Prompt 20 - Curating My Election Day (Derek)

Here is some pictorial evidence of my election day. After the photos are some suggestions for curating some of this at a history center like the one we visited in Indy.

Documenting the Day
I woke up at six AM, and went back to sleep until about ten-past seven. I got up, checked email and Facebook, replying to my cousin's post.

Figure 1. Facebook posts

I recalled The Daily Show's "moment of zen" in which they played the YouTube clip of the little girl crying about the election.

Then I drank coffee and showered. When my housemate Jost came out of his room into the kitchen to make breakfast for himself, I asked him if he'd voted already, and he said yes, at home the previous week. I said that I'd also voted already, but by absentee ballot. Then I left for campus. There was still frost on the ground as I rode my bicycle through my Bryan Park neighborhood. For the thousandth time, I noted the tangle of political signs sprouting weed-like on lawns from Walnut to 3rd Street. The photo here does not do justice to the tangle on the lawns of other houses.

I reached Ballantine Hall around 9am and went to browse the GSAC book sale. Some grad students there already had "I voted" stickers on their clothing.

I put in a couple of hours as a volunteer at the book sale. One grad student AI who bought a large stack of books commented that she was embarrassed to carry all of them like that to class for fear of looking like a dork in front of her students, to which I felt compelled to reply "No, you look scholarly!" Later, upon learning that I was volunteering for GSAC, Whitney said to me, "Look at you, getting involved." After my hours were up, I picked up a few newspapers on my way out of Ballantine Hall.

Then I returned a Hitchcock DVD collection to Wells Library. Posters hung on the main doors telling people that tonight the media wall would be showing the live election results broadcast. Next I ate lunch at Tudor Room. After lunch I went to Kirkwood Ave to get a haircut, where I learned a little about the 6pm drinking law. As I crossed the street to enter the barbershop, I saw a line of elementary school students marching west down the sidewalk, some with sandwich board placards, chanting something inaudible but enthusiastically. Their backs were to me and they were far away, so I don't know what they were marching for, but I imagine they were either reminding people to go vote or they were advocating on behalf of one of the local races--I recall that one of the local races has to do with an education-related position.

After my haircut, I went to the bikeshop to get a new chain and to fix the shifter. I arrived home at 3:30pm and studied at my desk. At night (maybe around 9pm) I went over to Lauren's house to watch the election results with some other folks. We had some food and conversation about voting. Two of the lads declared that they had abstained from voting. This was a point of contention about which we had previously argued, so we did not get into it again at this time, it now being a moot point for this election.

Lauren told me that earlier in the day, "the young people were upset the campus voting place ran out of stickers!" I thought that was cute. By "young people", she meant the undergraduate residents of Global Village, where she works. We started watching the election results as reported on Nate Silver's blog, mostly because watching the streaming video of the news channels was annoyingly full of banal chatter. However, the vote counts that were being displayed online were often in flux and unreliable, and also stressful for me, since they showed Romney winning.

To escape the stress of watching the election returns, we started watching Netflix videos of Louis CK. We all laughed and relaxed. But even as we did so, we had another laptop on and refreshing Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog--but at least that way we could check it on our own terms. We were all relieved when the totals swung in Obama's favor, and then once he won we were quite happy. Around that time, it became 11:00pm, and we switched to the live stream of The Daily Show.

Unfortunately, The Daily Show wasn't as funny as I had hoped it would be. The Colbert Report was a little better. After that ended, I went home, posted on Facebook, and fell asleep.

Curating the Day

The exhibit would be focused on election day in Bloomington through an IU graduate student's milieu. The day might be curated using a mixture of media and live reenactments, as at the Indiana History Center in Indianapolis. 

