Potential Project Ideas/Ideals

I feel it necessary to document some potential project ideas or, more accurately, project ideals for the semester:

1) I am interested in exploring space by means of social movement, or reflexively, “social movement” by means of space.  There is an intimate relationship that exists between contemporary cultural responses and the particular spatial localities that they inhabit, and shape (or, that shape them).   In general, I would focus on the way in which a particular locale shapes a ”movement,” or moment, and the way in which these interesting and, often confusing moments help one to navigate an urban environment, such as Detroit.  For, it seems that such interaction imposes a certain navigational grid on the city scape.  Specifically, I would be focusing on events such as Funk night at the Bohemian House or the CAID, and on different green initiatives in the Detroit area.  I might even consider writing something on the Fourth Street Festival, other recent art endeavors, such as the MOCAD, or the development of bicycling collectives. 

Here, the social movements or cultural moments are perpetuated by a middle class population of young college students, who claim a general affinity for the city, and perceive a role a “care-givers” (emphatically proclaiming themselves bastard mothers and fathers).  At times, there is a consensus that by simply populating the urban thoroughfares one contributes to the urban environ in very meaningful ways.  I am interested in the immediacy of this cultural trend, and by extension, the ways in which it shapes and is shaped by the virtual.  For, as these events only occur a limited number of times throughout the month, most interaction occurs by means of the medium of online communication, via web-logs and other intensive, hyper-involved forums. 

My hope, as with the autism mapping project Deleuze and Guattari reference in A Thousand Plateaus, is to obtain a better or more involved understanding of the ways in which spatial interaction informs interesting cultural moments, and the ways in which these “cultural moments” impose a system of comprehension upon the cityscape.

2) Before the Fall: The Body in Conflict.  In lieu of recent complications, mainly health related concerns, I return to a heightened awareness of my body as it relates to another, the city of Detroit.  This project would entail considering the importance of the body as it mediates.  Often, in study, it seems that the body is forgotten.  One often hears discussion of the various technologies that mediate interaction, such as the computer or the television.  Often, though, people fail to consider the body as it mediates experience; the ways in which the body becomes decisive; the means by which the body becomes focal point or determining center.

I don’t mean this to simply become a before and after piece.  This is not necessarily pre and post anxiety.  Rather, it becomes much more complex than that.  Exploring the body in conjunction with the city or placing the body back into discussion of the city seems a fruitful endeavor.