This project turned out so much better than my last one!
Doing anything in public causes me so much anxiety, so I wanted to do something public, but still be anonymous. I thought and thought and thought…tossed around a few ideas with my mom, who vetoed most of them. It finally hit me during class last tuesday what I should do.
I’ve been following the antics of Shia LeBeouf the past few months and his stuff cracks me up! Some people in L.A./Hollywood (including a few of my close friends) are all up in arms with what he’s been doing, thinking he’s making a fool of himself…Others, such as James Franco, are sticking up for him: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/opinion/james-franco-on-shia-labeoufs-recent-antics.html?_r=2
If you haven’t been paying attention, Shia showed up to an awards show in the fall looking like this:
Was it a publicity stunt? Or was he really doing his own form of Performance Art?
I found a couple of things he posted online that details his thoughts on Performance Art and I liked what he had to say:
The week of Feb 9th, he had an art installment in L.A. He rented a small office, frosted the window and door, and the sign out front said “#IAMSORRY”. People enter the room only to see Shia sitting in a chair with the same bag over his head, not saying a word.
Yay! That is totally something I could do! It would be public, and I would still be anonymous! No one would know who was under that bag, so it didn’t matter how red my face was. I just needed to make a couple of changes to what my bag said…I tweeted my plans the night before, although not sure any of my 15 followers actually paid any attention.
I “hired” a good friend as my photographer to document the performance and we headed down to 16th street mall on Sunday. We set up a chair for me in a high traffic area to maximize my exposure. I reluctantly put the bag over my head and she snapped a photo before hiding in the background to get candids of the crowds.
Debbie did awesome catching people’s faces and got a ton of photos, but for the interest in space, I’m only including the really good ones…
This next guy cracked me up! He came running out of a store with an ipad and asked if he could take my photo. When I didn’t answer, he asked again, so I told him I wasn’t supposed to be talking and told him why. He said he was an actor and understood. He took about 12 pics of me and a few of us. I made sure to smile for the camera… 🙂
These two girls were the only ones that I think actually got what I was doing because the second they saw me, they couldn’t stop laughing. As they passed me, the Mom said “I wonder if she lost a bet?”. I was loving that the bag was covering my face.
All in all, I feel like this was a successful project…I’m honestly hoping the next one isn’t quite so public…I’m a photographer, I’m not used to being in the spotlight, I like being behind it.
icantpaint 