Final Project: Typologies of Walking/Not

This project titled Visual Noise reclaims the power of music, specifically punk, rock, and alternative genres, as a channel for public resistance and visibility. By transforming lyrics from these music scenes into street-level visual interventions, I aim to bridge the private emotional experience of music with public spaces. Being inspired by Situationist strategies, this work uses the city as a canvas for détournement: the recontextualization of cultural material (in this case, song lyrics) to dethrone traditional and dominant ideologies. These hand-crafted posters, placed strategically across the urban environment, act as disruptions to the sanitized, commercial, and controlled aesthetics of everyday city life.

Each poster was designed with urgency, anger, and emotional rawness which are core aspects of punk ideology. Outside of St. Mary’s Hospital, I positioned the lyric “It’s PROFITS before lives... they are motivated by GREED” from Propagandhi to highlight the corporate mindset and profit motive that drives much of the healthcare industry. "They’ll Grind Your Bones to Make Their Stocks" from Anticitizen was placed at the Eller Business School at the University of Arizona, directly critiquing how higher education often funnels students into corporate systems that exploit rather than uplift. "FIGHT WAR NOT WARS" by Crass was installed outside an army recruitment center, transforming a militarized and patriotic space into a site of anti-war protest. Finally, The Clash’s “LET FURY HAVE THE HOUR ANGER CAN BE POWER” was installed in front of a mural-covered building celebrating cultural unity, emphasizing how anger, when channeled, can be a transformative force for solidarity and change.

Through this series, I sought to break down the boundary between art, activism, and everyday life. Inspired by McKenzie Wark’s The Beach Beneath the Street and our class discussions around the Situationist International, I understood these lyrics not just as poetic fleeting lyrics but instead as political tools. The act of putting them into the public eye with its raw, handmade, and confrontational elements makes that resistance not only audible, but visible. Art does not have to be confined to art specific places such as galleries, in fact, its power intensifies when it is part of our everyday environment.

Visually, the posters are intentionally chaotic with hand-drawn lettering, clashing colors, and symbols like barbed wire and safety pins all to evoke the DIY and anti-commercial aesthetics of punk, rock, and alternative music. Each piece is a rejection of the polished and passive visual culture that seems to be all consuming at the present time.

My project Visual Noise is not just about music; it’s about reclaiming space. It is about turning the walls that we walk past every day from blank spaces into speakers and showing that resistance can live not only in headphones, but in the streets.

Writing EXTRA (IN PLACE OF OFFICE HOURS)

In The Beach Beneath the Street, McKenzie Wark speaks about the radical ideas of the Situationist International, highlighting their challenge of everyday life under capitalism and their use of art as a political weapon. One idea that I was able to relate to my own creative practice is the Situationist strategy of détournement, the act of hijacking and rerouting cultural materials to change their meaning. Wark explains how the Situationists reimagined media, language, and urban space to show the ways in which capitalist society relates to passive consumption. Through détournement, the culture acts as a confrontation, having the familiar made strange, and everyday life is disrupted to provoke awareness. After going over this reading, to me, a strong sense of urgency and inspiration is shown. Especially in how détournement empowers artists to reject the role of a passive observer and instead become active participants in shaping the collective experience. It invites a rebellion through creativity by using tools of popular culture to confront control.

This idea from the text directly relates to my final project for this course, where I’m creating handmade posters using lyrics from punk, rock, and alternative music. Much like détournement, I repurpose existing cultural material (song lyrics with emotional and political weight) and place them into public spaces. Inspired by Wark’s thoughts on the Situationists, this project is not just about visual aesthetics but about intervention. The DIY and raw feeling to how the posters will look is to break through the visual neutrality of the space and to instead place presence, feeling, and tension. My intention is to challenge passiveness and instead push moments of reflection. This connects with my earlier project of impermanence which was titled Thorned and dealt with transformation through exposure to the world around. While Thorned explores this on an emotional and material level, the posters do this on a social and political level, using vulnerability and disruption as the tools.

