Experimental Writing, Film, Sound:
Dear Rachel, I Love You

Project Description:

This project is comprised of the excerpts from Internet searches and Internet responses, two photographs, an eight-minute video, and an audio recording taken from 12:00 AM to 12:00 PM on March 28th at the site of the message. Do not listen to the audio clip in its entirety, but follow the guidelines (5-7 indiscriminate minutes in the middle of the night). Play the audio clip while the project notes (and other information found below) are read. I discovered and then photographed a piece of graffiti found on the York St. bridge of the Thames River in London, Ontario.  The graffiti’s message reads, “Dear Rachael, I love you so much, and think you’re the most beautiful and smart girl in the world!”

“Dear Rachael, I Love You” is my attempt at solving a mystery about conceptual art through a conceptual process.  R.L. Raymond is a poet-photographer who works extensively in downtown London, and his urban work has a strong influence my interest in the found message.  Alexis Silaidis, one of my peers, suggested I examine George Baird’s Cultural and Political Theory: An Interpretation, which argues that street photography is an important part of the construction of the public space itself. This message is definitely in a public space: the message is graffitied beside a bike path that is used daily by many Londoners for recreation and travel.  The message becomes part of my impression of London and to the physical and emotional shape of my time spent in the city. “Dear Rachael, I Love You” is a search into the memory of each individual interviewed.  Their impressions of “Rachael” are closely linked to their own feelings about public declarations of love and the fragility of love and relationships.  I found the message captivating because it is so un-ironic: it lacks the inanely crude or hyper-political elements usually found on overpass walls like this. The Writer may be a lunatic or a saint. Rachael may be a goddess or a prostitute (or both, in either case). What is important, and what we understand, as George Baird argues, is the photograph itself is a piece of the landscape because of the answer it elicits from viewers.  Likewise, my photograph of a public letter of unabashed love can never truly be conceptualized: the people I asked and myself will never know what the Writer meant, or what Rachael thought of it.  We are left only with our own reflections and our own experiences about the subject matter—love.  I captured these reflections on video.

Photo Documentation:

March 10th, the wall looked like this.

March 28th, the wall looked like this.

Everyone in the video responded to the information on the second wall.

When filming interviews, I asked: “who do you think is the Writer is?  Who do you think Rachael is?”  I couldn’t tell them what I thought, nor could they watch what others had said.  Everyone in the room during the filming of some of the interviews had already been interviewed or weren’t going to be interviewed at all.

The video can be found on YouTube here: http://youtu.be/SIsQDkstoKU

When I asked the same two questions of Facebook and Twitter, only one person responded on Facebook and no one responded via Twitter.

Phil James, via Facebook: " It's unfortunate that the author separates intelligence from beauty."

The Search for Rachael: Some Facts

There are 13 ‘Rachaels’ listed that are living in London who allow their profile to be searched through Facebook’s search engine.

There are 4 ‘Rachaels’ listed in the Western University Faculty, Staff and Student Directory.

Telephone directories only search for a last name ‘Rachael’, and there were no names found in the London directory.

The Characters, in order of appearance:
(To be read this after watching the video, for context.)

Alex Carey is graduating this year with an Honours Specialization in English Literature and a Minor in Creative Writing. He received an honorable mention in the 2013 Alfred R. Poynt Award in the Department of English and Writing and volunteers as a reader and social media editor for The Rusty Toque. He is from Guelph, Ontario and he usually works at a summer camp for July and August, but now that he is graduating, he is looking for more boring and adult ways to earn a paycheque.