The Year Begins...

The year has begun and it's time to decide on a thesis...

I dedicated some time to brainstorming throughout the summer months but was unable to blow myself away with a well-defined idea. I came up with a few interesting concepts that were very loosely developed but I am having a hard time coming up with something that is attainable, yet challenging enough to be a satisfying use of two terms. Here are a few of the rough brainstorms I came up with:

(1) A project based on the idea of collaboration. Over the course of the school year, I would produce many (estimated 10-20) pieces through collaboration with various artists (from within both the Ryerson community and outside it as well). For the new media festival, I would create an installation to showcase these various pieces. The installation would feature my physical body at it's center, with strings/wires connecting me to each of the pieces through a web of artworks which share me as their common thread.

(2) Ross Lavery approached me with the idea of creating a live musical performance as our thesis. The performance would feature live electronic music while a responsive visual projection would act as a visual backdrop to the musical narrative. This is something I've been very interested in doing as a personal project for years but I am not entirely sure how to make it a more relevant artwork.

(3) I really have no idea what to make of this, but I lately I keep being impressed by things that happen very subtly over long periods of time. For example, how the ocean smooths a rock, but there is no one point when the rock transitions between being rough and smooth since everything happens so gradually. I think that this is a pretty interesting idea and would like to somehow create a physical piece which manifests that concept and perhaps somehow relates it to the way that social codes/morals are slowly assimilated into, and transform culture (or something of that sort).

(4) I also have an interest in building some sort of online multi-user application. But I haven't really come up with any sort of concept of what the app would do... I think that http://www.ff0000.com is a radical aesthetic and a really well-executed 'avatar chat', and I'd like to do something similar but with more depth than just chatting (some sort of experiment/simulation of some kind)...

All of these ideas peak my interest, but none of them seem to fit the ideal I'd like to strive toward. A large obstacle for me is that I would like to try and create something less personal and more socially/politically relevant to a large number of people. I feel as though many of my pieces from the past have been introverted studies of myself and I would like try something conceptually different from that.