The Administrative State
Date of Award
2007
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Freedland, Barry
Keywords
Art, Visual Art, Drawing, Installation, Art History, Institutional Critique
Area of Concentration
Art
Abstract
One of the many motivations in creating these drawings, photographs, and installations was working at Whole Foods a year ago. I'm not sure if I enjoyed working there. I had never been so intimately involved in an organization that tried so hard to "normalize" an employee's behavior. But through my own academic study of public and private administration I realized that Whole Foods' hierarchical structure was nothing to jump up and down about. My particular experience there fed into a broader interest of mine: my own personal interactions and unwanted reliance upon massive, impersonal, and unnoticed bureaucracies, how institutions structure our behavior, and how these hierarchies underwrite pathological conformity or nonconformity within its members. I'm interested in using organizations to get things done, using organizations to achieve goals beyond the reach of the individual and, reciprocally, organizations' effects upon the individual. Born into an invisible condition of hierarchy and conditioned to unseen chains of command, individuals and groups are invested with notions of what is normal, acceptable, and correct. After realizing this interest I've become attached to the idea of making objects and installations that disrupt the normal day-to-day activities that create and enact these implicit hierarchies.
Recommended Citation
Yates, Calder, "The Administrative State" (2007). Theses & ETDs. 3881.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/3881
Rights
This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.