Analyzing vs Taking A Stance

During the Daniel Shae lecture I found myself not quite satisfied with a lot of his answers. I felt like I might of been in the minority in that opinion based on a few different talks about it I participated in afterwards. I actually really liked his work, and found him to be competent and expressive about what drove him to make certain work. I felt like since it was so close to the election I may have been viewing it through a very augmented lens. He mentioned his work was political in nature and I suppose I expected more along those lines, and I believe his completed piece would have fulfilled my expectations for politically motivated art. The only criticism I had on his work was the cruising/construction site portion. I appreciated his honesty in admitting he just thought it was funny. It felt like that needed his personal viewpoint on the issue to carry any meaning.

What struck me was his analytical stance in his art. That is something I really appreciate normally, and strive to do in my own work and life in general. But for some reason on that day, that really bothered me. And I really think it had to do with the election and the headspace everyone was in. It was through no fault of his own that I found the method of observing and not taking a stance on issues infuriating. As I do whenever I feel something too strongly, I attempted to check myself first for the answer. I'm quite positive what bothered me about it was that I often don't like taking strong stances on things. I prefer to keep messages remote so anyone could potentially identify with them. I'm the type that sleeps on emotional actions to see if they are still there in the morning. I think this lack of engagement, by me and many others, is the essence of what's been wrong with how we interact with each other. This provided me with the urge to include more of a difinitive meaning to my work, words, and actions. I will always continue to analyze things from as many viewpoints as possible. But it's become clear to me we need more action than observation lately. So I'm going to try to incorporate that feeling into my future endeavors.