I was invited to participate in a ‘get out the vote’ event at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire campus. The afternoon event was run by McIntyre Library and sponsored by the student senate . The event included voter registration tables, a marching and accapella band and live visual art on 12’ x 8’ panel.
My idea was to try and structure the development of a painting via rank choice voting. I set out bins with the traits a creature might have a proclivity towards. Passerby could vote by placing a stone to “rank” the most desired traits of the animal and thus evolve the painting. Originally I was going to paint on a canvas draped over 3 sheets of 4’x8’ plywood, but the wind changed my mind. Kind of hard to paint on a ballon! So I adapted and painted directly on the plywood.
Rank choice voting - Alaska and Maine have it. So does Minneapolis Minnesota. I’ve read both sides of arguments. It’s not a perfect system. It seems to me, currently, candidates can be somewhat limited in terms of what they have to offer. Do I think it will solve our political divide? No. But diversifying candidates may bring some new ideas on how we might evolve to find commonalities among our differences. We all need clean air and water, for example. We need money to not be guiding factor of choices to have a democracy. Term limits and fair maps would help democracy as well.
BY THE BY “heart” and “wings” won the prize for most votes and evolved the painting as such.
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