Reply To: Share your inspirations!
Hi all,
I am from the San Francisco Bay Area and currently live in Berkeley, CA.
Earlier this year I read the book How to Do Nothing by the artist Jenny Odell. I highly recommend it as a modern anthropological exploration of the ecological and indigenous history of the Bay Area, the attention economy, social media, mindfulness, and birdwatching. She changed my understanding of the relationship between capitalism, technology, and art. Throughout the book she brings in examples of performance art and public art, and here is one from the beginning of the book. In 1973 the filmmaker Eleanor Coppola created a project called Windows, which consists of a map and a list of locations in SF. The holder of the map is implicitly invited to travel to the locations listed and in their own unique way experience the city. Every day I experience a sense of awe toward the ordinary, and I feel a strong urge to share it with others in a systematic way. I think that public art is the most accessible path toward this, and I feel motivated to create an object or experience like Coppola and other artists have done.
With love,
Noor
