Final pre-show thoughts

After a preview of what we would be doing for the installations, and getting some feedback, I decided that it would be a good idea to include one extra thing in my piece. Rather than the 'audience' merely standing and watching my 'performance', I want them to join in. Whenever an audience member arrives at my installation, I will make a decision and hand them either a tissue or a pen; they then have a choice as to what to do next. They could choose to rub out my artwork (it will be interesting to see if anyone is actually willing to do this!), leave without doing anything, or even blow their noses on the tissue. If given a pen they could draw their own pieces of concrete poetry, or merely place the pen straight in the box provided. I plan to have no other interaction with the audience after giving them these items. I won't ignore them, but just appear engrossed in my work. I will have a box clearly marked: “Please place the pen back in the box” on the floor near the audience.

My ‘costume’ will involve wearing an over-mouth mask and rubbergloves. The reason for the gloves is to get rid of my fingerprints which is like losing one’s identity. This is to continue with the idea of questioning the authenticity of art. Everyone who is an artist has an individual style, as mentioned before, it is like their own fingerprint on their work. When people commit a crime people often wear gloves to cover up their identity, and so I will do the same. (This could also link with the fact that copying someone else's work without permission is plagiarism, and thus a crime in of itself!) My installation is all about identity and inverting what we think of as a person’s identity. I will also wear a mask (just like a graffiti artist) because as it covers half of my face it means people can’t read facial expressions and it almost makes me faceless in a crowd. I also hope that the mask will help to show that I'm not going to/am unable to talk.