For the project I have decided to develop on the idea of the mundane: the path that I take every day at the same time. The path that I chose is the 15 minute walk from my university accommodation to the University Centre every week from Monday to Friday at nine a.m. This walk became something of routine for me over the last four months, hence why I thought that this is something that I want to portray. My idea is that I want to demonstrate the fact that this walk became such a routine for me that I know just by looking at what is around me what time it is. This is because this walk is such a predictable and ordinary thing, yet I find this very pleasurable, as the predictability is something that I find soothing. To demonstrate that I have taken the map of the area where I reside, and put a string over the path that I take, and placed pins in every place that I deem as a landmark on my way. Then, I have walked that route at the usual time, and took polaroid photos of those landmark places. I have then attached these polaroid photos onto the board that the map is attached to. Then I connected them with strings to their respective pins, and then wrote the times at which I would be at those points completing the piece. 

The first semester of my education at The New School have been extremely eventful, and even more enjoyable. I have learnt many things, and I have expanded my skills widely. A large part in this was played by the Studio and Seminar classes. They were exactly what I expected from being a Parsons student: engaging, encouraging to try new things and very free in terms of the work. I felt that the syllabus of these two classes made me explore a lot of things that I deemed to be distant from my practices in the past and I was really made to push the boundaries of what I feel is comfortable for me. As cliche and basic that sounds, that helped me a lot in the sense that now I feel that I can do much more than I did at the start. It all began with the first project, where out of the blue I was advised to use the Laser Cutter. Before, I thought that this is something from the future, or is only used by spies in B-list movies from 1990s. Yet, as it turns out, it could be a useful tool in creating a piece of art. Through it I managed to make something that represented well my past experiences, and I think that the tendency of using this media is going to continue for me in the future. After this, I have realised that the course allows for such a high level of experimentation, that I decided for my next project to use the most unorthodox materials that I can think of. I have purchased a skull, and then filled it in with sealing foam, into which I have placed various objects that demonstrated the thoughts of the person who I was planning to represent in this piece. This was extremely strange for me, but I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome of it. But after that came the tough part of the course. I was asked to create a site-specific installation in Washington Square Park, and as it turned out, I was unable to do so, as well as I was not a great team player, creating something that was not to my liking. I felt that this was by far the low point of the semester, as my interaction with the group, although lovely in personal terms, was far from being productive, and did not bode well at the final critique. This failure, however, did not force me into sadness, it provided me with a motivation to work harder for the upcoming projects, and thus, I have managed to get better results in the future.

From the start of the semester my way of thinking about art changed a lot, as I have now realised that art does not have to be completely orthodox, it could come in a large amount of forms, thus for the last project I decided to combine what I have learnt from the previous project, and combine it with a performance, in order to create a very wholistic image of my old school. I have made a booklet like I have been taught before, and with a costume and  performance compelling enough to convince people that I am a representative of the said school, and the sarcastic tone of the presentation made it much more entertaining. That is when IK understood that the wording of what I had to say played a major role in making this a successful piece, because if I would have kept things serious, I would paradoxically sound less serious than I did being sarcastic.

Overall, I think that by taking these courses I grew a lot as an artist, and I have greatly enjoyed my time doing it. I have loved the tasks, and especially the fact that teaching was not reading the textbook out, but rather sharing the experience in life of the people who are practicing artists themselves, and they have a lot to tell us.

Thank you Johannah and Emily for a wonderful semester, and a great amount of skills that you taught me.

“A map is not the territory…”

For me, the most important map in the recent years has been the map of the town where my school was located. The map of my 9 minute 1 mile long route that I took every day to school and back. It s the route that I by now can walk while sleeping, and I believe that I will remember every corner of it for years to come. It was a crucial part of my process of maturation, as while walking to school every day by that route I thought about what i the day is going to bring me, and how am I going to remove the issues that I am faced with during it. It was the walk during which I pre-loaded myself with confidence, and at the end of the day, when I walked back, I was able to calm myself down, and put my mind into a calmer mood. These 9 minutes were important to me.

That is exactly why I want to make this project about this walk. A map of it, that would minute by minute explain my path, and how it was for me. This will be achieved by me using the map of the town, and laying the route of it with a piece of red guiding string, as an allusion to the string that Ariadne gave to Theseus in the labyrinth of Minotaur. Then, I would indicate at which time would I be in which part of the path. That would be supported by images of what that place looks like, and each of the images would refer to a certain landmark that I would pass on my way to school. Thus, I would virtually recreate the feeling and visuality of my usual morning.