Media
One part of the exhibit could use touch screens to allow visitors to browse a collection of photos and video that show scenes from Bloomington city and the university as people went about their day. Examples of photos: houses with campaign yard signs, polling booths and buildings, people picketing/demonstrating, volunteers on campus telling folks where to vote, as well as scenes of everyday life unrelated to the voting, including the Mother Hubbard's truck, homeless folks in People's Park, college students scurrying across campus, students studying. As for video, there should definitely be a variety of the campaign ads, including a special segment on negative campaign ads and a different special segment on the impact of SuperPacs. Another special segment should focus on video clips from satirical shows such as The Daily Show, SNL, late night talk shows. Another special segment would be all about YouTube videos. Finally, a special segment showing clips from news programs covering both the election and other events that were happening simultaneously--some of these should be about the referendums that legalized marijuana and gay marriage. 

As for live reenactments, the two sites that most lend themselves to recreation are the house and the barbershop.

The IU House in Bloomington
Going down the hallway in the history center, you would see the painted exteriors of a house with actual campaign signs posted outside, recreating what you'd see when passing through the Bryan Park area. Enter the "house" and you enter a living room with a dining room beyond, which also contains a small desk. There's a couch, chairs, big TV, dining table, and a couple of laptops. Live actors within the house would be aged 21-37, some students, some not. They would be able to answer questions about how they experienced the election day and the events leading up to it. Perhaps the election day itself could be depicted, so the election day itself might unfold during the hours of operation in the museum, and the actors would react to news on the TV or to Facebook posts and engage each other in conversation. The actors would portray people of varying political persuasion and ages, some of whom could speak with experience about watching the 2000 election and how they were worried about similar shenanigans happening again. Others would be Leftist anarchists who boycotted the polls. One would be a moderate Republican. History Center visitors could interact with all of these actors.

The College Town Barber Shop
After entering the barber shop, you could interact with a wide array of characters, male and female, young and old. They could be of various political leanings and have insight into not only the campaign and issues of the day, but also the mechanics of voting and the laws surrounding it--such as the no alcohol before 6pm law. Someone might mention the parade of elementary school children that walked down Kirkwood holding signs and chanting. Newspapers published that day could be available on racks for visitors to pick up and read, the papers performing as scripted things that visitors would want to interact with. The mix of people in the barbershop might allow for both national and local community politics to be discussed, since not all the folks would be from Bloomington, and some patrons (e.g. me) might have had significant amounts of time overseas, thus allowing for international comparisons to be made.

Voting Records
The research library would have polling data, voting records, and district maps, which researchers could peruse. These could be comparable to national averages and other results from Indiana counties.

The Party Line (Iris)

I spent the evening of November 6th on my laptop, watching the results coming in from multiple news stations. I was on the phone with my best friend Nat, who lives in Massachusetts. We were comparing our finds, and every so often, one of us would check our Facebook page. My friends and family are almost all Democrats, and as the evening went on, the posts became increasingly excited, celebratory, and, well, intoxicated. I enjoyed reading some out loud to Nat, and we realized that we have very different Facebook friends.

"BBC have now called it as well. Celebrating all by myself at 4 am!" I read from a dear friend who lives in Glasgow.

"The angel of death walks among us," Nat read back.

"Yipppie!" wrote my adorable mother.

"No one is safe, the end times are coming," wrote another one of Nat's friends.

"MY UTERUS IS SAFE! Praise! I love you, Barack! SUCK IT MITTENS!" wrote our very own Jess Drew (this was my favorite post of the night.)

"I'm moving to Canada," said ALL of Nat's friends, ever. Which prompted me to ask why the heck Nat has the friends he has- he protests that they are all work friends.

I was struck by the fact that, at this moment, none of us were able to talk calmly about this. I sure wasn't, and I still can't. But I think that's a problem, and I think it's caused both sides to get a little ugly. Yes, we felt this way when Bush one re-election and payback's a bitch. But if I said that to one of Nat's Facebook friends, I'd be starting a flame-war. If I want to change people's minds, I think the first thing I have to do is calm down a little. But how?

Here's my idea- an exhibit that is set up to look like the inside of Facebook, with pictures, articles and status updates all over the walls. I'd be interested to see the connections between people- say, this person has three hundred friends, and two hundred of them posted Democratic status updates. Or, this person had six Democratic friends before the election and only three today. If our social lives are a vast interconnected web, I'd like to see the strings. But more than that, I'd like to see what people hide behind their statuses.

