Seccond response entry (do it at e-flux)

Dan Graham: Do-it-Yourself Two-Way Mirror Mylar Window

This window project explains how to make a house window into a two-way mirror. The purpose is to keep out prying eyes, and to blend reflection with transparency. By applying a sheet of mirror mylar, people cant see in during the say while the home owner can see out. During the night, the home owner sees both reflection and transparency together, and this balance changes with light. This seems like a cool idea. I think a lot of office buildings in the city use this technique since windows are everywhere for millions of people to look into. This is nothing new, but it is cool how the effect changes with the time of day/light source.
Dan Graham started producing work in the 60s in New York. He deals with architecture, popular music, video and television, essays, performance, installations, videotapes, and architectural and sculptural designs. He has published critical and theoretical essays on punk music, the suburbs, and public architecture. He also like dealing with mirrors and windows. One of his works was “Two-Way Mirror Cylinder inside Cube and a Video Salon,” which is just that, made from two-way mirrors which change dynamics with changing light. It is on a rooftop and creates an interesting space for people to explore.

http://www.eai.org/eai/artist.jsp?artistID=403

Annette Messager: Untitled (Signatures)

Annette talks about how a person’s name characterizes them for their whole life, and how important an artists’ signature is because it can reveal allot about them. Signatures asks the participant to write out as many different variations of his/her signature on different pieces of paper as possible, and then to frame them. Annette says friends will make surprising comments. This is a good exercise, for me at least, because my signature is bad. Signatures can be a work of art in their own way, so framing the different variations could be appropriate. The way a person writes their signature can show great expression, and by writing it differently so many times, an artist can show different expressions within themselves. This is a pretty cool exercise.
Annette Messager lives in France, where she was born in 1943, where she began making art in the 60s, and where she was first exhibited in the 70s. Her art is conceptual and full of expression. She tends to “catalogue” drawings and pictures in her works. She uses painting, embroidery, sculpture, collage, film montage, and writing; mixing these media, she expresses the “disorder of life.”

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1995/messager/artist.html
http://www.oneroom.org/sculptors/messager.html