❤️Appreciating this thoughtful review in
@artapartofculture by critic/curator
@barbara.martusciello in which she compares the HOOPcycle to a few of
@krzysztof_wodiczko ’s public artworks: both affirm engagement in civic space as a democratic impulse. With the
@thehoopcycle , the MesoAmerican basketball court on wheels I created with
@segal_rafi , the vehicle activates players to figure how it’s played, its rules, how to play together (or against each other). Wodiczko’s “interrogative designs” (a term he coined) take forms of serious play that invite passersby explore the site in relationship to users in new ways.
But Martusciello picks up this self-same impulse shared by Wodizcko, myself and Rafi, and many others who go to study at MIT — a vested interested in collaboration and civic experimentation. Rafi’s work arrives at the HOOPcycle somewhat directly: he plays bball, is a practicing architect interested in transforming public space, and he teaches at MIT as a professor in architecture + urbanism. For myself, throughout my twenties and thirties, I created a number of vehicles which I saw as kits to explore the unknown. After I learned of Wodiczko’s work, I applied to study at
@actmit where he taught. Years later when I myself taught at MIT, Columbia, and now at Parsons, I’ve continued to share Wodiczko’s timeless writing about layered, and imbricated publics that can inhere in a single project. You can read Wodiczko’s essay alongside writings by others (including me) in a recent
@mitpress book called
@interrogativedesign edited by @
@ianwojtowicz .
#interrogativedesign #hoopcycle #artanddemocracy
![My son’s middle school art teacher: “So, Luca claims a level of artistic mastery but doesn’t seem to demonstrate this competence.”Me: “Uh, ok - sorry, what do mean? Could you say more?”Teacher: “Well, he has keen observations about the art-making process and seems engaged. But he’s not producing drawings or even trying to learn shading or anything. And one day in class, Luca was even reading a novel for most of the period instead of drawing.”Me [laughing deeply]: “Oh!! I should explain. My professional work is as an artist; I work across various media. Luca’s grown up watching me make artwork and joining in. He’s made art and films with me, done a lot of material experiments with me, and sometimes leads participatory components on public artworks. So he probably doesn’t know that he is supposed to be producing drawings. But I’ll explain that to him.”When I parlayed this feedback to Luca back at the homestead, he also belly-laughed. It hadn’t occurred to him that he had to try, because he already saw himself as coming in from the top. And he certainly hadn’t conflated drawing with art-making. Also, because he knows my practice is often research-driven and sees me reading a lot, he regarded reading in class as part of the preparatory moment before the act of creation. Luca is good at pattern recognition and strangely, in general, just noticing things — so I often ask him for his observations as I’m working which is constitutive and creative. So in his middle school art class, he saw his observations as contributing to the artistic ecosystem of the class as a whole. He hadn’t understood that he was being evaluated in terms of the Westernized notion of the individuated subject or the lone artist.We are still having a good laugh.Here we are in front of the wallpaper I created on view at Chicago’s National Public Housing Museum @thenphm. Luca worked alongside me and with me as I made the patterned monoprints enlarged in the background. It was a pleasure seeing his face light up when he walked into the room where our work was huge.—> Swipe to see how we made the prints.#artmom](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6758143317232463547037_0_c3bac9906fd2fedbd50fac5d5b369a84.jpg?o=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&h=6b81e4dd193d8d8775294fa93eacf2f5)
