Project Proposal

Elihu Loft, home of McCarthy Co-op

I intend to use the McCarthy Co-op loft as my space, which is where I live. The loft has already been preparing a "Nancy Gallery" (I don't remember if that's supposed to be a secret or not, so shhh), so ideally I would be able to do something that would supplement that.

Nancy 
modeling in the sunlight

Much of the discourse surrounding installation is on viewer interactivity and the role of the viewer in the art. I thought it might be fun to subvert who the viewer even is. Everyone in the loft will be viewing and interacting with this on a regular basis, as this is our living space. You know who else lives in the space? Nancy. She doesn't have the same expectations of how to view art or how to interact with an installation.

Showing off more of the cold. industrial feel of the space

I intend to design an installation that is both art for human viewers and a fun thing to play with for Nancy. As such, I won't be using any materials that are particularly precious. (She might tear it up a bit.) Some cheap twine material wrapped around various objects - milk jugs, old toys, random junk - as makeshift but artful scratching posts may be an interesting. I can use this twine repeatedly in the installation in various forms to tie (no pun intended) other elements together. I like the idea of using twine to obscure everyday objects and making all-twine versions of others, juxtaposing real and fake, useful and useless. (Threw that sentence in there to make it seem more like art. I just want to make fun cat toys.) To tie in a bit of color, I will use cheap children's art supplies, such as pompoms, feathers, foam letters, and pipe cleaners. They are cheap, it's fine if they're damaged, and I already know Nancy likes them.

She already enjoys these cheap, accessible art supplies

Of course, Nancy is in no way a predictable subject, so once the installation is set up, who knows how it will be by the end of its term? Will she even do anything with it at all? I'm sure the others in the space will interact with it some, as well. There may be points in the term where the campus community will be able to view the installation; we sometimes have open dinners on Friday nights, but due to covid we have not been running them so far this term.