Project 4 Artist Statement

am an avid attendee of escape rooms. My friends and I have never (technically) lost an escape room, and have done at least 7 in the past 3 years. So when the project was presented, I thought it would be great to try and create a virtual escape room since covid has impacted my ability to do in-person ones. As I was thinking about a theme for it, I settled on an insane asylum theme, similar to an in-person one I had done before. But I also framed the storyline around an American Horror Story season, where the journalist is locked into the asylum. I did a quick google search trying to find the perfect asylum to base it off of when I landed on Byberry asylum in Pennsylvania, where there was real neglect and corruption. In making it, I had my friends try it and they had little problems, but the class struggled a bit. I also messed up one puzzle but was overall very pleased with how it came out and may work on it more to expand it enough to share for anyone bored during this quarantine to enjoy.

Reading Blog 2

I thought this reading was interesting because I had never heard the term "net.art" before. Spending lots of time on the internet, that surprised me. Beginning in the 90s when the internet was still pretty new to people, it makes sense that a lot of established and significant figures in the art world were not yet posting themselves on the internet. I thought the piece about the phone booths disrupting daily life at King's Cross station was interesting. I was a bit confused about what was being explained in the CNN.com section, but I really liked the faux title mentioned: "Art without social involvement is Impossible." I also found it interesting that creative domains allowed for the commercialized and public space that we see today. I liked that the internet allowed a platform for feminist issues to make a public appearance, even though it did not take the spotlight for many people. A problem with the easy accessibility of chat rooms and connections was that anyone could easily make a fake account and enter chat rooms they normally wouldn't have been allowed to be in, like the man who masqueraded as a woman online to join their intimate chats. They called this "cyber-rape" which is another term that I have not heard before. The article mentions that net.art may have brought about some decline when it moved to be more institutional, but I disagree. I think the institutional aspect has brought about commercial art, which is different, but still similar enough, just with a capitalist influence.

Daydream Project

In this project, I wanted to visually show lots of nightmare scenarios that I've personally had, in a situation pretty similar to my reality. With online classes, it is extremely hard to stay focused, and I often find myself falling asleep. Also with the high stress of the pandemic, school work, and lack of social interaction, I've noticed a few more nightmares than usual. High anxiety and stress manifest themselves into my dreams and I thought this would be a perfect time to visually show that. I opted to show claustrophobia, teeth falling out, symbols of failure, and a crocodile because all of those nightmares I have had and all have made me wake up in a panic. I thought the heavy breathing and louder heartbeat would also make the viewers feel the panic. With the real-life class being so boring, I hoped to portray the feelings every student has right now, bored but panicked because online classes are hard to focus on but there is still lots of assignments to do, especially from now until the end of the semester.