Casting Fingers, Casting Blame?
lithography, cast fingers
2021-22/23
This work focuses on community/ student engagement, play, and collaboration. It is a reflection on the viewer’s indirect relationship to the printmaking matrix when viewing a fine print in a gallery. I see this indirect relationship as a metaphor for how we have been interacting with each other during the past 2 years of social isolation. I find myself wondering, how do we deal with conflict during a time when we interact so indirectly? There is evidence, but how do we find it? How do we help each other? How have the ways that we communicate changed? These are some of the questions I mean to address.
Through a collection of finger molds from willing participants and research into the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections & Archives, and the University of Texas Special Collections. I have been creating darts through a combination of casting and printmaking. Once these "finger-darts" are made, willing participants will be asked to throw these darts at targets on a built wall (executed outdoors on CCU campus). The targets will be an array of printmaking matrices that will record the participants' actions. These printing plates will later be printed for an installation type art exhibition.
Set up as a game, "Casting Fingers, Casting Blame?" will be a safe space for people to act out their feelings about the pandemic and our experiences the last few years (2020-present). Darts are being thrown to puncture materials, a physical execution. Participants will be providing their fingers to use for casting purposes, and then another human later will touch the casting of their finger. This indirect touch, can function as a metaphor for how we have been interacting this past year,;as well as, the fine print. Much of my previous research and field work has been based on direct interaction and conflict, so I am curious to see how these indirect methods can affect how people will interact with the finger elements.
Ultimately, this project will result in an installation type art exhibition that will include printmaking, popped and punctured matrices from the finger-darts games, finger-darts, the printed matrices, small printed lithographs that make up the dart flights, movable walls, and documentation.
Ephemera from this fieldwork will be exhibited at multiple smaller phases, depending on the timeline and size of gallery space.
To view a video of the finger-dart prototype's maiden voyage click here.
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO FOOTAGE OF PEOPLE THROWING FINGER-DARTS (VIDEO BY EARL "TRE" FOXWORTH)
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO INTERVIEW ABOUT THE PROJECT (VIDEO BY EARL "TRE" FOXWORTH)
