Dissonance Day Fifteen: I really have no idea what will happen next:

I get this weird, nagging feeling each day projects are due. I wonder about the outcome. I second-guess the assignment. I think about how the presentation of the projects might go awry. I’m nervous, mainly because once we start in on the projects I really have no idea what will happen next. If I had to predict that we would see the bear again, or that someone would be spit on or sat on, or that someone would cut their hair I would have found it impossible. As the “author,” or perhaps I should say “originator” of the Fluxus inspired pieces for today all of the students were in the same position that I was in. They did not know what would happen next either. If part of understanding how we got to where we are today in terms of aesthetics and the production of artworks is dealing with the notion of “postmodernism,” then I think we got a good look at it today.

Traditionally, or at least in a traditional sense, creating artworks has a certain amount of intention as part of the process. That typically goes hand in hand with controlling the elements involved – whatever they may be. This gives rise to the idea of training or skill or what have you. This gives rise to certain assumptions or “rules” of art. It also gives rise to the notion of “good” art and “bad” art depending on how these rules and the results are interpreted. The ideas developed by the Futurists, Dadaists, Surrealists works to crack this open – basically the list of techniques I included on day thirteen. After these folks, Cage is a turning point in that his development of indeterminacy helps fuel the succeeding generations. I loved the point that if all you have is a hammer you tend to treat everything like a nail. The techniques developed by these folks doesn't necessarily function like a hammer and therefore the product isn't necessarily a nail.

What I really loved about the Fluxus pieces is that they are suggestions for a direction. That is really about it. They provide a great deal of room for interpretive possibilities. As the students saw today, what someone else was able to make out of their pieces was not necessarily what they had imagined or intended in creating them. Aside from that, the class today was just fun. Noisy, loud, punctuated with laughter and movement – much more interesting than simply listening to me drone on and on about the Fluxus folks. I recall that the last time I did this exercise in class it was a much more somber affair, much less interaction between “performer” and “watcher.” In away the presentations today had the same quality that Bob and I saw with the first Virtual Worlds projects – the sort of barely structured chaos of the avatar presentations. And like those projects, I really didn’t know what to expect next.

Starting with the idea of students as creators, interpreters, and life-long learners we discussed the pieces with these questions:

In composing these pieces what did you aim for?

As the "author" what do you have control over?

Anyone surprised by the interpretation?

Who is the artist here?

What does indeterminacy allow for?

How do you watch the pieces you wrote?

How do you approach interpreting these pieces?

Did the musical, sculptural, and performative ideas have any bearing on interpretation?

Where is meaning located?

But in that moment when the pieces were performed we all watched, we all listened, none of us with any more knowledge of what to expect than another. The comment that “I didn’t realize that they were performing my piece until they read the card at the end” is a great jumping off point for a discussion of the “open work.” So – the plan for the next class is to weave all of these observations from the projects in the first half of the term into a conversation about modernism and postmodernism, open works and process. I am debating the parameters of the Gen Art project only because I really don’t want to back off of where we are at this point, but I do want to focus our attentions a bit more on the analytical aspects of the course. The Gen Art project is really a continuation of the Fluxus pieces in that it is designed to make the “creator” step back from the project and watch what happens. After that we begin to shape the ideas a bit more specifically engaging in a conversation about The Situationists, The Bauhaus, Auto-Destructive art and then post-digital. It is hard to believe that we are only half way through the term. The trick will be trying to sustain this level of energy until May.

Dissonance Day Fourteen: I’m starting to wonder if there is a pattern emerging here:

What a great conversation today! I was actually kind of surprised at the number of hands that went up when we started to talk about indeterminacy and Cage’s notion of non-intention (as it is framed by the Zen notion that there is not good or bad no ugly or beautiful but just is).  La Monte Young’s Composition 1960 #9 (the infamous line across the page) generated some wonderful points about expectation and interpretation as well as the role of the artist. My hope is that we will be able to sustain this as we discuss the Fluxus pieces on Tuesday. So, following a day when I felt like I lectured far too much we have a day where I really don’t have to say much at all (but because I can’t seem to shut up about this stuff I do anyway). Interesting – I wonder if a pattern is emerging here. One of the issues I still need to deal with is staying on the path that was decided for the course and following a different path that emerges from the student projects and in-class conversation.

