Aidan Bach Missing Assignments

Assignment 1

Considering the cost for some of the projects enacted by Lacey, such as buying and distributing 50 tons of limestone, is some of the merit of the community engagement art lost in expense and grandeur?

How does the Chicago community feel about having Lacey, an artist priorly  established, coming from So Cal to represent the conditions of Chicago and its inner city neighborhoods?

Did these art projects actually reflect the interests and well being of the community, or did they instead reflect the interests of the art world?

What where the long term effects of these temporary projects did they open up a dialogue with in the city, or did they pass with time? 

In what ways where the people whom the projects where to honor where represented truly, and it what ways where their voices misrepresented by the contemporary artists that represented them? 

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The projects listed, to me, seem that must  have been very controversial considering the scale of them, and the cost and time that must have been associated with them. 

It is, in my opinion, that "community in Action " was not purely a community work of art. Though it did engage many people of various walks of life, with the funding available, and the artists chosen, it seems to me that it was more of a social outreach curated for the sake of art promotion. 

I belive that the group Flood led a very significant example of how an activist art group should act. If the artist engaging the work is not fully akin to the community, I feel that it is not there job to simply represent them artistically, but to also serve them. By creating the garden, and serve and cater to AIDS patients, Flood did not simply show there acknowledgment for their selected community, but also there care and respect for them. 

Similarly, Manglano-Ovalle's use of education on conjunction with the project he had conducted with the kids In the video is a very notion to enact upon the community. Then, not only are the kids of the project represented, but they now retain the ability, or at least a starting point, to be artists of their own accord. 

I feel that some of the artists in the article demonstrated their inclination to use activist art as a platform to foward their artistic careers. Though some artists where native Chicago residents, it seems to me that the outsider artists represented the group most willing to welcome them, not the group nescersially most in need. 

Aisgment 2

1. The play focuses on the multiple outlooks that are often not considered in the case of racial upheaval. It brings to  mind questions of who had done what, why they had done it, how they had felt, and who they where. In addition, besides personifying people to further understand their social significance, the play also brings into account how the media and social implications can affect opinions, peoples safety, and narrow their understanding of their community.

2. The play relies heavily on personification. It had given a character to the corporate structure that bends news to their discretion, the ignorant bystander programmed by the  media, and so on. The idea of having multiple people portrayed by different characters is also a very effective method, for it opens dialogue on significance and reason that is often very much preprogrammed by the playwright, though in this case, it is a more raw way to deliver a narrative and allow the audience to formulate their own beliefs.

3. The simplistic idea of the play being a scene of people waiting for a bus to comes demonstrates an example of typical scene which is insignifanct, but very relevant in the life of the two characters portrayed. In simply waiting for the bus, the play holds the ability to depict all the issues, prejudices, and events associated with the two characters. 

4.The play, while mostly directed towards the cushioned populous of white privilege, can affect any audience who connects with the changing depictions and identities of the characters  in the play.

5. I feel that, though this play characterizes mistreatment and misrepresentation of minority races in America, that it is really a play that is open to anyone. It does promote equality and demonstrate the struggles and injustices against minorities, but in the style that it presented, it is relatable and adaptable to all audience members. In either case, the plays significance will sneak up on the audience, whether you accept the play or not, as it is described, it is there to inform and arouse you.

6.The community of the play is engaged by the familiarity of the people in the play. The Rodney King Riots are still a very prevalent event in much of LA, especially in 2005 when the play was produced. With the cycling of characters and the use of a joker, much of the play is diversely relatable. With this in mind, it engages not only the people it is representing, but the people that the play is stigmatizing. 

7. The most relevant resource of the project comes from the students who had developed and acted in the play. Through the research and surveying of personal interest used in the play, it had created a unique approach to identifying and represented a community instead of using it as source to convey a more personal interest in an event. However, as is often the case in community based activist art, the artists curating the event takes the reigns in to their own hands and takes control of the work. As Schutzman confesses, though the actors did have a good grasp in the work, they where not completely aware of all the motifs and ideologies behind the play, leading to the idea that they where more of promotors to enhance her vision. 

8. The projects goal s to challenge the overall viewpoints of the audience. It does not have a leader or follower, nor does it have victim nor does it have a culprit. It makes the audience to question their stance, and to think, why are their opinions validated, from whom are their opinions shaped, why do they identify with the position that they do, and more importantly are they wrong in their ways and if they are, can they fix it?

9. The goals of the play where throughly reached. It had struck it diverse audience and had opened up dialogue about the validity of peoples resources and afflictions. It was an experiment, one in which was intangible and not absorbed by all, but in sense, more significant for this reason.

10. The projects guiding values where the fragility and also the chaos that exists in racial tension and the place of the media. It demonstrates the ideas of why things happen in this manner, and if they do reasonably so. Overall, it shows how, despite the idea that misrepresentation and glorification may reach the world in a filtered down state, how sensitive racial injustice is in any form, and the places tht it would reach, no matter what the true source of it is.