FINAL PROJECT: Typologies of Walking/Not

Wisdom on the Walls 
Washington D.C.

Expanding on my digital artwork from Walk 3: Social Territory and my content and mapping from Walk 5: I Walk in your Name, I was inspired by the words inscribed all along the National Mall and throughout D.C. I wanted to connect these simple, yet profound words of wisdom spoken by America's leaders, poets, and humanitarians of the past, to the major causes that our nation is now facing: Women's Rights, Gun Control, Climate Change, Partisanship in Government, LBGTQ Rights, Nuclear Weapons, Immigration, and the Opioid Crisis.

I created digital artwork, highlighting each crisis on a well-known D.C. monument, memorial or building. I photographed inscriptions all over the city and made stone rubbings, finally creating typologies. Each image was then printed on card stock paper, and also made into stickers. I handed these out to people, both tourists and locals, along the National Mall. My ultimate goal was not only to raise awareness of the issues we are facing, but to highlight the importance of exercising our individual right to vote. We each have a voice in our singular vote to help create change in America.

Mayhem on the Mall
Issues of Our Time: Digital Art

"The SHE-preme Court"

"The Washington Ammo-nument"

"White House Gasses"

"The Jeffer-shroom Cloud Memorial"

"The U.S. Capitolopioid Crisis"

"The Iwo Jima I'm a gonna Vote the Party Line Memorial"

"The Lincoln MemoriaLBGTQ"

"Union Train Station Welcome Border Wall"

Map of the Mall

Amidst the Mayhem
There is Wisdom on the Walls

Throughout the city, up and down the National Mall, there are words inscribed on the walls, memorials, monuments, buildings and streets. Amidst the crises, we are surrounded by simple truths. Look up, look around, remember, VOTE.

Typology 1:

Typology 2:

Typology 3:

RAISING AWARENESS

HANDING OUT POSTCARDS AND STICKERS OF MY DIGITAL ART AND PHOTOGRAPHS 

was my way of creating a disturbance, making noise, and getting people to stop and think. Printing out the postcards of each singular image, each typography and each digital artwork, all made more relevant with inspiring quotes on the back, definitely got people's attention. The stickers were something I had never done. Giving them away was fun, but actually sticking them around the Mall was about as much anarchy as I could manage. After 911, and all of the recent protests, it is like Fort Knox in the city. Short of getting arrested for vandalism, my version of street art will continue. This project, after a rough start, came together in a way that inspires me to continue.

I  would like to thank my classmates for all of the feedback on my proposal. I understood that sometimes the most powerful approach to getting a message across is to keep it simple. 

Mapping the issues of our time, in my city, through creating digital art pieces then photographing the simplest of words surrounding us every day, and finally sharing them on paper, old school style, worked best. Moving forward, I think there is no better way than to follow Wodiczko's lead and turn my digital artwork into light projections along the Mall. Permit or no....

A Little Levity~Asking Einstein for his advice on my project