On Tuesday, March 4, 2014, a group of 6 female CMU students found the best place on campus for a quick nap: on the floor in front of the Office of the Dean. Planned as a demonstration to confront the stress culture at Carnegie Mellon University, the peaceful act quickly caught the attention of the administration in the offices at either end of the small hallway, as well as those who sought access to the nearby elevator. An equally bewildered, flustered, and attentive Dean of Student Affairs met the students at their napping space. When the students responded to her questions by stating that they were not protesting, that they ‘fell asleep’ in the space while studying, the Dean asked the students if they would accompany her to her office, one floor downstairs. The naps resulted in a meeting held after Spring Break, which the students attended as did the University’s Dean of Student Affairs and Vice Provost.

vimeo.com/90672320

Cave of the Clive

In this project we focused on providing an experience for our subject through a breach of privacy and narrative. We used cameras to document the daily activities of the subject and narrated their actions aloud as if we were inside a wildlife documentary, essentially we made a mockumentary of a national geographic work. We understand that this project may have many different connotations; animal rights, student life, etc. However, what we chose to focus on was the breach of privacy in a public space; we followed our subjects through their interactions with others, often leading to humiliating situations. We further invaded this privacy by publishing he documentary on DVD.

DVD Cover:

You can visit our website at galleromp.com.
The documentation is at our secret URL, Documentation

We led participants to believe that they were providing user feedback for our application, Galleromp. Galleromp is an application designed to integrate a digital experience into a physical walk through an area. Specifically, Galleromp was designed to point out and provide information on public murals in the Strip District. However, while discovering the public works in the area, our users were surprised to find us at points along the path, prompting them to contribute their own work to the public space via drawings, performances, and story telling. Galleromp was a journey meant to spark conversation between similar experiences in the digital and physical world.

For this project, I created a sensory deprivation experience in which the subject was blindfolded and exposed to different forms of affection from friends, acquaintances, and strangers.

For the experience project, I chose to create a mental journey experience by creating a sound piece using mainly humming which builds to an overwhelming state and finally drops off, and putting the participant in a small, dark space, depriving the subject of all senses except hearing. When the Sound stops, the participant is allowed to enter into an expanded mind space devoid of physical senses.

“Overall, the experience was very lucid and dream-like. I would honestly compare it to the feeling of being high. For the most part it was a very serene, tranquil experience. I felt at peace with my mind and body. However, there was one part where it cuts to silence and I remember being eerily scared. While listening to the sound art, I had more self-reflective thoughts. I found myself not worrying about the smaller things that usually consume my mind, but rather larger, more important questions.”