things i did project.: Alan

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Alan

Tried to kill myself.

Faked it till I made it out of psych hospital.

Tried to kill myself again.

Woke up and realized everything had changed.

Understood that death is nothing to gain.

Alan, age 28

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ABOUT THINGS I DID

Step one:

I ask you for a list of 5 'THINGS I DID'.

Step two:

You consider it, wonder if I am some crackpot weirdo.

Going against your better judgement, you figure,

'what the hell.'

You begin to cull the list.

The good stuff.

Maybe the bad.

Short and sweet.

Quick and dirty.

You in a nutshell.

A memoir in 5 lines of text.

Step three:

You send your list to me with your first name and age.

Step four:

I am intensely grateful as I collect the lists.

I put the lists up on the blog as they come in (don't want your list up on the blog? No problem, just tell me and it won't go up.)

I dig into my bag of visual tricks and after much angst and suffering, come up with something pretty damn groovy.

Step five:

I post pictures on the blog of how everything looks along the way.

Step six:

It all goes up in a gallery/museum/someplace not too horrifying.....

We all drink too much at the opening.

Step seven:

Everyone makes a big fuss over us, because - We are all ART STARS.....

Thanks for taking part, and if you think anyone else would be interested in participating, please spread the word.

Lauren

SO WHAT THE HELL IS THIS GOING TO LOOK LIKE?

Good question.

Don't have a definite answer to that one yet.

I started off with the bright idea to embroider each list on a while linen, hemstitched hankie. White embroidery floss text on white linen. I wanted it to look and feel a little like braille. Unfortunately I was a little too successful, and 7 long, exercises in patience, white on white hankies later, I gave up on that idea. No one could read the lists because no one could see them.

So...

Next idea.

Since the the lists are autobiographical and self reflective I am going for the obvious and starting to etch the lists on to 12"x12' mirror tiles.

We'll see how that goes.

If that works visually, my intent is to have the mirrored list

mounted at varying heights and angles.

We'll see.

I'll post pictures along the way.

THINGS FROM THE LISTS I'M GLAD I GOOGLED

Patch Adams

Rolled on Molly

Miep Gies

Jay and the Americans

Book of Kells (1:John:1)

"14ers"

52" Muskie

Docking sheep with your teeth

Rousseau's, The Dream

Pinhead from Hellraiser

Thomas Merton

Lakota medicine man

Cimarron river

Christy X, Guerrilla Films

She-Ra

'Letters to New York'

Camino de Santiago (there is a great account of William Dalrymple's pilgrimage in the Conde Nast Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys.)

World Naked Bike Ride UK

Territorial Army

Tail of the Dragon

Ecstatic dance

Pikies

Sepik River

Tasman Sea

moron2moron

Early Dance Consort

Anza Borrego desert

Paleface cliff diving

Pansexuality

Dr. Ala Bashir