Explore Posterous

This was erected overnight.

I stumbled upon this Burton-esque hand sculpture walking from class yesterday on campus at Ball State. Interestingly enough, this statue was getting many impromptu camera phone pictures and videos taken, but no creator in sight. There is no title, no credits, no names, no face, just whispering among interested observers. 

BRIEF HISTORY OF COLLEGE CAMPUS WALKING PATHS:

1. Space planners are  highly concerned by how people will get from one place to another. 

2. They build contained and highly specific pathways to be used for walking to and from important buildings. 

3. College students don't care.

We have all heard the phrase, "form follows function" but as my friend Mark Vandennakker once told me, "Well, sometimes function finds a form." This simply means that sometimes, a user of paths will make a deliberate decision to walk off the path. If enough people follow this new idea, then a path through the grass is eventually made common. The functionality of the path creates the form. This is basically taking the power of design out of the hands of the architect and giving that power to the people.

The reason why this sculpture caught my eye to include in the blog is because it really makes the path something different than what it was before. Now people notice this small area off the beaten path and realize that there is more to decorating a college campus than they might have previously thought. What is intensely interesting to me is this question. What would happen if, like the new paths, people would follow the example of this artist and begin creating their own artistic meaningful places around campus? 

Imagine! 

Not as creepy and weirdly touching as the "if David Lynch directed a Goofy Movie" mash-up, but good all the same