cool text bro

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Week 10 (11/12): Galerie de Difformite (Part 2)

This my writing responses are from a single line that I wrote about being impressed by the amount of people that have participated in doing exercises related to the book.

Just because I'm maybe not excited to participate in it. The gallery of people participating is actually really impressive. I think any graphic designer today would kill to have the level of involvement and engagement with their int he same way people are responding and creating material. Even if these forms don't prescribe to contemporary status quo of "cool". The fact that people are accessing and completing these assignments is whats most important.

Also if one begins to truly interact with the book you may begin question doing these things. Is it more fun to think of the act of what you might do in the case of what its suggesting and leave it open ended so that if you arrive or flip to this page and read the prompt again you can channel a new idea. Or do you commit to it fully and carry it and cement that page in time. Depending on what you do you may alter the book as whole so that one can never really access the information in the same way ever again. This is both great and problematic depending on if you prefer to repeatedly access it over time if you seek finality.

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Week 9 (11/5): Galerie de Difformite (Part 1)

Galerie de Difformite is one part etsy art book, one part choose your own adventure, one part literary mom scrapbooker, one part concrete poetry, one visual creative exercise, one part experimental text, one rpg in the form of 90s low brow graphic design, one part mystery novel gameplay set meets deviantart user account book project.

It's equal parts cheesy, yet very sincere in its approach devoid of any sense of irony, which somehow makes the rest of it ok. That sounds kind of snooty. But I was thinking if something like this was presented in a different way what my opinion of it would be. I might think its even more ridiculous if there was self awareness to it. A defiant act of "look how cool we are with this edgy book". I actually prefer that it operates in the visual vernacular that it does.

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Week 6 (10/15): Points of View

What remains

I found this set of eclectic 3 readings to be pretty interesting. Diaristic photos of even the most mundane things have an interesting way of storytelling and communicating. These paired with the fact that they share a significance of her meeting with her mother allow use to create an internal dialogue and perhaps project our own familial experiences in the instances of these photos and create and interplay with the words she is providing us.

The House of Illness.

The images in house of illness. Something immediately put me in the headspace of when they give those spiders different drugs and they show what kind of webs they make, and then I went to that artist that took different drugs and made self portraits of himself and what those looked like under the influence. But after you get the buzzed article allure you understand this is what goes on inside someones head maybe isn't entirely there, and that and once you begin to dissect and unpack what that means and juxtapose that with someone just being "creative" perhaps you are capable of appreciating ones own sanity a little bit more.

Pictures and Early Words

The simple typographic gestures with the notations are enough to hold your interest at-least for a little while. When reading you begin give emphasis and precident over other words that also have similar gestures and begin to create a sense of hierarchy and perhaps 2nd meanings and question perhaps purpose of one over the other. For example long appearing twice but it stretched out and stacked one time and another time it only marked with a pen.

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Reading Response Fun Home / 10-1-2014

If Alison Bechdel has taught us anything. Its ok to sort of hate your family and love them at the same time. That in most case mundane family things can be warped to make them be as cool as you want as long as you pitch them as thats sort of how you remember them. All half jokes aside. Fun home is a decent read and a interesting way to recall history. And for someone such as Alison who perhaps a very important part of making sense of her past and finding ways to give meaning and create justifications for things that had maybe been in question her life... This project was an important part in clarifying those things. Aside from that my favorite part from Fun Home is perhaps her play between intentional and non-intentional humor. Some of the moves textually and visually are witty. That are bit sardonic mixed with a certain nod and wink gesture to them. One of my favorite examples of that is when she is on the bed and she is on the phone with her parents and if she's been reading any good books and the books she have been reading have been more or less "radical" in nature and clearly indicative of the scene with her and her gf as well as her current state of mind. But also the line who embalms the undertaker when he dies.

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dont remember what this one was for either.

do remember it being called pizza boner tho

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I don't remember what assignment this was for.

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the poetics of space assignment from 10/29

A drawing/ map as a detailed recollection of my childhood basement.

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fear exercise

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body map assignment from 11/19

guest speaker workshop

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poem assignment from 10/8

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The poetics of space assignment 10/29

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Maps and things

Maps and Theories.

From a theoretical standpoint... That not everyone views a map as the same thing or understands its purprose across the bored.

The text proposes things like "when is a map not a map but a picture."

Also concepts of identicalness "if a map was identical with the territory, it would literally be the territory."

Other things got me thinking a map can act as like a low fi person.  moderator or mediator.

In that it provides, directions and context. It indicates and signifies boundaries and politely lets you know when you've gone to far.... I think back to when I remember seeing drawn maps on the kitchen table from my parents friends about how to get places. Sometimes those maps are an extension of the person. Often times we consider a map to be neutral.

There is an instance where my dad came to first visit my mom in Wisconsin... And the directions she gave him were relative to her. It was sort of the local vernacular and ment nothing to him. Basically he got lost in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin.

A Map of the World

For the map of the world book. Some of the illustrations remind me of infographics from IL magazine.  http://www.francescofranchi.com/projects/editorial/intelligenceinlifestyle http://gridness.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/intelligence-in-lifestyle-3.jpg

Various Pieces / Laura Vena

 In this the most interesting thing is the redrawing of maps after disaster, drought, flooding, fault shifts etc... Granted we have digital technology to allow satellites to give us real time data. But I feel like we still see printed maps regularly. I wonder about city streets and maps like that to. Like what things in the environment still exist and what has shifted or disappeared. Maps manifest our consciousness to some level providing a vagueness of where things are whether its large scale or small scale. 