Say you come to a picture of me, with my status update reading "Four more years, bitches!" or something. You'd also see that I have another status update, hidden under that one. You could uncover it somehow, and it would read "I was disappointed by Obama's public speaking skills." Or say that next to me is a profile of a die-hard Republican who happens to support gay marriage and wishes it weren't part of her party's platform. I would want people to see the public face we put on, and the private, more complicated one that we keep to ourselves.

Ideally, you wouldn't be able to enter the exhibit without writing down a secret of your own. You wouldn't necessarily have to show it to anyone, maybe just write it on a card. Then, if you want to see my hidden status, you could insert the card somewhere on my profile, essentially trading your secret for mine. If you wanted to leave your card behind, it could become part of the display, an accumulation of all the things we really feel.

Course Blog 20: AdWorld (Jennifer)

I documented my day on my personal blog, so you can view the non-event of being an absentee voter there. What I will most remember about Election 2012 is the inundation of images, stories, ads, and editorials that were in yards, in my mailbox, on my television, in phone conversations, etc. Since I wasn't voting in person, I only saw this detritus without seeing the civic event itself. This means that for the past six months, while I've felt immersed in the drama, the actual day seemed rather anticlimactic. Therefore, rather than focusing on the day of the election, I'd like to shift attention back to where most of the action happened: the race.

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, as part of her list of descriptors for today's museum, says that it can be an "artifact to be displayed in its own right, along with its history, operations, understandings, and practices." Therefore, I want to preserve an important artifact: the targeted advertising. Since advertising is becoming increasingly important and diverse, I anticipate Disney will create an AdLand park in the near future, one element of which will dedicated entirely to political advertising, with a special exhibit for Election 2012.

Image of Disneyland's theme park (as edited by me to add AdLand) originally from a teacher's blog. 

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett also mentions the trend, as we saw in the Center for History's living photos on Prohibition and the polio vaccine, of "experiential" exhibits. As an instructor, I've found that the more active and invested students are in their education, the more they learn and enjoy the process. Therefore, I am happy to jump on the experiential bandwagon. One of the trends I've noticed in museums lately have been what I'm going to call "self-identifying" exhibits. For example, Kohl's Children's Museum has an exhibit called "All About Me," where you can "find out more about your likes and dislikes, your abilities and qualities, and find out what makes each visitor special and unique." Children can record their own voices, see themselves from various angles, and build bodies onto a skeleton. I remember that one of Chicago's large museums also ran a similar exhibit, but with more of a tech angle. The IUPUI's Advanced Visualization Lab showcased a four panel 3D screen, which would be a perfect way to integrate these various pieces into an exhibit about the targeted advertising campaign of the 2012 election.

Electoral Politics in a Bear Bar (Cody)

Last Friday evening, back home in Columbus, OH, my partner and I visited a local, downtown bear bar during their weekly-themed Leather Daddy/BDSM night.  However, this Friday evening, being only four days from the presidential election, the bar’s theme included a special appendix to its title: Leather Daddies and Bears for Obama (bring your own whips and chains). 

(For clarification, I do not classify myself as a member of Columbus’s bear community; nonetheless, I have well acquainted myself with many of its habitué, both at this bar and others as well as at other group meetings and organizations.  Thus, I define myself as both an outsider and an insider to this community insofar as I am equally an active member of other Columbus queer communities.  The ethnography I have conducted does not wish to generalize Columbus’s bear community or any notion of a national bear community.  My analysis hitherto is strictly localized to this particular bar.)

