You Made My Day

 

 

Medium: Performance
Location: Foyer, Olin Library

One individual is randomly selected to experience a moment of random celebration, complete with a heavenly chorus, flashing cameras, standing ovation and a free pie.  This act exposes the conventional perception of fame and the need to feel unique. More simply, we brightened one person's day.

Made You Look

 

 

 

Medium: Post-It Notes
Location: Personal affects, campus wide

We discreetly placed 500 sticky notes in people’s personal spaces, creating for each an intimate encounter with a comment from an unknown source. The reader is made to question the truth of the statement, and then forced to decide whether or not to act upon it in order to quell his fears or fulfill his need for social belonging.

If You Can

 

 

Medium: Tear-off Flyers
Location: Walls and Through-ways OR Nooks and Crannies, Campus Wide

150 of each of these flyers were distributed across campus. They invited each viewer to tear off a tab as a sign of his/her accomplishment.  Here we tap in to everyone’s need for self-affirmation and the power of reward.

Caution

Medium: Caution tape
Location: main walkway, in front of Olin Library

Caution tape was wrapped around 4 trees on the main walkway in front of the library. It obstructed the most efficient pathway, redirecting each viewer’s route and making him or her more aware of the surroundings they take for granted.

Pessimistic Bunny

Medium: Poster
Location: “Thinker” Bunny

We gave a sign to the bunny, an outdoor sculpture in a high-traffic area of campus. The act pairs the outlandish “thinker” bunny with the message that exposes every student’s worst fear upon graduating.

Balloons in Brown

Medium: Balloons
Location: Aisles, Brown 100

We filled the aisles of Brown 100 lecture hall with 275 balloons. Students encounter the obstruction on their way into class and are forced to choose between their innate urges to play and their immediate academic duties.

Finding Fishies

Medium: Performance
Locations: Men’s and Women’s bathrooms, Danforth University Center

We planted goldfish in all of the toilets in the readily used bathrooms of the DUC. Above each toilet is an arrow that ensures that no one can miss the presence of the fish. The subject is forced to choose between his own needs and the fish's: does he reach into the toilet water to rescue the fish from its uncertain fate or simply leave?
Note: No goldfish were harmed during this project. Each was safely secured in a plastic bag and then later returned to its loving owner.