Figuring out my Thesis Paper Topics

This week I wanted to come up with my main thesis statement, four main topics to focus on that support my thesis and find scholarly articles that then support each of those topics. I know exactly what I want to do for my thesis project. I have designed it to have several main messages but I am having a very difficult time trying to find a thesis statement that encapsulates all of it.

The largest theme in my project is how people are physically destroying their once beautiful environments (Earth, nature, wildlife, etc...) for their own selfish desires, pleasures, or just plain curiosity. - This is reflected in my work of taking the beautiful paintings of nature and then physically destroying them to see the image underneath.

The other theme I wanted to represent in my piece was that art is more powerful, captivating, and memorable if it can be interacted with in ways more than just being viewed. Specifically the viewer being able to touch and physically alter the piece.

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So far my thesis statement is:

Interactive Art is entertaining and very personal making it an impactful and memorable way to demonstrate important messages about our world.

My 4 research topic points :

- Pleasure people get from destroying things

- Art that is created to be destroyed

- Art that changes with human interaction

- The power of touch

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While doing this I read about many different areas involving art including the history of destroying art. I found it interesting that there are not more artists (that came up in searches) that made art specifically with the intent of having people destroy it. For the purpose of my paper I will do more digging in hope to find more artists who have. I also looked at a lot of artwork that involved the viewers interaction to change the piece over time. I found this great list of 10 artworks that are really worth taking a look at. I really enjoyed most of them and would love to partake in an art experience like them. One that really stuck with me was "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)

"Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) by Felix Gonzalez-Torres created in 1991.

The idea behind this piece was that the pile of candy weighing 175 pounds represented the weight and body of the artist's boyfriend, Ross Laycock. Visitors were encouraged to take a piece of candy from the pile. This represented the rapid decline of Ross's health until he died from Aids. This piece is extremely powerful and sends an important message. I don't know how much information the visitors had on this piece, I don't see anything on the wall explaining it, so I would like to look more into if the meaning/information behind it was explained in the gallery and if so, how? I see similarities between this piece, and my project because I also hope to get an important message through to my audience, while creating a seemingly harmless and pleasurable interactive experience.

I read a few different articles to learn more about his piece as well as found this nice timeline of the artist and his work. Not necessarily related to my project but I really loved his themes of eternal love and how everything seemed so simple and even nice on the surface with tragic and major themes lying underneath.

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This week I also looked more into getting my TV's so I know what size / dimensions to start working with. I think Ideally I would like to work with 50 in Tv's (honestly I would love to go larger but with time and budget I think that is my limit.) So that means that the paintings will measure roughly 44 x 25 in . The cheapest one I can find right now would be around $200 each. (I linked that mostly for my own reference , just in case.) Which is still a bit pricey for me since there will be other costs, for constructing the frames, the paint, etc. So I am hoping that I will be able to find cheaper ones through facebook marketplace and have already reached out to several sellers. I also posted a post on my own facebook to see if any of my friends/relatives have any Tv's that they want to sell or even consider donating ( you never know when fate is going to be very kind to you)

I also have acquired a projector to use for my project to make the traditional painting go quicker! So I can project my digital painting onto the glass like material and then just trace/ paint over the projection.

In addition I created a google drive and task list for my Studio, which I assigned them all tasks to find apps/ games / web art that interact in interesting ways that could apply to my web based project for them.