Of the bear bars in Columbus, Exile (the bar’s name) is perhaps my favorite since it is easily the most diverse/progressive (as per my experience) in terms of class, race, somatotype, gender, and sexuality.  The majority of the male patronage seems to be working class, which perhaps explains why their monthly Construction Party is their most popular night, as many gay construction workers will show up in their daily work attire and hard hats.  While the plurality of the patronage is white, there is also a large attendance of Afro-, Latino-, East Asian-, and Near Eastern-American men.  Little need be said about somatotype since the bear community promotes fat positivity, and Exile prides itself on presenting male performers of all body shapes.  Gender diversity seems to be the one area where this bar is slightly lacking, with most of the patrons being male; nevertheless, there is always a female presence at the bar and, usually, on the BDSM nights, the main performers are dominatrices (both female and transgendered).  Finally, in terms of sexuality, while the vast majority of the habitué is homosexual (though, I have met the occasional guy who is drunk enough to admit that he is married with children!), there is much sexual diversity within the gay social structure of the habitué—the second-story sex shop will attest to this claim as the shop’s layout is uniquely categorized according to nearly thirty fetishes, most of which have their own themed night at the bar.

What I would attempt to curate . . .

1) Context of Exile

As already mentioned, that Friday evening (2 November), Exile advertised itself as hosting an explicitly political event.  Usually, the bar’s space does not preoccupy itself with mainstream politics, though, as the bar’s name suggests, there is always something political or sociopolitical about its operation and its patronage’s attendance.  Topographically, the bar is “in exile” as it sits on the periphery of Columbus’s downtown area—most other gay/queer bars and social spaces are situated in the heart of downtown—stretching up and down High Street (north to south), while Exile is situated several streets removed to the west.

2) The Bear Flag

Since this event was advertised as being politically pertinent to the election, my primary expectation/dread was being bombarded with American flags and patriotic paraphernalia.  This dread was almost immediately abated when, upon entry, I saw not a single American flag, only a ubiquitous Bear pride flag (pictured below).  

On the one hand, within this particular space, the bear flag becomes a supplement or double-signifier for both the "more proper" American flag—the bear flag's design easily recalls the design of the nation's flag—and the bear community, its specific signification phantasmatically becoming synecdochically connected to the national referent of the American flag.  On the other hand, the replacement of the American flag with the bear flag equally signals a rupture between these two signifiers, between nation and marginalized community, suggesting that the American flag lacks sufficient meaning within Exile's electoral politics, a signification that is more effectively embodied by the bear flag. The prevalence of the flag not only interpellates this space as bear-orientated and its patronage as bears/ bear-lovers but also classifies a certain exigency of voting for Obama as being bear-specific.  Thus, the evening's events were less about American politics than they were about the politics of bear-ness and queerness.  

3) Photos 

Another significant feature of the evening included a large number of men getting the phrases “Four more years” and “Mitt sucks dick” painted on their bared asses.  In terms of semiotics and discursive reappropriation, I am more interested in the latter phrase, which seemed to be the popular choice of the evening.  First, this phrase, painted on gay men’s posteriors, highlights the sexual nature of this past election’s politics—as well as of politics, in general. Second, the double entendre of “sucks dick” is quite significant.  On the one hand, the phrase relates to the colloquial, heterosexist and homophobic usage of “sucks dick” to mean annoying or contemptible—Romney is exasperating, his politics, execrable.  On the other hand, there is a bit of reverse discourse at play here, as if the off-rhymed association of “Mitt” and “dick” becomes a manner of outing the presidential candidate (and, perhaps, the entire Republican party), highlighting the repressed nature of Conservative politics.  Finally, the phrase also sexually objectifies Romney, rendering him susceptible to the gay male gaze and neutering the masculinist, phallocentric subjectivity of Republican politics.

4) Video Footage

One of the more explicit performances of the evening—and, in my opinion, the most politically and theatrically provocative—featured a man wearing only a jock strap and a Mitt Romney mask, chained to a wall, and being whipped by a dominatrix. 

The symbolic and performative significance of this spectacle is vast and complex.  First, the act itself represents a sort of symbolic punishment and, given the election’s outcome and voter statistics, is certainly emblematic of women voters psephologically punishing Romney and the Republican party for their reactionary politics against women’s sexual rights.  Second, when considering the homosexual patronage’s spectation of this performance, the spectacle equally becomes a form of pleasure at the sight of a symbolic Romney being punished, though it is hard to tell if this pleasure is politically or sexually derived. I imagine it is both since the theme of the evening seemed to be the sexualization of electoral politics.   

