Public Notice is seeking participants to design new emotional obstacle courses.
CALL FOR EMOTIONAL OBSTACLE COURSE PARTICIPANTS
The idea for an emotional obstacle course came from a general observation: that political and cultural forces have an interest in the way we feel and experience our lives, and that sometimes those interests do not share our interests, and may even inhibit or alter our actions. For instance, have you ever felt like your vote doesn’t count, and let that almost prevent you from voting? These are the feelings we want to investigate, the ones that keep us from doing things that are clearly in our interest to do. Public Notice is looking for anyone who would be interested in building a model of an emotional obstacle and participating in a short informal interview about their model. We will provide the model making materials, a $100 stipend or skill trade (available skills range from general carpentry to computer programing), and participants will be listed as collaborators (unless they'd rather remain anonymous). We plan on using some or all of the models to build architecturally scaled facsimiles, which can be used in an obstacle course.
ABOUT PUBLIC NOTICE
CONTACT
General Inquiries: samuel.a.wildman@berkeley.edu
ABOUT US
Over the last six years, we have created public ad campaigns and city hotlines in collaboration with octogenarians, chopped boards in half teaching tenant self-defense classes, and worked with participants to construct architecturally sized structures based on their own emotional obstacles. We are passionate about this work and are committed to expanding our projects and practices.
Samuel Wildman is an MFA candidate in the Art Practice program at UC Berkeley. Wildman is a handyman and a caretaker, who spends most of his time negotiating small domestic crises in his and other people’s homes. He occupies a world of quick fixes, of deferred maintenance and goldfish crackers, of not enough sleep; and of symptoms that bely problems that are far bigger than what he alone can handle–like poor access to healthcare and childcare, and old buildings. When he sees a leak in a pipe, he knows it’s usually because the plumbing system is old and the pipes are wearing thin and need to be replaced. But he also knows that for most people that’s not an option, so he patches the pipe and keeps things going a little longer, knowing that eventually, after enough patches, it will be as if the whole system has been replaced. He gets involved with systemic issues, like a failing plumbing system, and works with them contextually in a way that serves the people for whom he works.
Eric John Olson is a socially engaged artist, organizer, and software architect who spends most of his time managing expectations, between people and technology. Recently he finished an MFA in Social Practice and has decided to use his skills as a systems architect and artist to rethink how to approach collective action, equally valuing affective and effective change. He is obsessed with interrogating systems of data, oppression, and belonging, but refuses to spend any more time sitting alone in front of a computer than he has to.
We originally met through Sam’s mom. More recently, Sam swaddled Eric for an instructional video. We are both Tauruses, builders and nurturers. Eric thinks about systems through the lens of a software architect and a community organizer; Sam thinks about systems from the perspective of someone who works with buildings and babies. For us, developing a project means not only talking about it, but making iterations of it, constructing models, and bringing our different points of view into alignment. We hope to have the opportunity to work with you.