​

This semester my goals were to develop and create three spaces on two dates. These spaces are the continuation of a narrative I have been developing this academic year. The spaces to be made included a site of oration and the alteration of an existing hotel room to its 1950’s counterpart. These first two spaces were completed for March 10. The final space was the conversion of the 734 University Gallery space into the remains of a 1950’s boarding house common room; it was completed May 6 and included a performance. I am satisfied with my ability to conceptually develop the spaces and to realize them. I have greater confidence in my ability to story tell through the spaces I create. I am pleased with my decision to make work for a second deadline, and I feel that doing so allowed me the time and opportunity to push ideas I had from the first two spaces in the final installation. I came away from the March event with three main goals for the next space: greater and longer control over the space to be altered, development of the characters in the spaces, and insurance of a more personal experience for the viewer. The first two sites were difficult, if not impossible, to control in much advance of the show’s opening. I had one day in the hotel room, but only an hour prior to the show’s opening in the Red Gym. As some spaces are not secure it is difficult to pre-install and, therefore, to troubleshoot. For the final space, the boarding house common room, I was fortunate to receive the gallery five days prior to the show opening. I had four full days to completely alter the space. For this reasons it has many more intricacies than either of the previous spaces. Though I was as prepared as I could have been for the first spaces, more time simply means more development and I am very satisfied with my progress given my time. The second area I wanted to give depth to were the characters in the created spaces. The characters in the March event were very cursory and crudely developed. In the boarding house space the characters are more developed and the character-viewer interaction was made more personal. This was due in part to my control of the number of viewers in the space. While watching viewers move in the hotel room I was often frustrated by how the viewing became impersonal when too many visitors were in the space at once. The visits to the boarding house space were tailored to small groups, and designed to implicate the viewer in the action happening in the space.