019: vast frame
Two quick ones as I'm traveling in the Bay Area right now.
A quick phone snap from the balcony of a museum becomes the foundation of this poster. The curvy, white walls of the museum provide a natural frame for the subjects walking underneath. In a building full of observing the framing, it's interesting to create it.
So much of art as its presented under capitalism is framed as a thing to be consumed, rather than one in which most people can participate in. We attend an art gallery, we watch a movie, we show up to a concert, they're all meaningful activities, but there's often little room for us to make the art, shoot the film, jam with the instruments. Even when it happens, they get relegated to hobbies, amateur work not on the same level as the art we often consume. For the vast majority of people, if they love theater, the answer is to be a bigger fan, attend more shows, buy more merchandise, funnels that obviously make the rich richer, when the more obvious direction is to have more people participate, for more art forms to be accessible. Elevate the amateur as the primary representative of a form, for a reality in which art in deeply entangled with our being, and not just as a commodity.
VAST kicks off a series of tiny.sites that maximize white space on a web page. Another example of framing, this time using the word VAST to frame a mostly empty web page. The question at hand is why with the infinite possibilities out there, we end up with an internet in which most of us traverse the same few sites over and over again, full of content, but of dubious value. It reminds me of that meme image of McDonald's alongside a flurry of gas station signs on the side of the road. A potential answer, celebrating empty space, emptiness in the virtual. Minimal design, minimal purpose, with the intent of resetting our expectations of what we make and consume in the virtual realm.