“the happiest day of my life”

Woooooah, talk about obsession. Michael Landy is one brave and dedicated artist. The concept is, im not gonna lie, very cool and the meaning behind it can be interpreted into so many ways. I for one could never, EVER, bring up the courage to go through with such a project. The idea and thought is unimaginable to me, I would be crushed, I would feel as if I had nothing left. But then again, to have everything taken away from you would let you be placed into the shoes of individuals who have lost everything, but the only difference (and a vital difference) between these unwilling families and Landy was that Landy choose to do this to himself.

To what, prove a point to himself?

You can never really tell an artists thoughts and meaning behind their work completely. He claims it wasn’t a criticism to consumerism and I don’t believe it was either. He was just trying to dig into his being and learn more about his identity and boy, I bet ANYONE would learn a lot about themselves if they personally destroyed every belonging they ever had. I don’t have the will power or the heart to destroy anything. I have enough trouble throwing things away, no matter how useless, I mean for god’s sakes I keep ALL OF MY RECIEPTS, all of them. I don’t know why really, I just cant bring myself to throw them away.

I think it would be interesting to see how he lived his life after the big destruction. Did he breakdown? Was he lost without his belongings? (Like I would be) It said that it was the happiest day of his life….really? I mean, he did choose to do this to himself so maybe the process really did help him and relieve him of his discomforts about his inner self. I wonder what all he learned about himself.

I personally think that I, like a lot of other Americans, am driven by consumerism. I love shopping and almost every belonging I own, no matter how trivial, I find special and important to myself. No, I don’t think that my belonging essentially make up the person I am, the people that mean the world to me do mainly, but my belongings act as frosting to my life, if you will.

They all have meaning to me.

Also, it was funny, or rather...ironic reading this article today because they mentioned how they broke down all of his belongings to the bare materials and just today in class we saw a piece where a student broke down a washer and dryer . I thought that was interesting how those two related.