All of the above, I feel, would make for an intriguing exhibit (given the right museum) for documenting the 2012 election since, in the course of a single evening and within a single space, many of the sociopolitical discourses and sentiments of this past electoral season were symbolically conjured and simultaneously critiqued in a ludic, sexual fashion by a marginalized and diverse community that stood to lose much if the voting count had listed in the other direction. 

Blog Post #20 - Election Day Ethnography...

Election Day was a very long day for me. It started at 7AM, with the usual getting-ready-to-be-seen-in-public preparations, and ended well after midnight in a late-night Skype date with my partner, who has libertarian leanings (even Mr. Right isn't perfect).

Election Post (Courtney)

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/

The actual process of voting is an interesting and important part of the election day process, but in my own experience (probably because I've never had personal issues with lines or voter suppression) the real focus of my election day is on the evening and into the night. This is where the competitive atmosphere comes in and the process of watching each state turn red or blue and the tallying of electoral votes feels like a high-stakes sporting match. Because I don't have a television my election night was computer based--watching different websites, live internet video, and social media. The above selection is a random sampling of websites and images from this most recent election day. 

This is why, for my curation of these materials, I would be interested in a selection of websites, articles, videos, etc. to be displayed inside a museum. Thinking of the kind of visualized mapping that we saw at the advanced visualizaiton lab, I would want to present a broad selection of websites containing materials related to the election. Were it possible (money being no object) I would want to organize this information around a couple of different defining factors

1. Visitor traffic: What are the demographics of those that view this material? (Age, location, party affiliation, etc.)

2. Website sponsorship: Who owns and funds the website?

3. Links to Social Media: Where is this information being shared and by whom?

Organizing this information around these three factors would be an interesting and informative way to curate a show. 

Course Blog #20 (Justin): You Aren’t There!

I’ve never been in a voting booth. Touch screen voting, hanging chad, lever pulling – none of these have been a part of my adult life. It’s not that I don’t vote; I’ve just never been physically present in my voting precinct on the day of the election. My name is Justin Rincker and I’m a chronic absentee voter.

In the democratic process, I am the illegitimate member of the family – the voter no one wants to acknowledge. I don’t get to stand in line with other dutiful electors or proudly display a sticker on my chest after visiting the polls. Instead, my voting experience involves quietly requesting a ballot through the mail. I receive forms signed by official voting dignitaries who shame me for creating extra paperwork and warn me that not returning my ballot within a specified time from the election (within 14 days!) is a federal offense. Even if I leave the ballot completely blank, I must get it into the hands of the election officials to avoid a courtroom appearance. My voting experience is akin to taking a college entrance exam – number 2 pencils, scantron bubbles, and a cheaply-made booklet which smudges my hands with ink. It is neither glamorous nor concurrent with other election-day excitement. Alone, at home, I fill out the appropriate forms, lick the envelope I’ve been provided, and let the U.S. Postal Service carry away my ballot along with my cable and cell phone bills.

So, what is the appropriate place for this experience within the archive? It lacks the theatricality of the normal voting experience – no queuing, curtain pulling, or card punching. And its performativity may be stripped away as well, since my ballot could be received and counted days after the winners have been announced! The forms (the request to vote absentee, the official absentee ballot, the envelope which prominently displays the ‘confidential’ nature of the contents inside) can certainly be placed within the archive. But how boring! Where is the interactive display in which schoolchildren sit at a replica of my kitchen table, furiously erase pencil marks when they realize they’ve filled in the wrong bubbles and gag on the cheap glue used on the snail mail envelope? On second thought, perhaps just filing away the official forms in the stacks of a museum is an appropriate way for the archive to reflect the absentee voter experience – the easily overlooked archival material standing in for the easily overlooked voter.