During the XXX annual Ann Arbor Film Festival, festival organizers asked University of Michigan Art and Design MFA students to create installations at some of the festival’s spaces. My collaborator and friend Forest Bright was given access to the famous marquee for three days, and he graciously agreed to let me install some text pieces on it for one of those days. When asked for a quick description of my plans, I emailed the following little blurb:
I’ll be treating the marquee – with its three lines of up to twenty characters each, its place in the city landscape – as a distinct socio-textual genre, with its own forms and conventions. My textual arrangements will take on a range of tones from advertising slogans and self-help motivational-speak to stereotypical urban signage and haiku, emphasizing the subjects of film, the event/location of the festival/theater, and the politics of public display. Some of them will be obvious, others cryptic. All of them will be playful and will draw attention. I’ll be wearing a nice suit and making a somewhat understated performance of the installation. (…in anticipation of Forest’s “15 Minutes” piece on Sunday, which I’ll tell curious passers-by about….)
I was assisted with the installation by Forest Bright and Ted Christensen. Below are some photos from the project.
'Keep ‘em smiling' was the American Motion Picture Industry’s ‘job’ during WWII, according to 1942 ads
David Manning was a fictitious film critic invented by Sony to give positive reviews to its films
with:
Forest Bright (access, installation)
Ted Christensen (installation)