Wark’s work helped me understand that art can be a tool not just for self-expression but for reclaiming autonomy in a system that often feels alienating. Like the Situationists, I want to engage with the world, not just simply represent it. I find a sense of beauty in the act of placing something raw, vulnerable, or loud into a public setting that usually represents quiet conformity. Additionally, for me, détournement is not just about reusing material, but is about reasserting presence. It’s about taking something that once meant one thing and making it speak to my experience and my desire for connection. That act of vulnerability becomes a form of power. After learning about Wark's' views, it has deepened my belief that creative expression can be an act of reclaiming space and self by making yourself shown and known.

Final Project: Proposal

 1. Abstract:

• This project reimagines song lyrics from punk, rock, and alternative music as street interventions and temporary installations. I will design and put up a handful of posters featuring defiant and emotionally charged lyrics that confront conformity, consumerism, and passive living, representing the spirit of punk and the history of Situationist art tactics. These posters will appear in everyday public spaces and targeted spaces that relate to the lyrics, altering the polished surface of the city with messy lettering, bold colors, and rebellious symbolism. Music is often a private experience through headphones, but this work makes it public and visual, transforming the lyrics to bring attention and reflection. What does it mean to show resistance in a public space through the use of art?

2. Artist Statement/Background Information:

• This project was inspired by my deep and constant interest in music as both a personal refuge and a tool for resistance. Punk, rock, and alternative music represents more than a sound, they embody a certain philosophy of nonconformity, individualism, emotional rawness, and rejection of commercial norms. To me, these ideas seemed interesting as I already take inspiration in these aspects in the art that I currently make.

The inspiration for this work began with our Walk 4 assignment, where I showcased being “cocooned” through the use of sound, first immersing myself in music that I enjoyed. That moment highlighted how music creates internal visuals even in public space. I wanted to turn that thought process into a physical and visual form that can interact and relate to the environment around. I also thought back to our first project, when I placed and formed sharp clay spikes onto natural rocks to create a tension between guarding yourself and eventually embracing the things around and breaking down barriers. That piece, like this one, was also about inserting something unusual and confrontational into a familiar space.

This project will use posters designed in the visual nature of punk and rock with messy lettering, bold color, and leaning into the hand-made imperfections along with chosen lyrics that relate to resistance and emotional truth. It is heavily inspired by the public interventions and artworks that challenge capitalist aesthetics that were shown and discussed in Module 3's readings and films. By bringing the emotional power of music into a public space, it acts as not just a tribute to music but also as a statement about voice and visibility.

3. 3 drawings / images / video links of previous works that relate to this project:

4. Detailed proposal – Content/Subject Matter:

• For my final project, I will create a series of hand-made posters that borrow visual aspects from punk, rock, and alternative music scenes to form and create a public art intervention. These posters will feature emotionally charged and politically resonant lyrics from artists within these genres, such as lyrics that target the themes of alienation, individuality, nonconformity, and resistance to societal expectations. The posters will be installed in various public spaces, some directly relating to the chosen lyrics and others simply in public spaces where others would be able to see it, acting as a disruption to the typically commercial like or neutral landscape of the city. My goal is to demonstrate a sense of urgency, emotion, and resistance into the everyday visual environment.

The visual aesthetic of these pieces will show a rawer feeling through the use of the DIY aspect of punk: messy, expressive hand lettering, torn edges, textures, high-contrast, and drawing of symbolic elements like safety pins, chains, or barbed wire. Color choices will lean into clashing and bold colors like black, red, and bright/neon colors to emphasize the visibility and emotional intensity. Each poster will be unique to show and represent the hand-made, personal, and non-commercial feeling of this project.

This project is also inspired by our course reading by McKenzie Wark titled The Beach Beneath the Street, especially the discussion of art as a political act and the Situationist rejection of passive spectating. I’m interested in using art as a way to disrupt capitalist life and to bring awareness to the environment around me. Wark also discusses detournement which is the repurposing of already existing cultural material. My posters apply this by reusing and repurposing lyrics and putting them into public view as a confrontational visual message.

This proposal has also been heavily influenced and pushed through our class discussions and resources on public art as a catalyst and form of dialogue and feeling. Music itself is similar to public art in the sense that it can go past personal defenses and reach people on a deep level. By mixing music with visual language, this project is hypothetically used for people who pass by to pay attention while on their daily commute and reflect on the environment around. This is a project about making the resistance that is heard through music into something that is visible and tangible. Transforming the invisible “cocoon” of music into a public and physical form of rebellion.

