note to self...should I really bring my dog along while creating precarious type?
These were taken at the plaza during rush hour. I was much more self-conscious because cars and eyeballs were surrounding me. Since the sun was beginning to set and the weather was so bitterly cold, a new sadness lingered.
I am attempting to rescue my friend from being hit by a bus; my photographer (Mikal Shapiro) has recently moved back to Kansas City from the Bronx—she decided the bus could wait.
The moral is, both weather and location affect a message in severe ways. The busy plaza was much more lonely and cold than a literally desolate location in downtown Kansas City.
I’ve adapted combat boots as my drawing tool—fashion and function. I thought the traction would be enough, but the angle was a little more intense than predicted. Spikes would be helpful for next time.
Upon completion, I was thrilled and relieved to find out the type was in fact legible—at least from a few angles.
While taking pictures, a bus stopped near me. A man began walking toward me and asked if this was my creation; he told me he’d been pursuing a lady who was a little shy about their relationship and he would love to send her a picture of this. Another man answered my snow diary entry with a predicted, very soon. I blushed.
Just five hours later, the words were mostly illegible. (The 38°F that flashed on a bank sign earlier in the day, unknowingly predicted both sadness and destruction.)
Above : first attempts at establishing hierarchy. In the top right example, the blue text was making people ill. In the top left example my vertical text was too difficult to read. For clarity, Jamie suggested adding a bar at the top to contain the voice of the narrator.
below: a screenshots from the final animation.
synthesis in fragments. Applying the semiotic examples of rhetorical tropes and modes of communication are keys (and well kept secrets) to good graphic design—and any type of art for that matter. Indirectly persuading the viewer with clever imagery is more resonating than an intelligence-insulting, dry and literal claim. I've wondered in the past what it is that separates the banal from art that moves people to action. Well now I know why the lovely peregrine honig, nicole cawlfield, pipilotti rist, de bretteville and others i worship and adore from afar are able to captivate and immobilize a passerby to pause and consider core beliefs. 
I began with photographs of myself dancing. (Vanity disclaimer: Alter egos are a driving force in my life. Either film or video, I am able to will myself to do almost anything. I have found that photo directing other people takes as much skill and supreme commitment on their part as imagining the shot, in the first place.) My initial plan was to create a stop motion about a closet dancer—someone who is too shy to dance in public, but becomes a superstar behind closed doors. Then plan B went into effect. Over thanksgiving, my epiphany was to commit, random acts of dancing in public, and so I recruited a friend. The theme broadened to performance art.
above are shots of process: the fabricated stage and my cut out placed in it. I thought hand-written title text was appropriate to the unspoken anyone can be an artist of performance theme, but no, it failed; too sloppy, I agree.
The communication channels, I chose to apply to my show opener are image (video and still), music and text. The hierarchy is as follows: video absolutely drives this opener. Narrowing down the information to essentials from three separate performance scenes was difficult. The thirty-second time limit was both suffocating and helpful. I wanted to put in everything, but I have learned, a story becomes weak when too much repetitive information is given.performance art (of the mostly unpaid variety) from tammy shell on Vimeo.
