Waaaaaaaay below you will find my thesis abstract that was revised again and again at the request of my committee. I'm still not sure what the project is exactly. I hope the sparks are there enough to imply the flame will come. These words did inspire a new splattering of rec commended readings from my thesis committee. Right now I'm in the limbo process of waiting to see if the application goes through with the graduate school. It looks like I'll be selling my car in the mean time to raise the cash I'll need for Germany.

I've decided to forget about the bureaucratic crap for a while and get back to doing the things that I need to do, no matter how flaky those things may seem to the well educated folks who tower above me dangling a degree. Sometimes I feel like a horse trying to get a carrot. A million pieces of paper can't give a person talent and ability.

Today it started raining with the sun shining (devil was beating his wife) I grabbed my camera and headed to the front porch. I've been trying to get images of that for a long time. It's tricky because it's a random occurrence that ends quickly. I was surprised at the best part of the image, the reflection. I guess one of the reasons writing about my work is torture could be the element of chance.














My thesis, The Barest Threads, includes video production and a written component. The written component will be an interpretation of class theory and an exploration of how class relates to the production component. The production component of The Barest Threads will be compiled from an ongoing series of video vignettes. Often inspired by instances in the artist’s life, this series will depict moments when the status quo of class relations is undermined, subverted, or inverted through role reversals, mayhem and defiance. This project will refer to the theories of Bakhtin, Nietzsche, and Marx, who will be heavily relied upon in the written component.

The Barest Threads will undermine traditional rules of behavior such as politeness and manners by displaying the discomfort that emerges when individuals are confronted with resistant practices. It will seek to illustrate a space where difference is embraced as a means to discover and reveal “real issues” concerning the nature of class structure and struggle.

For example, a child is from a rural area. When the child’s mother takes him to an urban shopping mall, the child feels extremely uneasy. The child looks down as his Wal-mart shoes. They have text on them that reads "Franklin" across the side. The ten-year-old child is uncertain where the source of his discomfort originates, but we can assume that one probable origin is in his latent understanding of commodities as class signifiers.

When the child is a teenager he will find an old Franklin tennis shoe in a garbage can in public. He will remove the shoestrings, and tie them together at the ends. Then he will tie one end of the joined strings to an eyelet of the shoe. After that, he will walk the high school halls dragging the shoe behind him like a dog on a leash, while telling the upstanding students he passes “This’ my pet, Franklin Beasley.” His friend will laugh so hard that she has to lie on the ground and hold her stomach to stop herself from peeing in her pants.

The Barest Threads will seek these moments of disruption of traditional class rules of behavior. The Barest Threads attempts to turn boorishness into a tool for cultural critique. The “Franklin” example could be a section shot on location in my hometown, Adairsville, GA. Many of the sections will be shot in Weimar, Germany during the fall of 2005. Video will be planned, shot, edited and distributed using a one-chip DV camera and an Apple laptop. Editing will be completed with the aid of Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop. The final distribution will be in DVD format. The DVD’s will be freely distributed in bathrooms nationwide.