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This personal project of mine involved photographing little props that came with dolls, and the controversy that follows these tiny pieces of cardboard and plastic when they are taken out of context from the doll. This particular  book/magazine prop came amongst other props with 1965 Slumber Party Barbie. The limited amount of space to write, and the lack of mainstream knowledge about eating disorders at the time  resulted in the creators writing "don't eat" as the instruction in the book. When separated away from the doll, it can resemble a fully sized alternative, pro-eating disorder zine. I found it astounding that when removed from the slumber party doll, this prop seems so depressing. It is interesting that when something so innocent as a doll's prop is taken out of context, it appropriates a whole new meaning.

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The following work is the introduction of the University of Western Ontario's plagarism policy, typed into an English to "HaXor" or l33t-speak (phonetically terrible text many youth use on internet forums and gaming sites to annoy others). This mini exercise is a preemptive to a group project I am working on. We are trying to convey the idea of information bombarding us today as a result electronic sources; We process vast quantities of information everyday, but as a result, we are not fully understanding the information we are given.:

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MP3 Response: Advertising Secrets This track performed by the band Negativland spliced up various radio advertisements and talk shows to create completely different messages than the message the audience was intended to hear in the original radio broadcast. From listening to the track on UbuWeb, I concluded that Advertising Secrets was trying to express the advertisements from the viewpoint of the business marketer; a viewpoint that does not care about the values of the customer or client, but only their company's bottom line. Negativland's appropriation of radio advertisements made me as a listener think in depth about all the recent impulse purchases I have made due to advertisements.  It made me realize that the feel-good method in advertising has become subliminal and subconscious to us in our everyday lives and controls what we buy based on our incredibly fake positive views of products -- the happier the paid actor appears in the commercial, the more we recognize positivity with the product.

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Essay Response: Willy vs. Jimmy: Which Typing Monkey Get All the Bananas?

  This essay by Neil M. Hennessey explores the possibility of the first 100 worlds in the works of William Shakespeare of James Joyce being produced by a computer generated typing processor. Hennessey breaks down Hamlet and Finnegan's Wake into their individual characters, and then using scientific formulas, finds the probability of each letter combination being typed. From his findings Hennessey concludes that Hamlet is the easier piece to reproduce because of the repetition of letters used, and Finnegan's Wake, though it has a simpler vocabulary, it was more complex to type due to the more extensive use of the alphabet. Hennessy ironically finishes the essay by stating that his formulas, while poor in execution, can be considered a confident piece to determine literary outcomes because literary criticisms are not an exact science. I enjoyed reading about this essay on the possibility of chance, however I wish that Hennessy explained his formulas more thoroughly. I assume that his target audience members, like myself, are not knowledgeable in the fields of math and science (hence our social science and art degrees), therefore had difficulty understanding the formulas. I found it really humorous that the simpler piece of work was in fact the more complex piece to type, and enjoyed his witty and sarcastic concluding sentence.

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Essay Response: Concrete Poetry Around the World This multi-volume research essay by Mary Ellen Solt looks at various pieces of concrete poetry from 17 different countries. The piece is set out to see if there are any similarities to the original concrete poet, Eugen Gomringer, and conclude if there is by definition a "classical" form of concrete poetry. These essays historically observe concrete poetry and conclude that there is no "classical" version of the art form, for the art form itself is meant to branch out and defy traditional poetry. While I enjoyed reading this piece (especially as a geographer observing different nationalities' definitions of concrete poetry), I would of preferred if Solt used more examples from non-Western society and developing nations. By using examples from vastly different cultures, there would of been more variety in the poems selected to use in the essay.

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Essay Response: From Line to Constellation

Eugen Gomringer poetically states in this Ubuweb essay that restriction and simplification of literary works is developing, and expresses that this restriction can break poetry down to it's very essence. He says that the simplification of poetry makes it visually appealing and an organic function in society. Gomringer draws upon the constellation poem for an example. A constellation poem, he says, is a poem consisting of a basic word, that encloses itself around other words to form a cluster of words, like a cluster of stars. He concludes that the constellation poem, while being very restricting, is open-ended for it allows the audience to add onto the poem. I sympathized with Gomringer's idea that simplicity will equal higher quality poems and more inspiration, however I do not see this method of experimental writing being conducted poetically today. Gomringer also chose a poor example to use, because constellation poems are a rare occurrence. I researched constellation poems and could only find poetry about constellations, not the constellation structure.

