Subject to the Elements

An artist walks into a bar and says, “I want to present to you a spiritual apparition device, a Craigslist-based dance single, a lecture in the Tenth Dimension, a nomadic game show, a half-hidden urban gallery, an unusual peace offering, a virtual non-linear narrative, an economic critiquing fruit stand, an arbitrary time-line of inventions, and a strangely relocated World Series photograph.” The bartender says, “Is this some kind of joke?” But if he had only read this unruly and conceptually diverse set of projects, proposals, and research first he would have seen that all contain a shared concern. "Subject to the Elements" is just one situation for the work and ideas of graduate students from the Contextual Practice seminar at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art. Students in the Contextual Practice seminar are challenged to work on self-defined projects that respond to the social and cultural dynamics of a specific context or audience.