Advanced Sculpture, 2014

Project 3: Interactivity

Entering the bar I hold the door for my friends as I usually do and enter the bar.  Immediately I catch a few glances from around the bar of somewhat confusion otherwise smirks. I see a few of my friends so i go over to greet them.  They ask about the dress but not in any particularly surprised way because I have told at least one of them and on the other hand  I typically wear a lot of womens clothing.  

One of these friends being Paige we immediately played Big Buck Hunter in which she kicked my ass.  

To begin I approach the bar and hang out.  I have Will ask two people what they think of the dress and ask if they would be ok to be videoed and they obliged. (see video)

While chilling at the bar these two blokes to my right toss sideways glances at me.  I continue to watch the wizards game.  In celebration of a scored basket i turned to celebrate briefly with them. Upon this, the one closest to my right says “I gotta ask what’s with the dress” i told him to wait a moment and then nudged Will pretty hard to get him in video mode. I then prompted him to repeat the question and responded with why are guys the only ones allowed to wear dresses. (See Video)

I have Will prompt another man to respond to the dress, back to back two oblige one with a more serious response the other more probably joking although based on the delivery it was unclear. (See Video)

Girl from spanish class asks about dress so i tell her it was on sale she laughs and continues on her way

Next me and Will take a tag team approach having me prompt the question specifically myself seeing as not many people were approaching me and interacting.  For this we turned to the more “townie” side of the bar.  Spotting a group of presumably militant men we asked their permission to video before we asked a question they said no in a direct but pretty decent way then I asked them if I could just ask the question and they sort of waved me off.  

For the next we took a more guerrilla approach trying to sneak the camera.  We walked up to the biggest dude in the bar with easily one of the biggest beards i have ever seen in my life which is saying something because i have seen zz top twice.  Unfortunately he spotted the camera immediately as i asked him what he thought of my dress.  He stated confidently that he wanted my dick and then pointed to the camera. I joked on with him afterward. (see video)

group of foxes across room throwing me glances make me think about going over there. Being they were all attractive and a year older than me i was already intimidated but i feel like i would have went for it had i not had the dress which is stupid because i could have immediately had something to talk about because everyone asks about the dress first

I then went outside for with the intention of asking someone for a light for a cigarette.  The first man sort of looked side to side motioning to his friend who kindly obliged but upon the condition that I tell him about the dress.  Once again I told him I thought I looked nice in it and he agreed but then asked if i had lost a bet so I explained the art project. For this interaction i had the camera recording in my pocket but it never turned out in downloading.

Playing on the idea that girls always get served first in bars as well as bought drinks i posted up on the bar. I tried to look alluring and order a pitcher and pizza. the interaction was pretty normal.(See video)

During this interaction two girls to my right inquired about the dress as well. Recognizing these girls from school I tried to explain interactivity art to them. I failed hard.

THE WIZARDS WON. Throughout the end of the game i was speaking with a man from one of the previous videos named Bobby.  Bobby bought us a celebratory pitcher and we went back to a table of his friends.  We raved about the game pretty normally for about two minutes prior to any inquiries about the dress. The table fell suddenly silent and their looks were slightly uneasy in the confused sense. a man who I later learned was named Dan asked me why I was wearing a dress.  To this i said it was my lucky dress for the playoffs.  Two men nodded in agreement and as a result it seemed dan did too and we continued to talk about the game.  

Eventually I came to tell these new friends of mine that I was using the dress as an interactive art project.  They mused with me. Eventually the entire table came to pressure me to attempt to “hit on” a man or woman.  This is a typical interaction at a bar no matter what the circumstance so i painfully agreed it was a good idea regardless of my lack of “game.” I approached two girls who I found attractive and I proposed shots of tequila on the grounds that it was Cinco De Mayo. They acquiesced.  upon asking their names they asked about the dress and i responded saying it was once again cinco de mayo, luckily one of them thought it was funny and we had a twenty minute conversation about Django Unchained after shots of tequila.

Growing restless and hoping to entice an alternate interaction i proposed that the three of us try to kick some sports guys off of the darts board. fronting the coup I approached the men and asked if we could have next game. Without looking the guy said “i don’t know those guys at the table had next.”  perched at the bar we waited until the game was over and hopped on regardless. We immediately started playing and as expected the dudes had next game.  We got into a brief argument where nothing was very coherent but i proposed we play for it. A friend of the dude urged me to just wait so as to not get into blows and we did. Someone made a sexist comment about panties in a bunch.

only two ass slaps entire night but apparently had a lot of boob grabs from one particular individual while drinking margaritas

went into guys bathroom guy was peeing in there so i had to wait he looked back at me but then down and left without interaction

My intention for this project was to play on social mores revolving around the way we dress.  I have always thought it would be a lot of fun to wear a sundress but never thought society would respond overtly well to that action.  I typically wear a lot of women’s clothing because I find it cool but for this project I wanted to make an interactive piece that sort of followed what Vito Acconci did in his Follow Piece.  The direct interaction in his piece was a narrative for general societies manner and I wanted to test that with the idea of wearing a dress but still just being the person who I am.  Clothing is clothing, and it really should not be anything more.  

Process for this piece was interesting in the entire course.  Dress shopping was fun and comical because of the looks I received in the womens section of the store.  Whereas some people would have assumed that i was shopping for my girlfriend their reactions changed when I took the dresses to the dressing room

Documenting this project proved difficult.  Using a gopro camera was good for the reasons that it was compact and easy to use. However, the technology was a downside when certain videos did not download and the content was impossible to interpret.  Also halfway through the bar night the camera died perhaps fortunately or unfortunately.  Another downside to the camera was it was hard to hide and as soon as the subject found out they were on camera I feel their reactions changed. Also I feel like there was a need to ask peoples permission the entire time so that hindered the amount of responses.

I tried to stage my interactions in a variety of ways to gather as many types of responses as possible.  I had my friend Will prompt people as I stood to the side. I also went up and asked people myself. I additionally just regularly interacted with people as they did to me. I tried to keep my regular interactions as casual to the bar scene as possible, the only variable being changed being the fact that i was wearing a dress.  I also tried to experiment a few ways with the interaction of the audience and the camera going from explicit interview to subtly hiding after asking permission to hiding all together. I found that the more casual the conversation and presence or lack thereof the camera the more candid and genuine the interactions were which helped me arrive closer to my intention for the project as a whole.

Ultimately the people’s reaction was the artwork i was trying to create to present a comment on societies made up rules that are not enforced yet people are afraid to break them.  The more unaware of my intention the audience was the truer results I achieved.  In most cases the dress was really not that much more than a slight oddity.  However in the most extreme cases such as in the bait shop or the people who refused to comment we observe a level of intolerance that I was trying to spotlight and question.  Maybe it is because women look better in dresses but I wanted to point out the irony in the people who were most intolerant. People who preach the principles of the constitution while proudly being American cannot accept the freedom of expression of a man in a dress, what does that say? I doubt my audience in those instances really reflected but I wanted to call out this rule for being rubbish as it is, really i should never have been questioned for wearing any type of garment as long as i was decent, it abides all laws and is not as offensive as a lot of t shirts can be.