Project Objectives

This symbolic act is to gauge public opinion of the conflict in Afghanistan as well as to point at the curious nature of the idea of national political boundaries. By traveling the designated route, I will be engaging in a dialogue with individuals regarding their personal thoughts on the U.S. involvement with Afghanistan.

It is my intention to approach this project from a strictly neutral stance, as to avoid tarnishing the conversations with my own subjectivity.

During the performance, an active blog will be maintained, updated as frequently as possible, wi-fi willing. The blog will be a multifaceted online component, being both an real time archive for the performance and also as a venue to sustain a dialogue on the U.S./Afghani situation. The former will contain anecdotal aspects to the work, updates of collected census information found from the public interaction, and documentation of selected interactions. The blog will be completely new and part of a larger website devoted to this project, this blog that you are reading now is not the blog aforementioned.

Throughout the work, I will be stopping by contemporary art and social science venues to give a presentation on the project. This is to set up a chance to interact with the public in a more formal setting. The presentation will offer up the data collected thus far in the project and a brief description of the background of the practice of artist as social commentator and public interactive works, sometimes referred to as "Relational Aesthetics".

It is my hope that by interacting with the public, some will be exposed to a contemporary art practice that they may not otherwise be exposed to.

Upon returning to Manhattan in July 2011, I will be spending 2 days in each burrow of the City, to gather data from the people in the locale who were and continue to be directly effected by the events of September the 11th, the event which led to the U.S./Afghani situation.