5. 3 drawings / sketches / images / video accompanying proposal:

• The attached images are demonstrating my process for coming up with, creating, and locating where I will place these posters.

6. Timeline and materials/equipment:

• For this project, I believe that it will take 2-3 days to complete. This includes designing and making the posters, traveling to the locations, taking photos, editing, and creating a final artist statement. Materials that I will need and use for this project: poster board or thick paper, acrylic paint, paintbrushes, mounting putty or tape, pencil, easer. (estimated cost: $30-40)

Writing 3: Witnessing Each Other

After reflecting on the resources within this module, I began to think more deeply on how artists are able to display their message through art. In a world saturated with images and noise, what makes people stop, feel, and reflect? For me, the answer is highlighted through public art that evokes emotion, it’s an art that purposefully steps outside of institutional walls and instead confronts people directly in their shared spaces. Across the given resources: Jennifer Whitney’s “Infernal Noise: The Soundtrack to Insurrection”, Stevphen Shukaitis’s “Affective Composition and Aesthetics”, and Derek May’s documentary “Krzysztof Wodiczko: Projections”, a common idea of public art is shown. This art resonates often due to its emotional and affective power.

In Infernal Noise, Whitney describes how protest bands like the Infernal Noise Brigade will energize crowds during demonstrations through sound and movement. Their music becomes the heartbeat of the crowd, guiding the emotion, defying authority, and turning the street into a stage. This public display is about collective feeling by making them literally  feel the urgency of resistance. The band's presence is both physically and emotionally overwhelming, evoking a sense of joy that transforms political protest into something personal and memorable.

Shukaitis expands this same idea by introducing the concept of affective composition, which is art that is not defined by its message or form, but instead by the emotional and relational space it creates. He states that politically powered art structures shared both feeling and collective presence, making a type of public engagement. For example, street performances, radical marching bands, and changes in urban space aren't just about aesthetics, instead they make specific connections among strangers, letting new forms of community and awareness emerge.

These ideas are perfectly showcased and really come to life in Derek May’s documentary on Krzysztof Wodiczko, whose large-scale projections onto public buildings turn impersonal monuments into sites of emotional confrontation and memory. In one example, he projects the faces and testimonies of war survivors onto official structures, forcing people who pass by to confront the histories that are often ignored. The public setting is essential to this art as it removes the distance between the viewer and the artwork. The structures act as the physical screens but also become a symbol of power to tell the stories of marginalized people, making the emotion of the piece be the bridge between silence and speech.

Across all three examples, the public space acts as the catalyst for emotional intensity, with emotion becoming the drive in social awareness. Whether through music, performance, or projection, these artists and activists use public interventions to provoke, unsettle, and most importantly, engage with others. From how I interpreted these resources and art examples, this emotional resonance is what makes socially engaged art so highly effective. People don’t just need to see the message, they need to feel it. Without that emotional aspect igniting the piece, art risks becoming invisible to many, especially in an era where there are constant distractions. By occupying public spaces and pushing emotional connection, these works breakthrough to make others feel something, with the feeling possibly becoming the start of real political and social transformation.

Walk 6: With(in) Daily Life

Intersubjectivity refers to the shared and built space between people, focusing on the often-unspoken ways we influence and are influenced by others in daily interactions. With this in mind, I designed my “performance” for this walk to challenge how I typically move through public and private spaces. The goal was to explore how a behavioral shift could alter how I’m perceived by others as well as how I perceive myself. In my private life, at home around loved ones, I’m usually loud and talkative, however in public, I tend to shrink and avoid interactions due to my anxieties. For this assignment I wanted to highlight the contrast and decided to invert these tendencies for one day: I would be quieter and less talkative at home, and more open and confident in public.

I picked a day when my family and I would be home during the morning and in the afternoon would go to the mall, which is a location that typically heightens my anxiety because of the crowds and potential interactions. The morning began normally, and I stayed quiet by listening more than speaking, holding back any usual extended commentary. At one point, while in the kitchen with my mom and sister, my mom asked why I was so quiet and my sister agreed, saying that it felt off. I responded saying that I just wanted to listen to their conversation to not give the real reason. Internally though, it felt a bit uncomfortable and alienating. Normally, my home is a space where I feel very comfortable being myself and enjoy interacting with my family, stepping back from that role made me feel like I wasn’t fully participating in the morning. I felt somewhat left out of the shared energy and connection that I usually participate in. Their confusion made me realize how my own voice and presence has the ability to alter not just my experience, but also theirs.

