Up in Smoke...

My final project for my general projects course is turning out to be rather interesting... The entire course in itself has been rather interesting, but this final project is sending me deep into contemplation; far deeper than I would have thought.

Our first project was one reflecting on the city in which we live --in this case, where I am currently living: Santiago. We were sent out into a particular area of the city and asked to find something inspiring. The second project was a self-portrait through the use of your body. This last piece is supposed to be a portrait of everyone else through the use of objects. Basically, we were asked to think about "Que es 'un otro' para mi?" --What is 'an other' for me??? What separates everyone else in the world from me??? Normally when one thinks about this topic, it's in the sense of "What makes ME different from everyone else?", as in a self-portrait, but my professor has asked us to do the opposite and think of what defines everyone else.

Yet again, this project takes on a different context for me since I'm an obvious outsider here, and everyone really is different from me. At first, I foolishly thought that this would make the project easier, seeing as how everyone is so different from me. But I quickly realized that because there was so much that was different, it was extremely hard to pinpoint one thing to work with that would encompass everything; not to mention the fact that I've never been given the restriction of working with actual objects --we're talking in the ready-made sense...think duchamp (I know, I know...Duchamp has followed me all the way down here...I can't seem to get away from the man).

So I thought, and thought, and thought, and had nothing as of the night before class. And then on the bus home from class that night, it hit me: cigarettes. Everyone here smokes; everyone. It doesn't particularly bother me, but I have, at times, felt a bit out of place, being the only person in a group of people smoking. And smoking here isn't just something people do, it's a part of their lives, a part of who they are. There are numerous students who have done projects involving cigarettes, such as a photo documentation of everything one does in the morning from getting out of bed until the first cigarette of the day. So I decided to use cigarettes in a project of my own. I am no currently investigating the burning and ashing patterns of cigarettes...odd, I know. I'm going out buying packs of cigarettes (which are notably cheaper here), and simply lighting them and watching them burn in different positions and patterns. I've never been a fan of cigarettes, but now that I've sat and watched them burning, in a weird way, I like them. There's something about that thin line of suspension and tension between the ashes and the cigarette itself just before they fall and scatter on the ground below.

When I bought the first pack of cigarettes the other morning, I was expecting your typical box filled with rows of tightly packed cigarettes, but what I found, was as a particularly interesting advertisement on the seemingly normal box... Here's what I found:



A rather startling and disturbing image. The text translates to: "Don Miguel, Chilean, smoked for 20 years. Lost his larynx to cancer." The other side of the box was almost as surprising...



"Careful! These cigarettes are killing you"

I spoke with my professor about this and was informed that this is a relatively new step that's being taken in order to help lower the number of smokers in the country. Apparently Brazil already has a similar campaign as well. Definitely an interesting approach. I'm also rather shocked that the cigarette companies aren't fighting to keep these images off of the boxes. These cigarettes are from America, so are the photographs being put on boxes sold back home in the states as well??? And equally surprising was the reaction of the students in my class. One girl asked if she could have one of the cigarettes --which I obliged since I wasn't able to fit them all back in the box as it was-- and when she picked up the box and saw the picture, she immediately cringed and flipped the box over, replacing it on the table with the photograph side down. Maybe this will be effective... Although she did still take the cigarette...so maybe not.