This is my attempt at using Gomringer's philosophy in practice. I like words though, so this is hard. Perhaps this will turn out better if I try to restrict myself and write this response as if I was on twitter:

Gomringer's 1968 essay predicted the compressed language we use in social media and said it would make us more poetic. How ironic. (130 characters with spaces)

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Essay Response: Some Differences Between Poetry & Stand-up Comedy

This Ubuweb essay by Mairead Bryne is meant to discuss differences of stand up comedy and poetry. Though the thesis states there are differences between stand-up comedy and poetry, Bryne uses comedy to draw together conclusions that there are very few differences between the two mediums. Bryne further concludes that poetry is at the center of all literary art forms.

I personally enjoyed that comedy and poetry were both used in this essay to draw upon the similarities and differences in the two different mediums. Using the mediums livened up an otherwise mundane topic. The poems Bryne composed were actually conceptual writing pieces of instances from stand up comedy, which made me enjoy the piece more- I liked how the poetry could relate to the subject matter.

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Experimental Artist: Neil Wax

Neil Wax is an independent contractor based in Los Angeles. Originally working part time in the sign industry, Wax took his creative urge and knowledge in the sign industry to create labels and warning signs that appear typical at first glance, but then become provocative and unexpected when one takes the time to read the packaging.

I just discovered Neil Wax through my personal tumblr account. I decided to write about him because unlike some artists I have seen who deface stereotypical packaging and use unusual slogans, Wax combines traditional/stereotypical packaging and font choices, but uses unexpected phrases. The combination of traditional packaging and unusual phrases makes his creativity stand out more and gain more recognition on social media sites such as Tumblr.

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Video Response: Super Mario Bros. 3 WITH LYRICS Super Mario Bros. 3 WITH LYRICS combines the original theme song of the popular video game Super Mario Bros. 3 with lyrics and vocals performed by youtubers "brentalfloss" and Matt Vee. This song nostalgically sums up the feelings and impressions of 1990NES version of the game to the adult audience. At the same time, this song also  mentions and acts out cultural references from the time period, such as the Nintendo PowerGlove and blowing inside game cartridges to make them work. I think this song and video demonstrates a fun way to explore experimental and creative writing by attempting to come up with catchy lyrics from an unconventional source.

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MP3 Response: Inuit Vocal Games

Inuit throat singing is the act of one or more singers (usually female) using breathing and vocal chord techniques to produce sounds that imitate nature and spiritual beings. Often this form of singing is described as a game, where the one singer tries to outperform the other. The concept of Inuit throat singing is not new to me, however these MP3 tracks were the first time I had heard throat singing without an instrumental background. These songs, performed by various artists, were incredible to listen to. Many of the artists were able to imitate the sounds of geese, caribou, wolves, and other animal sounds so well that I had to remind myself I was listening to people and not clips from nature. The women featured are excellent appropriation and experimental artists who somehow manage to create speech out of speechless art.

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Article Response:

Super Dad hacks video game, transforms hero for his daughter

  Summary: This article by Winda Benedetti interviews Mike Hoye, a Toronto based tech entrepreneur and dad to a young girl named Maya. Hoye hacked the storyline in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker to change the protagonist Link from a hero into a heroine. Link received the gender change because Maya was identifying as Link when she played the game with her dad, and because there are so few video games with strong female characters. Hoye hopes that when Maya is able to fully read the game, she will appreciate the effort her dad put into the game and understand that she can be a strong and independent person who does not need to rely on others to rescue her.

I loved that this dad put so much effort into changing the game so there was a female protagonist. By just replacing male pronouns with female pronouns, Hoye appropriated the story of game from being the typical story of the boy rescuing the damsel in distress into the adventure of a tiny girl conquering obstacles no one would think would be possible.

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I found this meme on someecards.com about the difficulty of reading, so I decided to take the original image and turn it into a bunch of nonsense text. The result: it looks just like a pretty picture.

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Video Response: Space Ghost Coast to Coast, 1996. I initially clicked on this video because I loved Space Ghost as a child. Unfortunately when I watched this video, I was disappointed. While I can appreciate the work it took for Cartoon Network to appropriate Hanna-Barbara's children's character Space Ghost into a character for adults, this particular episode irritated me. The dialogue between the characters did not co-relate with the music of the late Sonny Sherlock; While in some  shows, the dialogue being short and brief to focus on the music would be hilarious, I found this episode to be rather dull. I could only appreciate this literary work once it ended, when Space Ghost reveals that the episode was created just to showcase Lance Carter and Sonny Sherlock's music.

Perhaps I am just one of those individuals that needs to understand the meaning behind the art before they can appreciate the artist's work.

