In collaboration with Aurelia Friedland and Brooklyn Brown

The Supplementary Census is an exploration in collective and individual idealism. Making initial experiments in the location of 939 Maple Avenue, Los Angeles — a warehouse / artist collective whose goal is to transform their space into a home, urban art gallery, and lifestyle.

Questions:
What happens to individual ideals when confronted with other’s ideals?
How does one negotiate with the projection of oneself publicly mediated context?

Our initial experiments were developed with the hidden agenda to possibly instigate, or provoke, reveal the differences or similarities of ideals which have been flowing throughout the space and its inhabitants. This investigation revealed hidden thresholds:

idealism/reality
public/private
individual/collective

Proposal Focus: Multi faceted relationships with each other and space. A space which lacks certain pre-existing structure offers room for physical and emotional idealism.

The Proposal: A structured system facilitating space for reflection and emergent ideals. In turn resulting in not quantitative data but more qualitative data.

The Supplementary Census: A supplement package which is geared towards households of more than 4, with different last names — a mixed living environment.

The goal of the proposal, from my point of view, was to develop a borderline dystopian system which facilitated the individual subliminal urge to reflect upon the life choices it makes, the interactions he or she has with others, and the objects which one chooses to live with in their life. The system and its objects were created as a means to be less invasive as the experiments our group carried out. Banking on the notion that a subtle system can be just as effective than an intrusive one. Thus, the reason for making it part of the existing Census package. Our goal wasn’t to negate or remove the existing census but to live with it. The system also relies heavily on the user to take note of their reflections and in turn outwardly project those reflections back into their environment, specifically with their collaborators and even more macro; to the rest of society. Thus creating a self-emerging dynamic structure, built from the simplicity and recurrence of our supplemental system.

Sample of our initial interviews.