Sean Schumacher (b. 1986) retells stories through breadcrumbs, trailing hints about an ignored or forgotten past, the whispered half-truths of secrets and rumors, or fleeting narratives told through equally temporary means. Through copious research, unusual applications of everyday technologies, and added humor, he provides viewers a sense of the moments, places, and narratives that have been lost, or are simply going unnoticed around them.

Having grown up in Las Vegas before relocating to pursue a graduate degree, Schumacher’s most recent work explores these themes through his unique hometown—a place with a short history unpreserved, a built landscape repeatedly razed, and a population that has consisted for most of its history of long-term tourists shifting ever-further from any area with the slightest hint of age. Seeking an understanding of the city’s urban fabric as a whole through an investigation of maps, property surveys, and place names left displaced by the implosion of casinos and the abandonment of neighborhoods, he seeks an understanding of what being a local means when the person and the place are altered by distance and destruction, and what damage the ideals of the twentieth century’s disdain for the past had on its disposable locality.

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Sean Schumacher

Outside Reading

Two cards presented in library books

The internet age presents us with examples of supposed-expertise at all turns; hardly any website that sells products will also not hesitate to show what users who have previously bought those products think of their experiences. Outside reading applies portions of the most well-known of these user reviews and places them in a real environment—library books—so patrons can apply whatever shaky qualifications they may have in reviewing a work and make it known to those who come after them. While patrons are always the ones who create and leave the reviews, anyone who stumbles across one later can further the project by leaving feedback on that review, acting as a check on the unqualified reviewer.

The front of the cards
The front of the card.
The back of the card
The reverse side of the card.

This project was produced distributed to the public in the Fall 2009 issue of the Vagus Nerve, an art and literary publication for UNLV students. Copies of the Vagus Nerve are available at many campus locations, including UNLV's Moyer Student Union, the CSUN Student Government offices, and at the Arts Factory downtown.

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