Student: Yeah, we already did that.
Me: Did you just walk by or did you take a closer look?
Other student: No, most of us looked at the artworks before class.
Me: Is that true for everyone? (many in the class nod) Well, okay then, if you didn't see it, go after class. And when you're done, tell your friends about BICAS. See everyone on Thursday.
For a 30-person class of typically apathetic freshmen and sophomores, I was surprised at their awareness of the pop-up gallery outside that Kasey and I had set up only an hour prior. Sure, part of the success came in its strategic placement at the doors of the School of Art, but I can't help but think that, in an era of marketing and advertising, solicitation and consumerism has replaced daily communication for youth. Why does the latest petition receive ill will while the fashion and jewelry tents seem teeming with patrons on the UA Mall? Because, there is an attraction to commodities and materials. Despite the insinuations, I am not calling my students materialistic or politically shallow (okay, I did call them apathetic). In fact, many of them are free- and abstract-thinkers, but, to contextualize their generation, America has become an experience of and through things - whether through a screen, camera phone, iPod, and other commodities. Go to a concert and observe the sea of LCD screens battling back against the stage lights. Make whatever positive or negative opinion you want, but the essential nature of it all seems to be the attractiveness of seeing things and, in some cases, seeing through them. For my students on Tuesday, the pop-up gallery provided seeable commodities in an otherwise invisible path to class, drowned out and obscured by Ipod listening, cellphone conversations, and texting (and maybe sexting, too).
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