2nd Proposal for Final by Lina Maria Giraldo
1.1 Theme of your final project - what are you exploring with this piece?
With this piece I would like to explore immigrant children’s vision of their community, their family and their future. It’s very important to hear what children’s are thinking, questioning and expecting from life. They are the future and we need to teach them how to respect each other. They need to talk and be heard regarding their dreams and expectations. Children are more open-minded to understanding the errors of the adults. They a have a fresh mind in order to think about change. Children have another way of looking at the world. They are honest, playful and sometimes full of energy like a volcano while other times they are just quite as a rock.
United States is a country build by immigrants from all over the world. It is a country that represents freedom and opportunities. Unfortunately the immigrant’s conditions have been deteriorating. Prejudice between different races, religious and cultures are more notorious. In places like New Mexico the number of gang members has been increasing. The economic crisis doesn’t help and people are constantly loosing their jobs. This is why it’s so important to listen to what children are thinking.
The footage I’m collecting reflects their playfulness. Here, they are learning how to use cameras and new technologies, making mistakes, hiding from each other and always having fun. It was their opportunity to speak out, but also a moment to play and discover. Almost all of the children that I’ve been working with are sons and daughters of immigrants or live in a Hispanic majority community. In Santa Fe, New Mexico I worked with two middle Schools with 6 and 7 graders. In New York, I’m working with 4th graders from the after School program at Henry Street Settlement.
The most interesting part of the workshops is that they have the opportunity to use the cameras and perform interviews on each other. The most important lesson that I learned is that it doesn’t matter how difficult the environment is, children are usually very playful. In Santa Fe, they were talking about serious issues, but at the same time they were dancing, playing, running and yelling into the microphone.
1.2 Short paragraph on what I will experience when I participate in your project
The experience from the audience will be somewhat subtle. The screens will be off most of the time. When the spectator crosses in front of one of them, it will trigger it to start showing the videos. The LCDs will be placed on the walls in a random manner, creating curiosity. They will remain off if there is no movement in front of them. They will be on if people are walking in front. The sound is very soft so you have to get close in order to pay attention. The other option is have captions so you the audience needs to be close to the small 10” screen to read it.
1.3 How the audience interaction reflects the ideas of the work
The audience will either ignore the screens or get curios and come closer. This behavior is similar to the contrast of when the children’s opinions are ignored by their parents versus when they are in their playful moments. Since the spectator has to actually stop and stand in front of the screen, it is a soft way of forcing them to pay close attention to the messages. By generating curiosity and playfulness, I want to bring the spectator closer to the children.
1.4 Weekly breakdown of tasks to accomplish
Thursday May 2nd:
Presentation of the ideas objectives and planning
Thursday May 9th
2nd Presentation Proposal
Thursday 16th
Have one screen working as I want. Drawing of the localization of the screens, Part of the video edited
Thursday 23
The piece should be running. Test the pieces and fix any error that might show up. improve any failure in the interaction
Thursday 30
Final Presentation
