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Project A: Proposal
Michael Aberman / Karl Zinsmaster
02.04.09


Creative Brief:
We will be placing a text installation on the roofline of the house. The letters will be cut out of plywood measuring roughly 4'x3' each. They will fastened to a plywood foot that can be anchored to the roof with minimal screws. Everything will be removeable with no visible effects on the appearance of the house.

The word PUSH will be facing MCAD with it's reverse visible to the street. The word PULL will face 26th with it's reverse showing to MCAD. This project communicates the condition of the homeless house. Through ambiguous, outdoor installation we are informing the audience of the tension placed on the house by its state of limbo.

To extend our message further into the community, we will digitally fabricate 100 tiny models of the the house. (Similar to Monopoly houses). These will be inscribed with the address to serve as a sort of invitation.


Development Time-line:
Materials aquired by Monday 02.09
Letters cut out ready to install by Friday 02.13
Miniatures made by Friday 02.13
Install Monday/Tuesday 02.16/17


Technology/Budget:
1/2 OCB plywood - 3 sheets - $45
Hardware and paint - $30
Rapid Prototyper $25 / 2 days run time. (Sign up by 02.05)
All other tools and equipment available.
Schedule time with Academic Services for installation by 02.06


Location/Context/Timing:
The installation will be on the exterior of the Blue House 2538 2nd Ave S. It will be installed from 02.17 - ?. Ideally, we would like the text to be up for the duration of the semester or until the house is moved.
The minatures will be an ongoing public installation throughout the neighborhood for the entirety of the semester.

Research

Leopold Kessler's "guerilla style public interventions were meant to offset our preconceived norms of social behavior. His mischevious public indiscretions border on the illegal yet they pass almost unnoticed only to become once again visible and thought provoking..."
- chelseaartgalleries.com

In one project Kessler says "I've also started to repair neglected public items. I'm cutting a bush which grows over a street sign each year, so you can read the information."
-Street Renegades, Francesca Gavin 2007





An anonymous female artist called Questionmarc has been causing a bit of a stir in Nottingham over the last couple of weeks in an attempt to highlight some ignored issues in the city. Link






The German artist Hermann Josef Hack set out early on January 26th, to install his latest ‘Climate Refugee Camp’ in Berlin. The art installation features a series of small cardboard tent structures that are designed to look like a refugee camp. Hack installed around 400 of the miniature tents in front of the German capital’s Brandenburger gate. Hack then dismantled the tents and moved them to a new location the next day. His mission is to make the public aware of people who have become refugees because of climate. This is the latest iteration of hack’s two year old project. Hack also designed a ‘Climate Refugee Guide Berlin’, a guidebook for climate refugees.

http://www.hermann-josef-hack.de








The Heidelberg Project is another Detroit based collaborative effort. It began with Tyree Guyton and his grandfather in 1988. It has similar intent to Object Orange. It's become one of the leading tourist destinations in Detroit although the activity is still considered to be illegal.

For Closure

Michael Aberman and Karl Zinsmaster


Theme: A house without a home. Giving a personal face to the housing market crash.


While there are many vacated, foreclosed and hopelessly unsellable houses on the market right now, the Blue House has it's own specific problems. It cannot be inhabited, stay where it is, or be torn down. It is, in a sense, a very "special needs child" among the many "children" left behind by our current housing crisis.

We would like to illuminate the paradoxical state of our homeless house.

"A discreet gesture will give a new meaning to an existing place object or situation reinventing is possibilities within the public sphere."
-Chelsea Art Gallery review of Leopold Kessler