Untapped

The predecessor to the piece Public vs. Private (Untapped fig. 2), Untapped was created in response to the structural anxieties that are caused within students in school-to-prison pipelines. A singular 1930's school desk, Untapped includes a sensor--activated from an approaching—caused the pencil on the desk to tap. These neurotic motions intend to ask the following: why does anxiety plague so many individuals within systems of education? How are anxieties derived from a lack of access to conversations of civic obligations and inquiry? Why do we so often attribute individual children as failures versus the structure as whole? In the mechanization of these anxieties, the piece seeks to create a playfulness within the lag time of the pencil taps--one that is reminiscent of pencil tapping contests--in order to engage the curiosity of the viewer for these more structural issues.