In a number of ways I feel like the Fluxus pieces are the last big push toward establishing the foundational elements of the course. Generating a handful of additional techniques that we can then bring into the remaining projects. Indeterminacy is certainly one of the main ideas, but also the notion of concept art. As we begin to discuss intention and interpretation. What our expectations are in what an artist “does” and how “art” is “produced.” The In Bflat website is a good example of this: http://inbflat.net/.  I am interested to see what will happen when we shuffle the Fluxus cards and students have to create an interpretation on the spot. This tends to reveal a wide range of interpretative possibilities. This is also why the cards should not be labeled “music,” “sculpture,” and “performance.” This is the last step before spring break. After that we immediately go into the generative art section where the students are forced to step away from the sound machine they have created and just watch and listen alongside of everyone else

Much like the Gen Art class this one feels like slowly chipping away at the resistance to be expressive in a specific moment. More students contribute to the conversation – although not all students – but this may be an unachievable goal. I went back and forth on the exercise to start the class with today, but in the end I was quite pleased with the results. I realized that I need to get them to start collaborating more and in smaller groups. So groups of three had 10 minutes to produce a “collage” (which could be defined as any mixture of sound, text, images, movement, etc) built out of what they group had on them or what they could find in the space. What I loved about this project is that I didn’t have to spend 10 minutes explaining it – the ground rules were set and then they went at it. This never would have happened 3 weeks ago. Also – the noise level and level of working exceeded the first half an hour of the DADADAY! stuff. So – it seems clear that something is changing in the class.

I did mention to the students that they should be noticing that the type of exercises and projects are changing and how this relates to the pervious work they have produced. So – unlike the sections when they were simply tossed into the projects today was about introducing Fluxus ideas and questions in the hope that they are more mindful in executing the Fluxus day assignment. The point is to begin to examine these ideas in a deeper and more thoughtful analytical way. As always, I am both nervous and expectant to see what they come up with.

Dissonance Day Thirteen: Hi, I’m a teacher, welcome to my lecture:

Ughh. I hate when I do that. Lecture. When I feel the need to explicate, to defend, to make certain that the message received is the one I am sending out. It’s a tedious way to investigate this material. Especially after starting each section with a project or in –class exercises. To resort to just telling the students things directly seems like a copout. But, rationally – isn’t that the job of a teacher, to explain things? Perhaps. But there is more to it than that. Getting a student to understand something on their own terms rather than mine is a much better solution. But then one must be willing to give up controlling that understanding. Rhizomatic education happens in multiple ways. I suspect when I go back over this blog I will see that each transition day – when we are ending one section and moving on to another – ends up feeling a bit like today. I know we had days like this with the Gen Art class and the Virtual Worlds class, so maybe that is just part of the dynamic of how this works. Or – maybe I just can’t help but to want to explain stuff.

I knew I wanted to discuss why the Surrealists developed the techniques that they did. I think it is important that we dissect these movements and ideas this way. Get to the philosophical ideas behind the surface chaos. To make the point that even though some of this work may seem purposeless, it is all done with purpose. My fear is if the students do not see this behind the chance and juxtapositions and such then it just seems like some pointless exercises. Even with the explication it may still seem that way.  My goal with days like this is to help them look beneath the surface of the techniques. To ask “for what purpose.”

So – from Surrealism to Cage to prepare for the Fluxus stuff for next class. I knew I wanted to get Breton’s points about the dullness of mind exposed to only rational things, to dream logic, to the notion of the marvelous built on new and surprising combinations. But the real subject of all of this emerged with Miles’ comment about how he has been exposed to this his whole life. People that grew up with the internet grew up excepting collage, expecting juxtapositions, expecting surrealist combinations as part of the normal world. That is what the technology was designed to do. There are connections here to Dada as well as things like youtubepoop that we need to explore in greater depth. In retrospect perhaps we should have followed this thought. But I also know that we have about half of the term left and if we follow this thought now I am not sure where it goes and how we develop from there. Odd that that would be the thinking in a class that deals with liberation, questioning rules and openness to the unknown. I never said there wouldn’t be any contradictions. But I do see the irony of this gesture. Play like I say to play not like I play. Again – welcome to my lecture.