Later, we went to the mall and for my “performance” I decided to use a more upright posture, made brief eye contact and smiles at people who passed, and pushed myself to ask employees questions in a few stores, which as silly as it may sound, is something that I usually avoid out of nervousness. These small but deliberate shifts helped me see a part of myself that I usually save for more familiar settings. At the end when reflecting on the day, I found that altering my behavior, specifically the version of myself that I present in public, felt very freeing. It didn’t only change how others might have seen me, but it also shifted how I felt internally. The exercise made me realize that the confidence I naturally express at home is something I could start to integrate into public settings.

This “performance” for me, highlighted how we act in spaces can change our perceptions of our own selves. In private, my quietness disrupted what my family expected from me and in public, my confidence created different forms of interaction. The walk reminded me that identity is not fixed but is instead performed and co-created with those around us, even when they're unaware of it.

Walk 5: I Walk In Your Name

For this walk, I asked my parents what they would want me to walk for. They mentioned that they wanted this walk to cause people to reflect on the importance of cherishing the past, both the places that hold our memories and the time we often take for granted. In their name, I walked through our neighborhood and stopped at places tied to my childhood: (in order of the attached photos) the spot where the school bus picked up and dropped off me and my siblings, the street where we played basketball and rode our bikes, a tree that we planted but never really grew because we didn't plant it in the right area, and next to it I show our new tree planting area that's being taken care of, the old and now renovated house of a neighbor who became a grandmother figure to me and my siblings, and an area in my backyard that still carries a patch of pale sand where we used to have a pool area when I was younger.

My parents asked me to observe how these places have changed and to think about how quickly life moves. This pushed me to consider what it means to hold onto the past, it can be held in memory, but it can also be through action such as by preserving stories, staying connected, and appreciating where we come from. I walked down the streets slowly, looking around, and pausing at each spot to remember and reflect. I took photos of the places I visited, along with other things I stumbled upon that reminded me of my childhood and shared them with my parents. In their name and through my walk, I raise awareness of the quiet beauty in the ordinary and the importance of remembering.

As I moved from one place to the next, I was surprised by how nostalgic the experience became. There was a calmness and joy in seeing how these ordinary places still held pieces of memory on who I used to be growing up. The walk reminded me how much small everyday moments matter and how they can stay and shape a person. It helped me slow down and really cherish previous memories, not just as distant moments in life but as living parts of my story. I encourage others to take a similar walk through their own neighborhoods or places that hold meaning to them as a chance to reconnect with the past, relive stories, or to carry those memories forward with appreciation and care.

Project 1: Ephemeral, Site, and Social Space

Thorned is an ephemeral art piece created from natural rocks and hand-formed clay spikes. Inspired by the film Rivers and Tides featuring Andy Goldsworthy’s temporary artworks highlighting nature and its materials, this work explores the intersection of geological time and emotional vulnerability. Being made outdoors and left exposed to the elements of the world, it is designed to be temporary, becoming altered and eventually erased by weather, moisture, and time.

The piece highlights the cross between permanence and fragility. The rocks being strong and unmoving, contrast with the clay, which is malleable and delicate, symbolizing both human touch and impermanence. By attaching spikes of clay onto rocks, I bring an element of temporary transformation. These spikes act as a metaphor for psychological boundaries: protective and reactive, but also unsustainable. Over time, they will crack and dissolve from exposure, mirroring our own instinct to defend and isolate ourselves: defenses that, like the clay, will eventually break down.

The artwork is in response to place, specifically on how we relate to environments both physically and emotionally and how we alter them with our own presence, memory, or acts of avoidance. The social commentary in this work is abstract, the clay spikes showcase both defense mechanisms in the natural world as well as how humans psychologically defend themselves, bridging the connection between human and non-human social structures.

Thorned brings attention to impermanence as not a loss, but instead as a transformation. By exposing ourselves to the environment around, it reflects how the defenses we build to protect ourselves, might also be keeping us away from further connections.