For my second Mentor discussion, I reached out to area artist Clay Hawkley. I found Mr. Hawkley’s work on a magazine webpage called the 303 magazine. Mr. Hawkley had a piece in a recent exhibit at the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder called “Touch”. His pieces in the exhibit particularly interested me.
Mr. Hawkley designed a piece of paper covered in graphite. The ideas was that people would touch their hands to the paper, covering them in graphite, and then touch all of the walls surrounding the piece. What intrigued me about this, was that there was no instructions. He managed to prompt an interaction from people without demanding or instructing. I aim to create a similar interaction.
While Mr. Hawkley is not typically an interactive artist, this exhibit was special to him and very unique. He emphasized that the label of the exhibit “Touch” helped inspire the interaction, but the actual action was all natural. He stated that lighting is a way to highlight what you want people to do in a subtle manner.
He also said it is important to minimize instructions and let people do what feels natural, as it makes the interaction all the more memorable. In response to the description of my project, he thought the monolithic inspiration was quite memorable. He thought that the monitoring system I plan to utilize adds an interesting element to it.
Something that had never occurred to me, he asked what I planned to do about people leaving fingerprints on my pristine black surfaces. I think that these tell-tale clues could be interesting as giving people evidence of past interaction and grabbing their attention focusing their curiosity.
ATLS Capstone 