Elliot Raub - The Bar (USA)

SITE :

The space I am asking you to investigate is tiny, dark, dirty, and blends both private and
public space. As you can see in the pictures these spaces are good for hiding things. The
site is a busy bar located in the heart of Oakland, a neighborhood housing the students,
professors, and working class families of Pittsburgh.
The spaces inside the site are normally considered either garbage or undesirable areas of
entry. The underside of a toilet paper dispenser, behind a dirty toilet, inside empty
cigarette packages, the bottom of empty plastic cups, the underside of tables, the inside of
napkin holders, and condiment holders are all accessible and used constantly through out
each day/ seven days a weeks, and yet unconsidered spaces. Attention must be brought
to these little tiny places.
I’m interested in what is hidden / stuffed into these non-spaces. The disregarded holes
and crevasses are found everywhere inside this building and here are all the examples I
could find. There is no limit to the amount of spaces one can use, but no requirement to
consider all of them. Some images are difficult to gage the actual scale of some of the
spaces. I’m open to dialoguing and am more than happy to provide more information
about anything particular that one might be interested in. There is also a cellar location in
the building if one is interested in including it as a space.

I want to address the idea of something which is disposable being made durable. My best representation of the disposable is the throw-away plastic cups which are accessible at the bar. I also want to incorporate your intial idea of exploring those un-noticed / ignored spaces through the interaction of a game set up in the bar.

How do I plan to get these ideas across…..?
The game – will be based on clues, suggestions or commands ( so thinking of the rules involved in hide and seek) the audience is “it” and the art work (the casts) is “hiding” somewhere in the bar. The point of the game and the clues on the casts are to get the audience to participate in experiencing the “life span” of something disposable (such as the plastic cups) The intentions/context behind the game may not b apparent to the audience until the end.

However the media used to create the casts of the disposables suggests the opposite, as it would be made from a media (concrete mix or plaster) which is durable. An object which is made more durable has more valuable qualities than that of a once used throw-away object like that of the cup.

The space- incorporating your take on the idea of the exploration of un-noticed space will be both directly and indirectly approached by the audience. Space which will be directly approached is the space which is cast out of the disposable cup. The indirect space which the audience will be engaging with is the spaces within the bar where the casts have been hidden. e.g. small spaces like the bin or a sink etc therefore drawing attention to the spaces which I would like to use as shown in your documented photos.

Instructions:

step1: make 5 repeated casts of the space within a disposable cup by filling it with either concrete mix or plaster (or any other media which dries fast and is durable)

Step2: the invitation- on the first cast there should be text on it inviting the audience of the bar to get involved in playing the game. This first cast should be placed at or near the entrance of a door way leading into the bar so to be eye-catching. The text could read “ Lets play a game of hide and seek.. you’re ‘it’ and u have to find me” then provide a clue e.g. “ I am in a cold place” and place the next cast for the audience to find in the fridge.

From the fridge- the next clue may read: “I like to be enjoyed with a snack” and place the next cast inside a pizza box ( I saw a photo of a sign reading on the outside of a building saying pizza and pastas so I am assuming that the bar also acts as a restaurant?) if food is not served in any sort of disposable bags or boxes then perhaps this clue should include that they may have to order something off the food menu before receiving the next clue ( if u were to try this take on the next clue then u would have to get one of the staff to go along with the proposal).

after the pizza box / ordering of their food the 3rd cast may read “ Im somewhere in the restroom” and place the 4th cast maybe behind the toilet in one of the cubicles.

from the restroom- the 4th cast could read “ If I were made of glass and could be reused I would be washed clean…” and u could place the 5th cast in a sink somewhere maybe behind the bar if there is one there.

From the sink- the 5th cast could read “ I’m in a dirty place where I am no longer of value” and the clue could lead to the rubbish bin. (which should be filled mostly with disposable cups that had been used)

Once the audience have found the rubbish bin there should be a sign or something like that by the bin reading “you have just experienced what it is like to live a life-span of a disposable plastic cup which has now reached the end of its journey.”

Note: Seeing as we only have 2 days to execute this brief. You may want to invite a friend from outside of the art school to play the game and u could possibly video record them searching for it. If u had extra time it would be interesting to see if random people that enter the bar participate in playing on their own initiative. How u choose to document this is up to you, that was only a suggestion. you don’t have to use the examples that I gave for the text on the cups those were just examples. If u do decide to change the text on the casts for what ever reason that’s fine as long as u provide an indication of an invitation to play the game as well as don’t give away the identity of the disposable object which the player of the game would find out at the end.