For a little while now I've been possessed with the idea of staging a quiet work of performance/happening at the Quarry Plaza near the UCSC bookstore. The ideal day to do this would be a blustery, cold, possibly rainy Winter day. The action consists of standing near the foot of the stairway leading up toward Crown/Merrill/etc, and handing out nearly blank placards with a single message in small font, centered, in parentheses: (winter). Picking a particularly cold or harsh day to do this is central to its effectiveness, I think. What I want to do is first to pique people's interest (why would I be standing in the rain handing out literature unless it was really important), and second to make a statement about the importance of being mindful of the natural phenomenon happening around them.
The cards themselves hold no aesthetic value whatsoever, they are designed not only to be minimal, but also to de-emphasize their own aesthetic impact – the real "art object", as it were, is the transitory nature of the season itself, perhaps uncomfortable and rarely missed as Spring approaches, but nonetheless a real aspect of life at this University that is often, ironically, obscured by the necessity of indoor classwork and research. In this sense, I am echoing the work of Yoko Ono and other Fluxus artists who stove to instill in viewers and audiences a sense of presence and awareness of the life happening all around them.
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