When I first joined this class I thought that this was an opportunity to interweave my skills of computer technology and studios art. When i heard that there was a portfolio review and that i would be going up against all the other students in the room my heart sank because honestly I really don't have a portfolio that is senior level sufficient. So you can imagine I was sweating bullets. When Brett presented the assignment to the class, I felt even worse because I thought the students would jump at the opportunity to get out of the classroom and do field work. However, that didn't happen, actually quite the opposite, I was surprised to see people looking at other 149 classes. Many thoughts passed through my mind of reasons they might not feel that this class was for them perhaps they thought this class might be to demanding or that they couldn't offer anything to the field group. Well whatever it was just one major thought lingered in my head, the fewer amounts of people the better my chances are of getting in (I really wanted to get in to this class). There for by the end of class I was literally counting the heads in the room and it looked to me like there were seventeen students and since Brett said he was taking 15 that left two students out in cold. So i was thinking, man if I'm one of those two students that don't get in then that really shows that my portfolio sucks. At that point Brett told all the remaining students to follow him up to his office to do individual portfolio reviews. I was a little relieved at that point at least the whole class didn't have to see my embarrassing artwork. So I followed him up to his office but by the time I got there the line outside was ten or twelve people long and if you have had any portfolio review class at UCSD before that means your not going to be seen for at least two to three hours, so i went to get something to eat. I returned to find three other people waiting, we all kind of sat out there discussing what job/coordinator position each one of us was going to try to get, because each person will be given a Coordinator position. What will help you land a position are your prior skills in a particular area. If your skills are good in a certain area then the chances of you getting that position on the team are way better. I knew that my chances where a little better then some in the coordinators position of "Media," because their job was to inform the world of what our group was doing out there by way of communications. This was right up my ally being a Communications major and taking a previous PR class, which would be beneficial to the team. I was kind of looking for the Environmental Coordinator or the Food Coordinator, but I would take anything that would get me on the team because I really just wanted to be in the class and apart of this art excursion. It was finally my turn and it was time to show my stuff, but it was not an artwork review of sorts, but more of a job interview in regards to how I could benefit the group in its efforts to the assignment. Needless to say when I walked out of the interview I felt very confident that I would get a spot and I was told to check the website to see if my name was on it to see if I made the cut. Later on that day I checked hoping that I saw my name and sure enough I saw that I had made it and that I was to start class the next week.

The next few weeks were exciting in that I checked out the area that we were to visit and I was surprised to see that we were going really far. An estimated 8-hour drive was the total time it was going to take to get there. It was in Death Valley, which I have never been too, unless you can count going to Vegas on the 15, but I don't think its anywhere close to where we are going. Another interesting thing was that we would be camping for the weekend in a National Park called Racetrack Playa (I thought). The fascinating thing about this park was that they had rocks that moved mysteriously across the floor leaving tracks without anyone pushing them or anything. And from this I knew that I wanted to do some kind of earthwork since I had the opportunity to actually go somewhere that I usually wouldn't. Therefore I started to think about ideas perhaps I could dig things up, paint the floor or even covering the Playa floor with some kind of metal or cloth. However, my idea was put on hold once I heard the Environmental Coordinators presentation about not being able to do much with the environment there since it was a National Park and had regulations against stuff like that. So that put a damper on my idea for earthworks, which for people that don't know earthwork is a type of art that usually is done on location and it involves the artist manipulating the environment using outside artifacts or by using the already existing environment to change the landscape. So when I told the class about what I wanted to do, Nick the Environmental coordinator mentioned that I should recreate the earthwork here on campus. I thought that was a great idea and I then figured that I wanted to build a simulated space of the Racetrack Playa. The idea of what to make started going through my head. Once I got the idea down I had to somehow link it to a bigger idea and then it hit me that by making a simulated space that one is capable of steps into that person becomes the watched item in the piece, the centerpiece if you will. That's when I thought about where we were going and how we could be seen as a piece of art in this environment What I came up with was the idea that as human beings arrive at this Park and what they all want to see is the spectacle of the moving rocks, but what they don't realize is that they too are moving and leaving tracks on the Playa floor just like the mysterious sliding rocks. The only thing that is the difference is that we are larger then the rocks, therefore the tourists think that they are the most important or the largest being out there on the Playa floor, but my theory challenges that. I believe that there might be a greater being out there that could be watching us and that voyeuristic being is watching us like we were the piece of art. I'll explain; the rocks move around the Playa and they come to a stop, and the tourists walk around till they find these rocks and stop and watch. What's the difference other then to say who is watching whom? So my art project that I plan on doing at Racetrack Playa is to take pictures of us humans in the state of being rocks to simplify the idea that we too can just as easily be turned into a art piece just by being watched by a larger being.

