The StoryCycle is an art project. I am currently a graduate student at OTIS College of Art and Design, where I am working with Suzanne Lacy through a new program called Public Practice.
In the article, The Creation of City Space by pedsetrians, Micheal De Certeau States that:
"A city no matter how it effeciently planned out or how beautiful, is rendered worthless without people. It can not exist because it takes people to make a city. It is people who will take the empty shells of buildings and make them function. it is people who take space and turn it into places. it is people who anchor the city in time , even if only for a fleeting moment.
As an artist I am interested in people.
The StoryCycle is a way to create discourse and engagement in society, on the web and in our neighborhoods.
My thesis project, The StoryCycle is a form of arts based active research into this idea. The positions that have helped in the creation of the StoryCycle have arisen out of the following statements:
1. As citizens, our bodies have been interpolated by the institutions
that have socialized us.
2. Public Space is hetero-normative. This relationship between my
body and the insertion of my body into public space is in itself a
performative gesture. There is no way I can escape queering public
space everyday.
3. The personal narrative is a political one- to have a personal story.
and to share that personal story is liked to a more democratic vision
of the world- the telling of ones own truth.
4. As an artist interested in community engagement I have found that I
have several practices. I often work on more than one thing at a time
and with more than one group.
5. The internet has provided a platform to help make the tools of
media production more accessible to the everyday citizen.
6. Process and Product are inter-relational
7. Hypermedia is a style of building systems for organising, structuring and accessing information around a network of multimedia nodes connected together by link - it is a tool for mapping experience.
6. Process and Product are inter-relational
My question is, what narratives do people choose to share and how do these relate back to the landscape and geography of place? What embedded narratives are created just by our existence in space and what do we learn about the places we exist in when we move from place to place?
My idea for the StoryCycle is to create a mobile table and chairs. By mobile I mean something I can ride around with on a bicycle and set-up at varied locations around the city.
There are of few locations of Los Angeles that I am interested in. I call these locations sites. The sites I am fascinated by are; Hollywood Blvd, Alvarado @ Wilshire, Venice Beach, and Public Transit stops.
How would the stories people share about their experiences relate back to the landscape, geography and social reality, day-to-day life, and to an individuals sense of memory and belonging.