Ideas for Living Arts proposal

Ideas for Living Arts

Keep Tulsa materials

Mindy would like to focus the project more because she things it’s too broad

• ie focus on the oil refineries (Nate-there’s probably a lot about the industry/history that people don’t know) or Oral Roberts (Mindy: “Oily Roberts”
• signs (ie putting photos of words into something you can read) but also “sign” broadly conceived (as portent, trace); sound might be difficult (Nate--corresponding specific sounds with specific signs, not random); (David-imagining a non-textual sign)
• the way Tulsa represents itself to itself and the outside world (a Tulsa catalogue or calendar; fake Tulsa propaganda or development proposal, complete with Power Point presentation performance piece)
• North Tulsa

Email from Nathan 9/17/.2006:

Hey,

D&M and I talked for a few more minutes Sunday about the project and decided, I think, that our next steps should be to shoot at the the two places we've already chosen: the refineries and ORU. More specifically, we thougth that we should start by documenting at one of those locations next Monday from 5-7 p.m.

In the interests of keeping our project manageable, we thought we could document these two locations and see where that process leads us. Maybe that will be towards something unexpected though, obviously, the larger issues of oil and religion are present in those sites.

I think there is some concern that we not try to tackle oil and religion generally (especially at the outset), but that by using those two locations as poles of a project, we may find a path to take from there. One great connecting element between ORU and the refineries is that both are in a kind of decay that explains something about Tulsa's present condition as well as something about its past. Also, it wouldn't be difficult to work in some historical documentation/text for both.

Another good thing here is that this is a project that we can pitch to Living Arts. It sounds specific enough, but also has topical political overtones and we have some documentation from the work we've done so far that we can provide in the proposal.

For the proposal, I think we should be specific with the locations and ideas of form (how we set up our installation/s) and not go too far into the political or historical on oil/religion.

How's that sound to you?

What to send with proposal:

1. Power Point
2. Digital images
• Of Tulsa
• Of art show
3. Book
4. Poems

Our project will be a dynamic multimedia installation exploring the relationship between oil and religion in Tulsa. The project explores specific sites in and around the Tulsa area that embody the cultural, ethical, and aesthetic aspects of this intersection. Poetry, sound, and photography are the media we work in, blending the three in various ways. The materials are produced by visiting various sites in and around where we take photos and record sound; texts are written and edited through various collaborative procedures involving not only our images and audio but also sampled/found materials related to Tulsa, such as films or songs. The installation will involve one digital projector, an audio sound system, computer, and curtain dividers.

Installation could include

• photographs
• multimedia projections[GMJ1]
• collages?
• sound (ambient, listening stations)
• interactive computer stations
• poetry reading/performance event
• books

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[GMJ1]This is what binds all of our media—texts, photos, and sound can all be projected.