Lecture 001

Personal Future ‘72

After attendance is taken, the first 5 minutes of class will be dedicated to free-writing in a journal dated a half century in the future. Date entry the same day you are writing, but add 50 years to it. You are the same age you are now. You are still in art school, in Pittsburgh, but the year is 2072. Don’t plan a story, just start writing. Let it evolve over time. (You may choose paper or digital, just so long as you are consistent over the semester)

What do you believe in? How do you know what you know? Why do you like what you like? Are you a consumer? A product? Both? Are you able to think critically and creatively about what you are influenced by? Connect to various thrulines (see above) and/or current events.

It is 2072, I am an art student

The Comet by W.E.B. Du Bois

Messenger: Jim Davis Gril: Julia

A messenger went into the vault to pick up 2 records for the president, but the comet crushed the Earth right when the messenger is down in the vault. The messenger survived, but almost everybody else died of "deadly gas."

The messenger, a black working-class, found a living human locked in a room: a white girl about 25 years old. The girl wanted to find her father but soon realized that they should instead go to Harlem to search the city. However, no living body was found. They then try to use a long-line telephone to find living souls. But there was no answer on the phone. When the girl realized that the messenger is probably the only living human on Earth besides her, she felt insecure and ran away, and then ran back again because she felt more insecure being alone.

They then drove to her father's office and sat on the roof to have meals. They discovered that human distinction becomes small at this point. The girl has no attributes as "rich" or "poor" or "white" or "black," but a "primal woman, mighty mother of all men to come."

Then the father came and found them (because the disaster only happened in New York), filling the world again with differences and race complexity.

History of Pittsburgh

The city of Pittsburgh is situated on land that has been continuously inhabited for over 16,000 years, serving as a home to members of the Adena, Hopewell, Monongahela, Lenape, Shawnee, Wyandot, Tisagechroami, Delaware, and Mohican communities before becoming a territory of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Iroquois Confederacy included the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora people, whose relationships with the land continue to this day. The Seneca name for Pittsburgh is Dionde:gâ.

(from Golan Levin)

History of Pittsburgh

Dionde:gâ
French and English colonization. The English won. In 1750.
Farmer's Wiskey Rebellion from 1783 after American Revolution
Steel Industry from 1875.
Pittsburgh Railway Riots at 1877, worker strike and destroy cars and rail engines
Becomes the arsenate in WWII
Air cleaning program after WWII
1970, lost competition in steal industry (Industry revolution, competator, lack of natural resources)
2007, not a center anymore