Stratego: The Big Bang

Collaboration: the action of working with someone to produce or create something.

For class we were asked to bring in a found object, off the streets of San Francisco, to bring into class to do an on the spot collaborative piece. Between everyone in the class, there were some very interesting materials. Some of these materials were sticks, flowers, a McDonalds french fry cup, a book, newspaper, a plastic bag, some cigarette butts, and the board game Stratego. We laid out out findings and started going for it. As we started working with our found objects it was clear that the Stratego game would be the "canvas" of our piece. Almost instantly we started to assemble the pieces from the game. We cut out faces from the newspaper and started to paste them onto the board game pieces. It started to feel like a community. Using goofy cut out words and diverse people from the newspaper, our community started to grow.  Alongside this "community" a sculpture was being assembled out of the sticks and flowers that was brought it. It was nature and community hand in hand and looked great. But we were a bit torn on what exactly we wanted our concept to be. We knew it could be bigger and better. Somehow we decided that we were going to destroy this community with the "distractive" found objects. That was the McDonalds cup and cigarette butts. We took the plastic bag, filled it with all fifty of the butts, the McDonalds cup, and water to make the "bomb". This is when our project turned more into a performance. Out in the quad on campus, we laid down a tarp and on top of that went a white cloth, white paper, and our community. After reassembling our community three times from the wind knocking it down, we were finally ready to set off our bomb. From the amphitheater (about two and a half stories tall) the count down began. Three, two, one.... splat! A bullseye! The nasty concoction destroyed our community and pieces flew everywhere. It was quite the sight. What was left of the community was this white cloth that now held beautiful dirty markings, the smell of wet cigarette butts, and collaged pieces of newspaper. A white flag of surrender? We let the flag blow in the wind to dry. Finally, all that was left of the piece was this white hanging flag.

I thought that this collaboration was a huge success. I think that it is very challenging to work with many people on a project in such a short amount of time with very minimal materials. We worked very well together and pulled together something that was interesting and fun. I felt like EVERYONE was solid about participating. I think it is interesting how we built this complex community, only to destroy it with even more complexity, but then finish with a piece that is so minimal and elegant. I congratulate everyone in the class for this collaboration. Cheers!