I became drawn to this beach scene fabric because of growing up with the last name Beach. I am all too familiar with having kitsch objects and aesthetics around as my parents for whatever reason seem to enjoy decorating their house with as much tacky Beach related things as possible. There are signs relating to the "Beach bungalow" on both sides of the house, more block letter cut outs of Beach sitting in crevices on bookshelves on the inside, strange snowglobes with flamingos, really bad abstract paintings of the shore, it's as if a coastal Cracker Barrel lost a shipment of merchandise and it was shipped to my parent's house instead. In thinking about growing up with my last name and seeing how my family had interpreted it to allow for an...interesting decorating circumstances, I thought I was in a place to discuss critically the intersection of kitsch and technology. I wonder at what point does a project cross the line from conceptual to kitsch and what from kitsch is actually helpful in forming a project's concept.
I conceived the idea of creating a performative piece where in I would take on the role of embodying this "Beach kitsch" character with the obelisk of kitsch at the center as a landmark of identifying presence. I am enrolled in the Social Practice graduate seminar and we read an article earlier in the semester as a critical look at Marina Abramovic's The Artist Is Present. I wanted to explore some of the concepts in this criticality through the use of the obelisk as signifying the presence of kitsch.
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