It’s 3:30 am. I can’t sleep. I’m not productive. I have Europe on the brain. I’ll try to start blogging more. Maybe I’ll I have more short posts like this.

Burke Shartsis

Well ladies and gents, this project has come to an end today. It has been a great week of true reality television but unfortunately all great things must come to and end. For What is Reality’s last day on the SJSU campus I decided to do something a little different and see if anybody would notice. Rather then the typical bench scene I have been using I decided I would place it in a very public space that allowed for viewers to walk around the piece. My hopes was that people would end up looking through to see someone standing on the other side looking back in a much closer proximity then the scenes from other days allowed. But, thats all done now. As for the future, this sculpture is looking for a new home. Anyone interested in purchasing this piece for their private collection or for public display else where is more then welcome to contact me. All funds raised from the sale of this project will go to the Help Burke Travel Fund as it is in desperate need of funds. Anyone looking to donate to this lovely charity is also encouraged to contact me. Below is a finalized map of my installations various locations on the SJSU campus from this week as well as pictures from Friday’s location. For anyone visiting for the first time a complete description of the project can be found here. Lastly, I am looking for an accomplished photographer willing to take some interesting photos of this piece as photography is not my strong suit. Anyone interested please contact me ASAP. Thank you to everyone who has supported me in this project, helped with its construction, provided feedback, and/or simply accompanied me in the middle of the night while I moved it. You are all appreciated…

Burke Shartsis

Day three has come and gone and What is Reality? will be staring in its last roll on the SJSU campus tomorrow so be sure to find it if you haven’t already. This week long exhibition has been a real fun experience for me and thank you to anybody who has taken the time to speak with me about the piece or sent me emails in regards to it, you are all very much so appreciated. Below are pictures from today and an updated map for those wondering where it might have been. For anyone visiting for the first time today looking for more information on the project there is a complete explanation posted here. Thank you again for your time and I hope you can make it out to see this piece one last time tomorrow.

Burke Shartsis

What Is Reality? made its third appearance on the SJSU campus today. From what I could tell people enjoyed it. I have yet to get any comments here on the blog so I can’t really tell what people think outside of what people have told me in person while I was shooting pictures. There was a family of squirrels around while I was shooting pictures so I couldn’t resist taking a few pictures. I threw them up in the gallery for anyone interested. Also, I would like to apologize for anybody who visited the site earlier today only to find out it was down. There were a few issues to be taken care of but all is settled. Anywho… for those who missed the piece today there is a map below showing its last three locations and be sure to keep an eye out for it tomorrow as it will, of course, be somewhere new. For anyone who discovered this project today and is looking for more information there is a full description of the piece posted two days ago here. That is all for now…

Burke Shartsis

As promised here are some pictures of my project What Is Reality? and its latest location. For those of you who are visiting for the first time, a project description can be found here in yesterday’s post. That is all for now… keep an eye out for it tomorrow as it will, of course, be in a new location providing a different look at the reality that surrounds us.

Burke Shartsis

What is Reality? is my response to societies fascination with reality television. This piece is designed and constructed from scrap steel to simply frame the world around us and change our perception of reality; the idea being that real life is far from perfect. This installation piece invites both the viewer and the subject to partake in the viewing experience. Simply find the marking on the ground and enjoy.

As each day of the week goes by I will be moving the piece to a new location on campus. I will leave its location a mystery so as to provide a sort of scavenger hunt; however, I will report here each night on its previous locations with a new photo so be sure to come back for updates.

Burke Shartsis

::Update::
Here are the pictures from today and a map from its location. Be sure to check back tomorrow for pictures and an updated map of where this project has been.

I have recently installed an art piece on the SJSU campus in front of the Health Center. For those of you visiting my blog looking for more information, I ask that you please return soon or subscribe to my rss feed for updates. I am currently busy putting together content on the piece and will be posting shortly. Thank you for your time.

Burke Shartsis

If that is not the most amazing title I have ever seen I don’t know what is. I have been saving this slot, my 100th blog post for a while. I wanted to make it something big so I figure what is bigger then this, a complete site refresh, a fully functioning portfolio (with rss), and to top it off I am blogging into triple digits.

So lets talk site updates. I have made a number of small changes that I feel have added up to make for a pretty significant update. The main flash site’s animations and structure have been revised and now allow for deep linking to pages. I updated some content and made sure to add a link to my photo gallery. The last and by far biggest update to my site was a complete portfolio revamp. I axed the flash portfolio in favor of a more flexible and dynamic solution powered by Plogger3. The newest Plogger version added theme support so I made my very own heavily modified portfolio theme (I’m working on making this available to those who are interested so hang in there). By switching away from a flash based portfolio gallery I was able to take advantage of Ploggers backend and its easily modifiable frontend feature set. What all this means to you is I will be able to update easier and more often. In terms of content, I added all of my school work from my design classes to date (DSGD 99,104, and 105) and am working on putting up more. The structure is all there though now so updates should be fairly often.

With that said I think it is time for you to start browsing the site. Leave me comments here and tell me what you think and now that I have crested the 100th blog post, I will be blogging on a more frequent basis.

Burke Shartsis