Lab 18: Chalk it up to Politics

For the chalk lab, we started a bit late. It was the one I knew right off the bat I wanted to do, but due to procrastination, was put off rather to the last minute--and by then, we had something to compete with:

all around campus were messages that our classmates had deemed important or relevant, loud and big on stairs and walls.

How do you compete with that?

How do you make yours more noticeable?

How do you make a difference?

This is also something to think about, in terms of effect. The chalk writing by itself is remarkable. Seeing a political message on a random wall challenging you to think about politics, morals, history, or your ideals when you're in the middle of your every day activities is a rather profound experience.

On the other hand, when you see them all the time, they begin to go unnoticed--noise, white noise, by product of desensitization. We can't notice every little thing all the time or we'd be chronically ADD--writing out things that are excessively common helps us focus.

So how do you avoid that?

Make it different.

Our main focus on that was location--well lit, large areas. Well-lit, meaning they're visible both during the day and at night. Flat areas, since so many people had been writing on stair cases or next to them, as well as places that were commonly traversed. Large, because scale will always catch our attention, whether it's a large animal or a billboard; large threatens, large demands attention.

Our first piece was right outside the connector building, and therefore had to compete with a very large, very colourful, very dynamic piece that had been done on the stairs. In contrast, ours was more subtle, but also easier to read. Not only that, but because we put it right in front of the door, almost everyone would see it coming in; when you get out your onecard to swipe it, on the off chance that no one is there to open the door for you, you almost always will look down--at your shoes, at your lanyard, at your pocket, at your purse--and hopefully the message you're conveniently standing on and walking all over will catch your eye and inspire you to read it. Even as we were writing it this proved relatively effective.

[Above is a picture of the actual message; the first image is of a student stopping to read the quote shortly after it was written. He promptly complained that we were being too cynical.]

With this one we chose to distinguish through size and placement; not only was it between two often traversed doors, but it was also rather large, spanning a large portion of its wall, and imposing to the viewer, being above average height/eye-level and in stark, plain white chalk on dark brick.

The quote is also somewhat humorous, in a cynical sort of way, and humour has always had a way of penetrating people's apathy-shields in terms of politics. [Just ask the Daily Show; they've succeeded in getting teenagers and to watch the news.]

Again, scale and placement. This one was so huge it was pretty much impossible to photograph, and it was also in a commonly traversed area that was mostly untouched by other student's chalk work.

[Since it's hard to read in the photograph, if you haven't seen it in person it says "Bad politicians are sent to Washington by Good people who don't vote. -William E. Simon"]

This one's on the wall near our large Suburbia piece, and as such is somewhat less effective, but we felt it was worth putting up, regardless.

This one was also next to the connector door--less noticeable, but in two different coloured chalk and written in scrawling letters. Out of all of our pieces I'd have to say that it is the least effective and I wish we'd found a better spot to place it.

We had found a bunch of other quotes we wanted to put up, but unfortunately ran out of daylight and chalk before we could. Here's a sampling of some that we found most interesting [the ones in bold are the ones we were able to put up]:

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

-Lyndon B. Johnson

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.

-William Ralph Inge

Each nation feels superior to other nations. That breeds patriotism - and wars.

-Dale Carnegie

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

-James A. Baldwin

Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don't vote.

-William E. Simon

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.

-Bill Vaughan

The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots.

-Erich Fromm

A Leader is a dealer in Hope.

-Napoleon Bonaparte

[Source: Brainyquote.com ]