It was time to make our trip to Racetrack Playa, after loading up at Costco with mom I was ready to go. I had all kinds of snacks, but I should have brought more real meal food not snack food. But to late now, it was all packed up and I was off to school. We all got to UCSD's Gillman Parking Structure and we all loaded up and we headed off. I had Mandy, Carol, Carrie and Elsie we had fun going up we played the alphabet game. I think Mandy won, she said they would play in high school when she was on cross country race trips. It took forever to get there. We did well in time, we got to this giant crater and we pulled off to see it and we ran into Tyler and Austin who had been taking pictures and were about to leave. So we got back in the truck and we finally got to the campsite and we scoped it out and it was pretty cool. We had a bathroom so that was good, but man it looked like at any point a snake could pop out and I hate snakes, so I was trippin a little. Oh we all stayed up talking and went over to look for shooting starts, this part was the most memorable of all, it was like camp and my prior camp experiences suck (big time) so this made me feel like I had all my friends at camp with me. But it got late and we all went to bed and the next day we were off to the Racetrack Playa and we had an exciting time trying to get there. I say exciting in a sarcastic way, because the road was brutal. I have a lowered blazer and we felt every bump and every dip of that dirt road. Brett says the road was "wash boarded." I had to stop once in the begging because I thought my car was falling apart or at least my tire was popped, but nope it was just the road. Oh I knew then that it was going to be along trip…Ah! We finally go there and the ride was well worth it, the sight of the Playa floor was so beautiful it was so bright it was white and so flat; I underestimated the flatness. We all scoped out the area for the first 20 min and then it was art performance time, first up for me was Grace's project, which was about Suburbia. My part was to put on these short shorts and this tight pink shirt. I think we were supposed to resemble the area of Suburbia in the 50's. I actually thought the shirt was pretty cool. Pink on me was a really good color. But yea Nick, Tyler, Ray and I were the guys. I had to take my shirt off at one point and I felt fat, but its ok its all for the sake of "Art" and Grace (she is cool). Her pictures went well then it was time to move on to Mandy's project and dance with Pinky her robot that moved around the Playa floor. Pinky reacted to our movements and turned in circles. Pinky was really cool it was getting down to "Getting Low" by the Ying Yang Twins, which is one of my personal favorites. I liked it and I got down! I then moved on Albert's project, which was very strenuous. If I had to do what he did and walk on my hands I don't think I could do it. My job or task in this performance was to document his handprints by putting blue gloves out and marking each movement. It was fun, he was really fast and I was unable to keep up (man he is fast), but I tried my best. It was fun and a good performance. Next up for me was to help Nick out with his game. I say game because my job was to walky-talky movements to Nick who would then tell a player who is blindfolded how to pick up a ball on the Playa floor. So I was like 40 yards away so it was a little difficult, but I enjoyed it. It was fun and we could have been there all night, it was that much fun. I then moved over to Kris project, which was to document the North, South, East and West of the grandstand and then she was going to compute them into a song by using GPS (I think). I climbed the grandstand and took pictures, at that time I swear I saw a snake, but I couldn't find it after I ran away. I finished helped Kris take pictures and then I think we returned back to the car were I started to get painted up for my project, but mine took place on the North side of the Playa so we drive over there. At that point it was time for my project and Elsie's project. We drove down to the other side of the Playa because Elsie and I both need the mysterious sliding rocks of the Playa, which were mostly on the North side. On our way there I almost lost control of my truck for there was a massive turn in the road and with the dust from the car in front of you it's hard to see the turn. But we got there and I got out and put on my spandex shorts and stripped down. I had Carol and Elsie paint me up with the nine tubes of black make-up paint that I got from Party City. After I was covered (I mean covered). A bunch of us walked out to the Playa together. They all laughed at how black I was. Austin said, "All I can see is your smile the rest of you is black like a shadow." That was pretty funny. Once we got to the rocks I set up to do my performance. I had to nail the footprints into the ground because the wind had started to pick up. After setting all that up Elsie began to take pictures. She took a lot of pictures, at least fifty. The ground was pretty hard which lead me to have to leave the nails in the ground, but also it dug into my back (ouch!). It was not pleasant, but it was all in the name of "Art." We finished and walked back to the car, where Brett was waiting and seemed to be stoked to see the efforts that well went to for completing our performances. I personally enjoyed myself it was a lot of fun and then it was time to get all this black paint off me and go home. I tried to get most of it off, Carrie helped with Carol and Elsie, but I figured we could get the majority of it off back at camp in the giant sink. So I did my neck and head and my arms and left the rest for later. Oh the way back that same turn on the road caught up with Albert and Ray. It seems that Albert and Ray were spun out of control and crashed, causing two tires to come of the rim. So it took all the guys to fix it and I let one of the girls drive my truck to the campsite while I stayed and help fix the truck, which did happen and we finally got back to the campsite. I so wanted to take a shower I still was covered pretty much in black and spandex. It was a definitely a once in a lifetime experience. I got back and it took about an hour to get all the black paint off. After cleaning up I ate some of the chicken fajitas that Albert and Ray made, I was so hungry, you see Albert and Ray were the Food Coordinators and they were in charge of the dinner of Saturday night. By then it was time for our last trip to the campfire to stare at the stars. Later, we walked back to the area that we sat around last night and we looked for some shooting stars and satellites. We stayed there for a while then we ended up going to bed because we wanted to get up early and head home. And that's exactly what we did. Then next morning we left at 5am and we pulled in to UCSD around 1:15pm or so. Not bad on time if I do say so myself.

Now that the excursion is over the Media coordination team has to go to work. Elsie and I have found a list of yahoo groups and other art forums that might be interested in our findings at Racetrack Playa. Grace (who is floating into our group), Elsie and myself will be meeting in Finals week to "Spam the world" as Brett says. Our job is to inform the world about what we did in Visual Arts 149. Through chat forums, Press Releases and Internet Groups we will splash our site on everything. Thank you so much Brett for this experience. I had a great time creating the project on the web and in the Gallery as well as learning the Human Cognitive Culture through Edwin Hutchins.

Thanks from James Bartholomew