Emily Egan

My name is Emily Egan and I was born in Battle Creek, Michigan twenty three years ago. I came to Grand Rapids to attend GVSU and now am a Liberal Studies Major with an emphasis in “The Aesthetic Influence on Consciousness”. My decision to choose this major was after originally intending to be an art student but wanting to attend classes that studied art from different perspectives. Since choosing this major, I have fallen in love with the Liberal Studies program. Some of the most influential classes I have taken include the Community Working Classics program, Aesthetics, Sociology of Art and Civic Studio.
Some of the things I have enjoyed learning about are the critical theorists and their perspective on art and society. I also enjoy reading John Dewey, Simone De Beauvoir and Tolstoy. My favorite subjects are political and cultural works but I have also enjoyed literature such as“Gone with the Wind,” “Catch 22,” “Days of Love Nights of War,” “If on a Winter's Night a Traveler,” “Rules for Radicals,” “Art as Experience” and Kandinsky's “The Spirituality of Art.”
Recently I took Spanish 101 and I would eventually like to become fluent in Spanish. When I am not in school, my time is devoted to my job at San Chez Bistro and work with Students Against Sweatshops. During times when my convictions to social change grow weak I go to bars and dance to 80's music. As soon as feel relatively confident in my Spanish I want to live with and learn from the Zapatistas.

I had an idea last Friday while in my writings and revolutions class. We had a discussion about a book written by a man who survived the Guatemalan massacres. The book was a testimony for what he saw and had lived through, often in graphic detail. We were talking about how true the events were and if it mattered or not that they might not all have happened to him. It was suggested that it didn’t make the story less valid if it didn’t all happen to him because it was a testimony for the collective. Our professor asked if even though the story could not be proven true in every detail, we still felt the aura of truth. I know he was referring to Benjamin’s conception of the aura but he didn’t go into the concept very much. This was really interesting to me because we had been talking about the aura of art so much and the reproduction of it but I had never thought of the aura of a story. I consider books to be art works as well because they can produce similar aesthetic experiences but it is interesting how that kind of art work can have a whole different set of inquiries. Perhaps it is because books are so easily reproduced that they are largely political.

I’m not sure what all this means but it is fascinating to me. It kind of drives me crazy when the discussions and ideas in my classes overlap so much. It also made me think of a fun project related to the studio moto Database and Image. I think it would be interesting to take a large picture of the Grand Valley campus from Goggle maps or something and then make an index of certain words that are used in different classes to show the overlap. For example, our art room would be connected by a line which represents the word “aura” to my class in Lake Huron Hall. I wonder what it would look like to have lines representing a particular word connection to the different class rooms. I wonder where there would be connections that we wouldn’t think of. Maybe Calder would be connected to Lake Superior really strongly or maybe Manitou… maybe the fieldhouse…..

Getting Visual

I am working with this idea of of mapping out the Grand Valley campus and showing the connections of different classes with words. I've made several words that I am going to put up in classrooms just on the walls and then document the different classes with the words in them. I also am looking at several maps of Grand Valley and seeing how I can make these connections on the map. Just playing around with different images of Grand Valley to see what might work. I also think it would be interesting if I got enough pictures of classrooms with words in them to make a

Brad and I are still doing the advertisement for perfume, “the Other” by Simone de Beauvoir in Lake Superior hall. We have a couple of examples of different perfume advertisements that we might base it off of. I'm also researching a little more about her concept of the other to make sure that we have the advertisement conceptually sound.

Well, let's see... I took some pictures of campus maps and I want to include them in my project with the words and classrooms. They are really neat looking maps with unusual colors. Perhaps I can include the words in the maps to make a sort of mental map of the campus. I will work on that more on Friday.

Also, Brad and I are doing the advertisement still and I believe it should be ready to be proposed or at least critiqued by the end of Friday.

As a side project I am putting together collection of envelopes that I linked up. With the positive motivation from Mel I have begun taking pictures of them and am curious to see if it could develop into anything.

That's all for now, see everyone Friday!

Imagestudio update 3/30
Early this week Mel and I put up an instillation downtown. We used four colors of large plastic tablecloths on the ground of an abandoned plot. When we were unfolding it I thought it would be really huge but when we got it on the ground it seemed a lot smaller compared to the space it was in. It reminded me of setting up a tent or getting ready for a picnic. It is not as noticeable from the street as I thought it would be but it is still enticing. It is moving around a little bit but for the most part it is still there. I'm surprised no one took it down. We will be removing it on Sunday.

It might be interesting to take it down for a while and then add to it making it more ornate and larger. To try and see how big it has to be before it gets taken down or noticed.

Also, Brad and I sent our advertisement to the print shop and it should be ready next week or at the end of this week.

Studio Writings
Practices of looking PoL1 Emily Egan
Viewers make meaning PoL2 Emily Egan
Spectatorship, Power, Knowledge PoL3 Emily Egan
Consumer Culture and Visual Technology PoL4 Emily Egan
The manufacture of Desire desire Emily Egan

Archive images
Trace http://merz.art.gvsu.edu/~emilyegan/emilytrace/

Uploaded Image: DSCN0233.gif