Riches!

I'm realizing (daily) that I need to pay more attention to the branding of this upcoming project. One, it will force me to nail down a sort of thesis statement or viewer experience. Two, branding will help me deal with the vastness of the gallery. It's a large space, and I can't have people wandering around without direction. I want to manipulate the viewer. Manipulation has a negative connotation, but you (the viewer) want to be manipulated. You do.

When you go to a concert, you expect the performer to be committed to her performance (early Chan Marshall excepted). It's not about convincing you to agree with the experience, but about the conviction of the experience itself. Joy Davis came and spoke to my foundations students about the importance of committing to your performance and actions. The sentiment extends across other media as well.

Over at boingboing.net (the bloggiest blog in the intersphere) they talked about the Cult of Done. While I don't agree with everything listed in the manifesto, I love #4 and 5:

• Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
• Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.

So, onward, upward, and back to my paper on the "ingenuity of the New York School in engaging their contemporary constraints." Ah, grad school.