The Marvel Universe Exposé

Description:
We would like to propose an installation project for your gallery. Our piece will be broadly themed on the popular Marvel Universe characters and its effect & reflection of culture. This installation will require your Media Box II display room (see Figure1-a). It will feature both physical and digital media components.

The three dimensional piece that will be used in this piece will be an enlarged book suspended above from the ceiling. It will be suspended by a string like web (see Figure 2), to add to the Spiderman theme related to Marvel. The large book will be made of black matte cardboard (see Figure 1-b). The size of this piece will approximate at 3 x 1.5 feet. It will be suspended in a way that in order to view the book, you will need to walk around it in three dimensional space and interact with it. The piece will suspend approximately 5 feet from the ceiling, leaving it about 6ft from the ground. Digitally we will project an image onto that book and the image overflow will reflect onto the wall and screen behind it. The projector will create a cinematic atmosphere by playing a loop of clips about the Marvel Universe of characters and create a uniqe impression based on the clips of historical and sociological material. The video content will be specific and particular to the meaning behind this installation.

Purpose:
The meaning of the juxtaposition of the comic book and the video clips is supposed to compare the time period depicted in the stories verses the actual events of the time period. The video will be a group of clips that will be played on a loop. The content starts on the great depression and continues on to world war two, the civil rights movement, the Iraq war, and then it will end in present with a speech from president Obama. Each clip is supposed to play off of one character or story line specifically, just as all the books came out around the same time and continue to be released at the same time, the footage can be connected to any of the stories as well the one specified below.

Specifically we had planned on the world war two clips to play off of captain America; because captain America had basically started as an American propaganda icon during the war and the cover of his first story depicts him punching out Hitler and fighting the Nazis. The civil rights video and images are meant to play off of the history of the X-Men, because much like black Americans during the 1960s the mutants of the comic were fighting for equal rights. The Iraq war can be played off of both the hulk and iron man because of their old and new story lines. Both of their new stories have to do with some aspect of war. Tony Stark's idea to create the iron man weapon happened after he was captured in Iraq or Afghanistan while selling some of his newest weapons, and the Hulk was created within David Banner while he and other scientists were doing chemical/ biological research testing for the military. Spiderman relates more to the psychological/personal struggle of any of these topics, being only a teenager when he gets his powers he has to struggle with what he should do with them. The Obama speech is partly geared towards Spiderman because there is a Spiderman issue called "Election Day" which focused on president Obama.

This installation will artistically challenge and expose the subtle yet significant political and social issues that effected society by using the juxtaposition of comic and historical instances.