For our STEAM project, the five of us plan to integrate a couple of the art mediums we discussed this semester along with the idea of New York City being the subject matter of Art as well as a space of displaying and consuming art. NYC is not just a fast paced environment where 8 million people live. It is a place that is full of art and culture, and that is something we are going to try to represent in our project
When we think of New York City and things we see in our everyday lives, we immediately thought of the subway. All of us take the train to and from school everyday, and it’s something we are fairly comfortable with and want to represent at the STEAM Festival. Basically, we are going to recreate a subway car and on the walls will be three different forms of art: photography, painting/drawing, and poetry. Following a model of our photography project, Renee is going to compile a couple of pictures that show the beauty of NYC. She will make sure each photo is “agitating” and that it has a clear studium and punctum. She will show the beauty of New York City and print pictures in high resolution, which will be placed aesthetically and placed on one of the walls of our train. Danielle will create a piece of art, maybe a drawing or painting, or maybe something with fun supplies such as tissue paper and pom-poms, that will either reflect the beauty of NYC or incorporate some of the paintings and artists that we spoke about this semester, perhaps a lion, like our first “find a lion” project. Lastly, Frieda will create her own train literature. On many subway cars there are big posters with poems about everything and anything, all to keep NYC reading and cultured. Frieda is going to write her own poem about NYC which be displayed on a poster and placed on a wall of our subway car, mimicking what is done on real trains. We were also thinking of maybe putting some funny school or NYC related advertisements on the inside of the train, like we are used to seeing on real trains.
Lastly, Rachel and Esther will work on actually creating the train. The train will be made of some kind of cardboard, possible a couple of tri-boards. From there they will outline and paint the inside of a subway car. The train will be an “M” train, for Macaulay. It will have a red circle around it, just like Macaulay red. The M will be colored white, again to incorporate the Macaulay colors. Additionally, the stops on the train will be places that we visited as a class this semester: the different places we’ve found our lions, Chelsea galleries, the Highline, ICP, the MET Opera, Miller Theater, as well as anything else we visit later on in the semester. If possible, we are also going to try to blow up a copy of the map of manhattan, and try to make something like a subway map, connecting the city together. This will help us all gain an appreciation for going to school in Manhattan, and having so many resources available to us at our fingertips, by simply riding the subway uptown or downtown.
Hi team,
Your central idea here–of the subway as the locus of art–is a really strong one. Like NYC itself, the subway is both the subject of artworks (think of Walker Evans’ subway photos) and at the same time a space for consuming art: whether that art is graffiti, posters, or poetry in the Poetry in Motion series. I think adding a line map would be a great idea; you hint at this in the last paragraph, mentioning the “stops on the train”–I’d love to see this represented visually.
Have a look at the MTA’s own Arts and Design page as you proceed: http://web.mta.info/mta/aft/poetry/history.html
It’s great that you have already begun to divide up roles; you’ve clearly done so with an eye to distributing labor equally, which is key. Because this is such a large group, I would like one of you–possibly one of the two builders of the car itself, though someone else can step up, as well–to take on an additional role, as project manager. The project manager will make sure everyone stays on task, and will rely questions/requests for help from the team to me and Jake, as needed. This person will also be in charge of organizing meet-ups for working on the project–sending out emails to the group, figuring out scheduling, etc. Choose someone organized! Note: the project manager should not fall into the dreaded group work problem of doing all the work for everyone (not that I think that’s a danger, here–you all seem motivated!) but rather smooths helps keep the various parts of the project coordinated.
Right now, the work you have ahead of you is both logistical and artistic. Within the next week, please write up a reply to this comment, containing the following:
(1) A clearer account of what the train car itself will look like. How will viewers see inside it? Will there be a removable wall, or will it be a 3-walled diorama (like a miniature theater, where the fourth wall faces the audience)?
(2) Danielle, I’d like to hear more about your particular idea, and how it fits with the subway theme/with how art is displayed or consumed around subways. Maybe yours might be a piece of public art, in a subway station? Or is it part of the car itself?
(3) An account of the materials you will need–each of you, for each part of the project–plus how you will obtain these materials. If you aren’t sure about how to obtain them, let us know that.
(4) A timeline/schedule–what will you do, and when will you do it? Have a look at the syllabus to see the class session allotted for STEAM work. Note that you will need more time than this. If you need a space to store materials on campus, I can make my office available.
I’m looking forward to seeing this develop!
Best,
Prof Kolb
For our steam project we decided to make a model subway. In each cart of the subway there will be something to represent a topic we discussed in class. Rachel and Esther will be making the train using large shoe boxes. They will connect three of the show boxes using silver pipe cleaners, and they will cover the boxes in aluminum foil or something else that is silver in color. After the boxes are covered, we will decorate the boxes so that people can look at them in a 3 dimensional way. We will let our audience walk all around the table. The back side of the box is where the “M” train will be located and the inside of the box will have the train line and the specific artwork for each “train car” as mentioned before.
Additionally, we will photocopy our cultural passports and edit them a little to make them seem like metro cards to enter the Macaulay train.
Frieda, Renee, and Danielle will each use one cart to represent something we analyzed in class. Frieda’s cart will show poetry. She will write a piece of her own and she will place in her cart. Renee will represent photography. She will make a collage of photos she has taken of New York, and place it all over the box. Danielle will represent the lions that we learnt about while discussing art and mimesis. She will recreate lions using material of her choice and place it in the cart. We will then cover each cart with Saran wrap to make the train look even more realistic; it will look like windows of the cart. We are very excited to get going on this project.
We are going to take a group trip to Michaels to get our art supplies which will include (but are not limited to): pipe cleaners, silver wrap, paint, colored paper, boxes, and more.
We will work both in class, and because we live in close proximity to each other, whatever we do not finish in time, we will continue at home. Additionally, we will do some things on our own. For instance, Frieda can write her poem at home one night when she doesn’t have work to do, and then when we all meet up, she can help us by attaching it to her section of the train car.
We are very excited to work together!!