overview
Lesson 2 | Summary
Activity Pages
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lesson 2 | the face of fame
activity | fame & social responsibility
Krzysztof Wodiczko creates live video
projections that empower local citizens to voice their opinions
and experiences to a larger public. Projected on public monuments
and buildings, Wodiczko's work provides an outlet for ordinary citizens,
often marginalized or underrepresented in society, to become public
figures for a moment in time and voice their ideas, concerns, and
opinions about specific issues. Participants in his projection projects
make very personal statements that they hope will have a social
impact. Wodiczko has stated that he, “does not tell people
what they should say. I don’t know what they will say. They
don’t know themselves.” View the Season Three video
segment on Krzysztof Wodiczko. How do Wodiczko's projects establish
a public identity for participants? People’s faces, hands
and bodies are projected onto a monument, yet are these people considered
famous? Does it make a difference?
How have certain celebrities used their fame to create public awareness
(i.e. regarding politics, AIDS awareness, cancer research, etc)?
Students spent time in the activity "A
Relative History of Fame" defining the terms celebrity
and hero; refer back to prior discussions as you begin to discuss
with your students the responsibilities that accompany achieving
fame or celebrity status. What does it mean to be a public figure?
Have students think about how Wodiczko uses his own fame—as
an artist—to empower others to voice their anxieties and fears.
Wodiczko has stated, “It’s not only important what art
is, but what art does.” What does his art attempt to accomplish?
How does Wodiczko use video technology to shape consciousness? How
does Wodiczko use the “fame” of buildings to provide
a voice for marginalized and unrecognized concerns? How does Wodiczko
empower his projection participants to tell their stories?
Read Wodiczko's interview (see link above) to learn more about his
working process and view works such as “Bunker
Hill Monument, Boston,” “Hirshhorn
Museum, Washington D.C.,” “The
Tijuana Projection” and the “Hiroshima
Projection” to discuss specific examples of his work.
If your students had 15 minutes to make a statement, not about their
identity as in the prior exercise, but about a cause, what would
that cause be? Give students the opportunity to re-create their
15 minutes of fame, but this time to draw attention to a specific
cause, issue, or heroic act. |
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