Thesis Show- Graduate School

SH it was mainly like The theme around this this project is story telling,and it took me my whole graduate two years to realize thats what it out to have been, so there is going to be a story telling part to my opening,

But that changes a lot of how I'm orchestrating the whole thing, a couple of days ago I came up with ... how I needed an audio element for telling the stories of each of the pieces, and I was thinking of that museum technique where you can dial up or call a number instead of like one of those hand held audio guides, you can call a number and just press an extension number that relates to what ever the piece is, and it'll tell you the whole thing. Just a minute ago I called up one of the companies who does that, and the minimum is $500...

RS Have you got a back up plan?

SH (giggle) Pretty much the only thing I can think of is like all the people who are working on this project with me would have to pretty much sacrifice their answering machine on their phone, and I would just have their phone number on the sculpture. Which is actually I think kind of cool.
All they would do is not answer incoming calls they woudn't recognize and you would heard their aswering machine message, but the message would be a a story.

SH Is there some, are there like ethical issues if you put peoples phone numbers on art work?
Like if they start getting hassled or something?

SS I saw on CSI or something where they couldn't trace a call because the perp had used a disposable cell phone or something, maybe you could get some of those, I bet that wouldn't cost 500 bucks,

RS There are also phones where you can have different extensions..

SH yeah, I've thought about like a lot of the different options around this, like you call different people and get there answering machines or, you do a small business sort of thing where you get the message (in a “message voice”) please dial the extension for the person you would like to talk to... and you get their desk and their answering machine message. It would be bad ass cuz you could leave a comment at the end and it would be really rad, but there is no place... you would have to set up a contract, and there is a fee to set up for each mail box, its really expensive its not like the internet where you can set up countless pages and .... i don't know, its a little dilemma I'm working on.

Maybe the phone numbers on pieces is cool, I know a few people that if I brought it up to them would be like, fuck no, (laughs), like Gordon would be like, no its my private number ... UM
But...........

SS How many stories do you want to have?

SH Well there's 20 different projects going so , its kind of a lot, I don't even know, people are not.. generally when people go to a gallery they are not going to sit through 20 stories, but....

SS What if you were to invest in just a few little cd players and make tracks for each of the story's ..

SH Oh I mean if I was to do each.... I don't know there is something cool about, I don't know, you have this relationship with your phone, its kind of like you're comfortable with it and you can manipulate it, people feel like, I think people feel kind of alienated ... I know a lot of people who don't like the head phones on a piece. ... I just like the newness of the idea of the cell phone.

SS yeah, I like that too, also because even if it is a recording there is this expectation that somebody might pick up so it is more interactive.

SH.. And there is the comforting voice at the other end, the way they have these things set up is I set up the content, kind of like a website, and they walk you though, kind of hold you hand through setting it up, and then they answer the phone and not a real person but a recording that you can record or you could use a standard greeting thing, its really flexible and and comfortable which sounds really great.

SS and responses could generate material for new thoughts,

SH yea the responses, and please leave your own story.

SH the other thing Andrew Dickson talked about. was that I should probably do an opening night performance thing, where people tell their stories, that would be a really fun thing for me to facilitate, especially because there are a lot of people going to come out from S Carolina, Just to make some sort of event for them to join in on would be really fun.

But I'm terrified of that kind of thing,

SS what if everyone were just sitting around whittling and talking, telling stories and taking turns? Is that terrifying?

SH Um um, (no) thats much more comfortable.

SS, so tell me about this, (picking up a mold of a crayfish)
Maybe instert video of this in stead of text here? Gordon fish story
SH this is right here is a lobster, well its actually a crayfish, this is the model, and it goes with gordon here, in the spirit of fish stories and (rs and ss laugh) so it went from a crayfish like crayfish which is the actual size of the Lobster that gordon killed, and there is going to be a sword sticking out of its head because Gordon gave me this thing (shows a mold for a toy sword) and its been sitting over here for ever, so this is the model of the sword. Isn't it cool, (laughing) So thats like, but, so Gordon and his girlfriend Katlin and I uh we all went down to Kalamyth river and caught like, 40, 50... um (loud and proud) 300! (laughter) crayfish and went back and boiled them and ate them and they were delicious.
it was a fun afternoon.

SS so are you creating some.. like a narrative world for each of your characters or, and so this is where the scale thing comes in, I just noticed you espresso pot (a life sized carving of an espresso pot).

SH Yeah, thats actually like...(laughs) a story is like, i mean, you can look at these things as much as you want I just feel like i don't want i don't have the energy or feel like I need to make each of these stories clear by just the sculptural elements in them and adding new stuff, it starts to be just like this diorama and no matter how many elements I added the story still wouldn't be that clear.
So at some point you just need to hear the story i think.

RS One of the things that I like about temporary services is like their idea of a booklet. With all these projects you could potentially make a booklet about your work, having an image of each piece and then the story that goes along with it so that people if they wanted to could interact with it later if they wanted to. and have a visual, but I guess you still want to do the more immediate ..

SH Yeah there's like, like Gordon he's almost done.. Picks up a small whittled Gordon figure and hands it to us..

SS Oooh he's so manly!

SH He is wearing a wet suit actually

RS. Do you have a sketch out of your plan for your thesis show?

SH Like how it will be laid out?

RS Yeah.

SH laughs, every single studio visit I've had so far has ended with that question, and ....... NO
I don't have the answer for that, because it keeps altering in my head. I haven't made that many attempts to sketch it out, I'm trying to.. . Its not really fair for some of my teachers, but I'm trying to leave certain aspects of the show loose. Leave room for certain things to be added or taken away.
Its been hard, I have 20 different projects, I'm trying to keep track of them in an organized fashion somewhat in my sketch books and on this thing (time line) but it is just a lot and most of it is in my head.

RS So your thesis show is going to be more like a showing of the process of you interacting with these people?

SH Its like, this sculpture teacher, we'd make molds in a class and you'd end up with the mold and you can't really see what's inside until you pour the metal into it, but he'd always say, “something is going to happen, something is going to come out of it and somebody's going to learn something. “ This is just I guess part of my strong need to learn something in grad school. But you're right, there are certain parts of this project that I wish I could pay more homage to, just one of these you could spend a lot of time on, and make a whole show just out of one of these.

Something will happen.