Additional thoughts. I also like the ideas of maps being macro and micro. Even though the map of the world is incredibly pulled out. It was on the simplest maps we have. Meanwhile a map of town although smaller is in many ways much more complex.`

Also thinking about these maps sometimes present a sense of self worth, or pride, or sense of belonging. Like someone that would have a map of chicago on there was says. I'm from chicago I know these places, This is where I live or I spent a great deal of time. There is also a sense of enjoyment of being able to say you know where something is or how to get there.

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Final project proposal

Make a book or series of images in relation to an art project I had started before and I've been sitting on what to do with it.

I made screenshots of anytime the name Dave or David was mentioned on Craigslist Missed connections I did this for about 2ish years.

This culminated with me having an actual missed connection with a very elaborate series of things related to that.

I would create fictional incidents about what was happening in those incidence.

Or I would create some graphic text visuals in relation to the my actual craigslist missed connection. All the things surrounding that incident and giving it life and visual explanation.

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A Humument / Response / David Chathas

The initial phases of the project remind subversive art project where things re-enter into spaces unknown, modifying, manipulating, or improving.

Things like people putting there mix tapes into record stores. Or people doing fake album covers, people sewing tags or messages into thrift stores.

For me whats interesting about this project is his initial criteria of the price. Then obviously the mass labor intensiveness of these many design intervention vignettes.

It seems as if there is a sincerity in the project both to improve the initial piece, but also a personal fulfillment for him to make something. It plays off ideas of using content that is outside his own thought to arrive at new form and visuals. In look at various pages it seems like its a puzzle, but without know what the final image will be. Less about what it should be but more what it could be given the information and materials at hand.

Reading his description of the project it seems very much a labor of love. There is something about the intensive and continuous work effort of projects like this that make me question their purpose and the persons sanity as well as their time management. As cool as the thing is, I wonder what else they could be doing or making if they were focusing their energies towards other things.

One of the other things I found interesting was the intentional purity of some of the pages... Just leaving them blank or very marginal alterations because of his fondness or connection.

Away from a critical outlook and more toward a formal and visual critique. I think its interesting how how you could read this as one whole story with the new highlighted text or consider them simple single poemish/short stories for each page. The visuals that surround it also add to the mystery some being representational and others being non-sequitor allow for multiple entry points and a more organic interpretation to the text rather then a straight forward illustration or photographic that is ment to communicated at a hyper rate and provide visual satiation in terms of efficiency of image communication.

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The poetics of space response.

In this dynamic rivalry between house and universe, we 

are far removed from any reference to simple geometrical 

forms. A house that has been experienced is not an inert 

box. Inhabited space transcends geometrical space. 

In this dynamic rivalry between house and universe, we 

are far removed from any reference to simple geometrical 

forms. A house that has been experienced is not an inert 

box. Inhabited space transcends geometrical space. 

I would like to analyze this part of the poetic spaces. Although it seems obvious the energy of a space lived in is a very interesting thing. Homes away form homes. The house you grew up in. Your first apartment. Your studio becomes a home. There is the age old argument about what defines a house and what defines a home. The emotion, feeling, and activities that manifest themselves into each place. The efforts or lack of effort put into those dwellings. Home is especially interesting and important to me at this moment.

1. Because I illegally live in a space under the radar through secret access.

2. I love where I came form and grew up. I am satisfied with that area and surrounding but find it lacking opportunity and thus choose to abandon what it has to offer at this moment.

3. Future home and house. As our understanding of community and housing shifts, renting vs buying. Green homes, modular homes, small vs large, tiny houses, gentrification, affordable housing as a universal right, giving shelter, or the willingness to not participate in the housing market.

But if we go back to inhabitance home, house, or living space provides such a wealth of potential poetry exist out of this. We spend so much time with it, many repetitive movements, things of grave importance or negligental things which I’m not sure is a word but I’ll use it.

Now I’ll write  a poem about my current home.

Between the stacks slanted pressed plywood.

Resting at approximately 81 degree angle.

and the rubbermaid box of God knows what.

I lay.

I lay my 2 layers of puzzle mats.

I lay my 2 layers of blankets.

I lay.

I lay my body.

And all those I lack glamour.

I gain character.

I am off the grid within the grid.

and…

Well that’s fine with me.

10-29-2014

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comics as poetry pt II

I should also mention I like Ned's work a lot to. I like that these drawings act as a form of poetry in their singularity. I wish his website made it slightly easier to read them but If I was looking at them In person I would have no issue with the legibility readability. His poor use of frames and windows isn't helping.

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Comics as poems

These are great this might be one of my favorite things we've looked at so far. They read more as individual art pieces. Cragheads work was especially exciting to me. Looking at all of these they remind of of the heroin comic strip I posted below. Something poetic but also room for determination, speculation, interpretation.

Although not directly related they also sort of reminded me of Brad Neelys comics mainly because they said "neely". But Brad Neelys work also has  poignant writing to it that is as much tied to image as the image is to the words. 

Most of all I like that these are witty, spunky, a little satirical, or cynical. They are self aware and making some sort of comment on something. Also there is a level of sincerity and niceness to under embellished and less produced element of them.

Last comment. Referring back to craghead's work. His 30 days of comics are also nice explorations in form. Its interesting to see that you can literally make a "comment" from a collection of mark-making and composition to tell or create a story and with a simple signifier to act as catalyst to put everything into motion. An example of this would be the seemingly abstract things and the the basic rendering of a dog in relation to those you begin to think different about the work.

http://creasedcomics.com/comics