Site Specific Public Art Project

Assignment:

• Create a site-specific art-work. 
• The concept for the work will be based/connected to the history/geography of the site. 
• Read the below information to get acquainted with site specific work. In class I will show artists who make site-specific work as well as discuss the art form and process further. 

Guidelines:

• The art-work can exist as a tangible object, a performance, a projection, a sound installation or a community event. 
• Work must exist for a few hours during First Friday Art Walk in April. 
• All concepts and details for the artwork must be approved by the site owner before the student begins constructing idea. 

Preparation:

• As a class we will visit the St. Augustine Historical Library to learn about historical sites in St. Augustine.
• Select two sites to research.
• After you have researched two sites, select one site and make contact with the site owner/manager. You will be introducing yourself and the project. I will provide you with an outline of the project so the site owner/manager is aware of your intentions. Keep in mind, the site owner/manager can deny you using the site. If this is the case, move to your second choice.  
• Once a site owner/manager agrees to participate, you must spend time at the site. Physically put yourself in the location and observe lines, shapes, colors, textures, sound. Our public art project taking place during the evening in April. What will the natural light be like on this day? Take photos and notes. Use this information to complete a Digital Proposal. Upload all info on your class blog and present to class. 
• What to include in the Digital Proposal:
• At least four photos of the site. In addition to photos, can include a video. Do not rely on a video, must have photos, video documentation is additional. 
• Your notes from visiting the site. Can be a photo of your handwritten notes or you can type up notes. 
• Your notes from the Historical Library
• Images of research from the Historical Library. Speak with the library staff to receive permission to take photos and post on your blog as part of class project. 
• Two site-specific artists who inspire you for this project. 
• Due date for the Digital Proposal and foam board model announced in class.
• After you present your Digital Proposal and foam board model to the class, make arrangements to present to your site owner/manger.
• All concepts and details for the artwork must be approved by the site owner before the student begins constructing idea. I will provide a paper agreement so student and site owner/manager are clear about the process. Be prepared to make adjustments to the artwork as the site owner/manager may not approve all of your ideas. 

What to put on your blog:

• Professional Images of the final solution. Make sure you have enough images so the person viewing photos can clearly understand your idea. Assume person looking at images did not see the piece in person. 
• Title AND location (be specific)
• Artist Statement
• Research. Includes notes and images. You will already have all or part of this information from the Digital Proposal. 

Excerpts from the essay ART/SITE/CONTEXT by Gillian McIver

The term “site-specific art” is still controversial because there is dissention as to whether it applies to work made specifically for a site (e.g. a public art sculpture such as Richard Serra’s works or Gormley’s Angel of the North or the Trafalgar Square Empty Plinth initiative) or to work made in response to and encounter with, a site. Or is the term applicable to both?[1] This may seem like a semantic point, but the art works that result are profoundly different. In this case, I am going to discuss the second, which am calling “site-responsive” art. 

Site response in art occurs when the artist is engaged in an investigation of the site as part of the process in making the work. The investigation will take into account geography, locality, topography, community (local, historical and global), history (local, private and national). These can be considered to be “open source” – open for anyone’s use and interpretation. This process has a direct relationship to the art works made, in terms of form, materials, concept etc. Of course, artists, like anyone else, respond to these “raw materials” in individual ways.

Along with installation, site-responsive art sometimes incorporates a live art or performative element. Since most site-responsive work is temporal, existing in its original form only for the duration of its public exposure in the site, live art’s temporal nature fits well in this context.

One of the most problematic aspects of using non-art spaces to create art is that the spaces themselves are difficult to get and often lack even a basic infrastructure. Part of the challenge of making the project is the process of getting and utilising the space. Sometimes spaces become unavailable at the last moment – forcing a rethink of the project.

Transformation of spaces/communities/locales over time – Related to “social use,” this aspect considers not only the site, but the locale and the population in time. Here an investigation into local history and interaction with local people can be invaluable. Here the artist has an 

opportunity to bring real depth to the project by collecting stories, rumours, legends and other data about the locale in past and present. In other cases, the artist might be responding to disappeared communities, in which case archival and anecdotal information can be useful.

Above all, site-responsive art is an engaged art form. The artist is interested in what is happening, what has happened, in the place. Working in this way implies questioning, possibly rejecting, the irony and “cool” relativism of certain strains in contemporary art. The artist cannot avoid coming into contact with social, economic and cultural realities during the course of the creative process. Siteresponsive art is not necessarily making any direct comment or “telling” the audience what to think, but instead invites them to engage with the very real relationship between place and work, and inviting them to draw their own conclusions.