless.  https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/09/attention-automation-is-not-the-same-as-artificial-intelligence/

https://hbr.org/2016/02/todays-automation-anxiety-was-alive-and-well-in-1960 Today we're on the edge of a very similar moment, with the increasing automation of factories at the EXPENSE of human labor (looking at you, Amazon) and the potential for mass-produced self-driving cars on the horizon. A few people (not most) in the arts are even afraid creativity will be outsourced to machines. 

Of course that's not true. I'm positive that automation (which allowed me to engrave this plaque in half an hour) and artificial intelligence (like DeepDream, which gave me the swirls in the background) will not hinder but ENHANCE creative production in the next 50 years. And I believe my plaque not only asserts that idea but demonstrates it.

A note about the backdrop: I used some paper lying around from hollanders and tested how the plaque would look in front of different sheets. Kinda interesting... 

Some of these are better than others... It’s an interesting effect, but if the bronze acrylic looks nice and reads well WITHOUT ANY BACKING, it’ll be the clear winner. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZviUUtNKIcI just found the most absurd plaque yet. A true Plaque for a Plaque. 

While walking in the hallway, I saw out the window...

...A statue of a sundial with a plaque next to it. And next to THAT...

Another plaque, blown up large.

I wanted to go out onto the terrace to see what the first plaque said, but found that the only entrance was blocked...

(I suppose it’s for security but I can’t help but get the morbid feeling that it’s to prevent people from jumping off the ledge.)

Upon further squinting I realized that the big plaque is literally an enlarged version of the original plaque. It’s express purpose is to make the plaque readable for people walking by the hallway window. 

But to be completely honest, I’ve never noticed this plaque in my 4 years here, and I’ve never noticed anyone ELSE notice it. Which brings me to my conclusion. Naturally, there needs to be a plaque for the plaque for the plaque. One INSIDE the window, nudging passers by to look out the window to the second and then first plaque. 

...Something along these lines. Naturally. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZviUUtNKIc 

Today I met with Jennifer Metsker to talk about my Arts Engine Grant proposal. I also followed up with your mother's suggestion, Arlo's Plastics in Jackson Michigan. I got a quote on pricing for 8 20" by 40" sheets of 1/4" bronze-colored acrylic, and ordered a free sample for etching testing, which should arrive by Monday. 

I realize that the next big hurdle in my project is material. If I can get the right material to engrave, it could solve a lot of problems and make this process a whole lot easier, at a cost. The ArtsEngine grant is due friday, but unlike previous cycles, this time I know exactly what I want and how much it will cost and why I need it. Jennifer Metsker says that my project is exactly the sort of thing they go for. Based on the quote and what I recieved from the Stamps School, I think it's fair to ask for $500~$600 out of potential $1000. 

With the sample I get on Monday, I hope to test out different methods of engraving text, or engraving around text, and what it would look like after a coat of metallic acrylic paint. I should ask around and see if anyone has gold/bronze metallic paint. This project will rely a lot on what I get from this grant.