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Sarah Blackwood performed this cover of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" last year for her personal channel. Sarah is currently the sole female member of the experimental band Walk Off the Earth, a band that frequently covers and appropriates popular mainstream songs. While the band does not change the lyrics of the songs, they often change the tone and mood by using different (and unusual) instruments, vocals, and techniques in the song. Sarah engaged in the techniques used in her band for this solo performance in the simplest way possible. The simple appropriation of this song, however, is what makes Sarah's version of the song so powerful. Sarah made the song sound like a heartfelt plea to have her lover explain the relationship to his girlfriend, and made the original electronic work sound like a nagging mistress wanting her lover all to herself. Sampling and covering songs is the most mainstream form of appropriation art. Though the lyrics don't always change, the instrumental track used and tempo of the song can make the audience's interpretation of the song completely change.

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Video Response: Remember You from Adventure Time

Synopsis of the full episode: This song was in the 13th episode of the 4th season of Cartoon Network's popular children's show Adventure Time.This episode focuses on the backstory of the Ice King (formerly known as Simon) and Marceline the Vampire Queen. 996 years ago, the Great Mushroom War had ended, leaving very little life on the earth. The Ice King, who was then known as a scientist named Simon, found 7 year old Marceline alone and crying, and swore to protect her for the rest of his life. He finds a crown that when worn, it gives him magical ice powers to help protect Marceline and himself from zombies and other deadly predators. Unfortunately, whenever Simon wore the crown, it made him lose his mind. He writes down all his memories in his journal in hopes he will remember everything. Eventually, Simon completely turns into the Ice King and forgets everything about the past, including the journal he wrote and his relationship with Marceline. In the present day, the Ice King wants to write a song to impress a princess and seeks Marceline (who he only knows as a talented musician) to assist him in creating a song. He brings along a book (which happens to be his journal) to help them come up with lyrics. Marceline realizes the book happens to be the Ice King's journal and tries to make the Ice King understand he wrote the book. They create this song using his journal entries, but unfortunately the Ice King never remembers his past.

I loved how the creators of Adventure Time appropriated the Ice King's journal entries into a song. I think using the entries into a song is more effective way of delivering the moral of the show to children than just using dialogue. Being able to express such "adult" topics in children's media in such a moving way is the reason why I chose to write about this piece. Although songs in children's shows are not a new concept, using songs to explain such "grown-up" topics without making it sound childish is a breath of fresh air in Children's TV. Personally, the song made me think of my grandmother who suffers from dementia and is forgetting everyone around her, including her family. The possible deeper message of the episode that children may not understand is the concept of understanding people with crippling memory disorders such as dementia and Parkinson's Disease. Overall, this episode of Adventure Time was the saddest and most moving episode of a children's tv show I have ever seen; I do not think it would of been as captivating without appropriating the Ice King's journal entries into songs. full episode of this show can be seen here.

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Cosplay as Appropriation Art

This is my Friend Richard cosplaying as the Winged Dragon of Ra from the card game, manga and anime known as Yu-Gi-Oh!. Cosplay is the art of dressing up and acting as characters from various media and entertainment sources. While most cosplays try to be as accurate to the original character as possible, there are some versions that reappropriate the characters to their liking, such as humanized versions of animal characters. Regardless, all versions of cosplay can be seen as appropriation art because it is the cosplayer's vision of original artwork. They take the characters that were once only depicted in literary or media formats and transcend them into real life. I hope in future projects I will be able to transcend different mediums as my friends do and use drama to appropriate literary and media art. *I assisted Richard in piecing this costume together, so I am assuming that this piece counts partially as my own work in appropriation art.

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Juice A few weeks ago, I bought myself a fancy electronic juicer because I was sick of living off of those cheap, quick, and non-nutritious meals us university students live by. On the first day of using it, I made orange juice and it was the best orange juice in my entire life. Inspired by my amazing glass of orange juice, I decided to look up the nutrition facts for a popular and discontinued "orange flavoured" juice of my childhood. I remember this juice (which shall remain nameless) being marketed to parents and children as a healthy alternative to pop, and was sold on its own as well as in prepared lunches. When I looked up the nutrition facts, I was astounded -- aside from the vitamin C, this juice had as much sugar and carbs as a can of pop! For this project, I took the label of the juice and used photoshop to input what I think should really be on the nutrition label. I find that the number of grams on the nutrition labels do not generate into a clear picture to most people. I hope by using humorous messages, this nutrition label will make people do a double take when analyzing what they eat or drink.