Change of Approach

I am trying to intentionally answer the Google prompt questions now.

The other night I shot "why is my poop green?"

After Small Group Review

I met with a small group of my peers today to discuss the progress of my project. I was given the suggestion to try to answer the questions with my photographs. I am not sure how to do this seriously considering that some of the questions are things like "why is my poop green?"

So here are my first few thoughts as far as answers go.

"why do men have nipples?" - to give each other titty twisters

"why is the sky blue?" -

"why is my poop green?" - something to do with being irish. or drinking green beer.

"why did i get married too?" - you didn't know what else was next.

"why can't I own a canadian?" - canadians are people too

"why are black people so loud?" - they're not...?

"why do dogs eat poop?" - cuz it's basically the same thing as dog food

"why do cats purr?" -

"why did the chicken cross the road?" - he never really made it

I obviously don't have all the answers figured out, and I definitely don't have all the visuals yet. I'm just going to need to start shooting and see what I come up with.

Research Plan

I have been having a little bit of trouble deciding how I want to visually represent the google search phrases I have chosen.

I have been thinking a lot about Judith Baumann's Google Air Guitar (2004). In this work she too used technology like Google as a part of her work. She visually represented the essay "Air Guitar" by writer and art critic Dave Hickey, by entering each word of the essay into Google image search. She then chose one of the first three image results to represent that word in the essay. The end result was a multipage document/series of photographs with images appearing like lines across a page representing each and every word of "Air Guitar". To learn more go here.

Taking a page from her book I am going to research the google image results for my google search phrases.

why do men have nipples

why is the sky blue

why is my poop green

why does my vag smell

why do cats purr

why did I get married too

why do dogs eat poop

why cant I own a Canadian

why did the chicken cross the road

why are black people so loud

First Couple of Photos

I'm not sure what question this photo has to do with but it was part of how I initially approached the project. I was trying to take photos constantly- everywhere I went. I was then planning on pairing the photos with certain questions that I felt worked well with the image. I do not feel like this approach is producing relevant photographs.

Research

I have begun my research of common Google search phrases.

The following lists are the suggested searches Google provides when given a prompts word.

who:

who is

who want to be a millionaire online game

who says lyrics

who wants to be a millionaire

who dat

who says john mayer lyrics

who invented the internet

who is lady gaga

who won dancing with the stars 2009

who is my congressman

who is:

lady gaga

my congressman

big poppa

ip

john galt

the richest person in the world

the richest man in the world

big papa

on the dime

taylor swift dating

what:

does my name mean

is my ip

to do when your bored

is my ip address

time is it

not to wear

is love

to expect when you're expecting

is google wave

is a good credit score

what are:

the symptoms of the swine flu

the seven deadly sins

the seven wonders of the world

capers

the 7 wonders of the world

the symptoms of h1n1

symptoms of swine flu

carbohydrates

stem cells

the ten commandments

what are these:

bumps on my balls

bumps on my nipples

called

bumps on my arms

s

lyrics

pills

bumps on my tongue

bumps on my face

symptoms

when:

is daylight savings 200

thanksgivingday in 2009

is easter 2010

will i die

will the wolrd end

was jesus born

i look at you lyrics

in rome

does morning sickness start

im gone lyrics

where:

the wild things are

where the wild things are trailer

where the wild things are soundtrack

where the wild things are book
where the wild things are movie
where the wild things are review

is haiti

where the wild things are costume

is santa right now

where the wild things are quotes

where is:

haiti

santa right now

chuck norris

is the love lyrics

santa

haiti in the world

my mind lyrics

haiti located on the map

santa rght now 2009

tiger woods

why:

do men have nipples

is the sky blue

is my poop green

does my vag smell

do cats purr

did i get married too

do dogs eat poop

can't i own a canadian

did the chicken cross the road

are black people so loud

why is:

the sky blue

my poop green

it called black friday

is a raven like a writing desk

yawning contagious

my computer so slow

pepto bismol pink

the world going to end in 2012

pluto not a planet

the ocean salty

why do:

men have nipples

cats purr

dogs eat poop

dogs eat grass

men cheat

we dream

leaves change color

cats knead

we yawn

dogs lick people

why are:

black people so loud

yawns contagious

michael jacksons kids white

we in afghanistan

the kardashians famous

there schools

barns red

flamingos pink

cells so small

we here

how:

to tie a tie

i met your mother

to kiss

get pregnant

to lose weight

to cook a turkey

stuff works

to solve a rubix cube

to

long to cook a turkey

how to:

tie a tie

kiss

get regnant

lose weight fast

cook a turkey

solve a rubix cube

make a website

write a resume

download youtube videos

lose weight

why you should:

recycle

be and organ donor

eat breakfast

go to college

donate blood

wear your seatbet

exercise

vote

not smoke

wash your hands

why your shouldn't:

smoke

eat your boogers

get the swine flu vaccine

drink and rive

text while driving

eat fast food

smoke weed

do drugs

have kids

text and drive

smoke cigarettes

I know this is a long list but I am the most interested thus far in the "why" questions people ask.

How this is relevant

In the past I have created works using pre-made titles. A pre-made title is a title I create before I go out to shoot. When taking photographs I am searching for the image to fit the title. Working this way brings a new exciting element to the photography table. It also helps me keep a coherent theme throughout a series of photographs.

The first project I instituted the idea of pre-made titles, the titles were based upon thoughts, questions, and sentences floating around i

n my mind through out the course of a day.

The second use of pre-made titles was a work where the titles were some of my favorite song lyrics. I took images of people singing and paired the images with song lyrics that seemed to match the tone of the image.

For this project (yet to be named) I will use pre-made titles from Google search prompts as described in my prior post.

The images here are examples from my second pre-made titles project. The top right is titled 513 down his arm, deez nutz across his knuckles and Willy Wonka on his calf (2006)

When you're poor everywhere you go is the ghetto (2006)

Jim Leopold can't stop thinking about Rinnie Modzelewski

on motorcycle trips with his wife (2006)

I know a guy paralyzed from the waist down that drives a hand controlled car (2006)

Red vs. Green (the great debate) (2006)

Revelry, revelry! Wake up young campers. (2006)

Photography Winter Quarter Project Synopsis

I want to explore the idea of creating images for specific titles. I want to use pre-set, pre-made, pre-determined titles as the basis of a photography project.

I plan on recreating common google search phrases as photographs. The search phrase will start out with a prompt word like:

"who"

"what"

"when"

"where"

"why"

or "how."

I will choose one of these prompt phrases and upon typing it into google, google will provide the end of the sentence for the most commonly searched phrases.

For example if I type in "why " into google's search field the following phrases appear from a drop down list:

"why do men have nipples"

"why is the sky blue"

"why is my poop green" etc.

I will then create a series of photographs based on these search phrases. Each search phrase will be the photographs title.