Part of me wonders where this path would lead at this time in the term. But part of me also knows that we will have a much better vocabulary for that conversation when we reach the post stuff. It does dawn on me that while some of the students would be ready for this conversation at the point in the term – not all are yet. Chaos and order, chaos and order. I want to get out of the binary and then I fall right back into it. I suppose if I just lectured then I wouldn’t be concerned about such things, that I wouldn’t ask such questions. Perhaps I should dispense with notes, dispense with an agenda and just see what happens. Hmmmm.

So Cage is the connective tissue between the historical avant-garde and the more recent stuff. Why did I not have a section on him in the syllabus? I suppose I felt that we could use him to connect one piece with the next. My hope is the blathering I did at least established the ideas of chance as a discipline, indeterminacy, and pollyatentiveness. My hope is that we can go more into this with the Fluxus stuff. A change in rhythm with this section – readings first and then project. So we will see what comes of that. My goal at this point is to use that last class before spring break to ask all of the P2P questions about modernism and postmodernism before we head into the Situationists. I do need to work in more smaller group exercises at the beginning of the class. To try and find the balance where all groups gel instead of just some of them. This may not be possible, but it is worth a try.  

I left the class thinking about this:

Dissonance Day Twelve: In which I am fascinated by the conversation generated by the students but feel compelled to drag it back toward my agenda and am thrilled at the ideas that the students develop:

Wow – what a great class! The conversation was fascinating. In looking over my notes I was concerned that we wouldn’t have nearly enough to fill the class period. Turns out we only covered about 1/3^rd of what I expected to cover. The dynamic of this class is very different then when I have taught it before. A good deal of that can be attributed to the make up of students in the class – what their interest level is, their willingness to participate in the conversation, personal interests and interactions. Honestly – in a class of 28 students typically only about 6 or so are openly engaged in the conversation. With this class it is routinely more like 15-16 students. I have no idea if the projects or the way the class is set up encourages this or not.

But I do wonder about the projects. On the one hand they exist as something external to comment on and respond to. Unlike a reading assignment, which may or may not be completed by the student, a student that brings a project to class has participated in the discussion. While it happens on a number of different levels, they have at least given thought to a particular subject – so far “time” and “juxtaposition.” Add to this the exercises at the beginning of class each day and they have participated in a collective experience. – which isn’t always the case when a student simply slumps into a seat and remains disengaged. The other element of the projects is that they become a pretext for the conversation. Since every student has contributed a project and explored everyone else’s project they are in a position to have an opinion and to make connections to other ideas.

In asking the students to discuss what techniques we have seen so far we generated this list – which has been augmented with additional ideas:

Suspend intellect (embrace nonsense and the "primitive")

Exploitation of form

Parasitic of history (Duchamp's urinal needs art and the museum)

Antagonistic

Iconoclastic

Collage (of images, text, ideas)

Chance (poem, image, sound)

Juxtaposition (the antithesis of Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk)

Spontaneity

Automatic writing (reaching out toward unconscious)

Noise (embraced as aesthetic element, not interruption)

Negation of high art VS low art

Devaluation of skill, training, talent

Simultaneity (multiple meanings simultaneously)

Dynamism (goes with juxtaposition as combination of elements)

Philosophical or aesthetic concerns over commerce

Process over product

I then read Manovich’s idea from The Language of New Media about how all of these techniques have been embedded into the structure of contemporary computer software. So – while many of these ideas still remain challenging for traditional artistic disciplines, the students have largely grown up in an environment in which thinks like “cut and paste” and the juxtaposition of nonlinear online windows has been commonplace. This certainly raises the question that the Futurists raise in that if our world is fundamentally different through technology how do we reflect that in our art?

Unlike the day after the time projects that kind of felt like a gathering day this one seemed to push the conversation forward. I don’t recall getting this deep into questions of intent, process, product, and concept this early in the term. It is nice, but it also raises the question of whether we will exhaust these questions in the next few weeks. I don’t think so, but you never know. I think I will ask the students a few key questions just before spring break. A kind of midterm evaluation to see what is working for them and what could be tweaked to raise the level of interaction.

Dissonance Day Eleven: Surrealistic Museum Project:

I have been looking forward to this project since it was assigned last Thursday. But I woke up this morning with a bit of worry. What if the projects are not interesting? What if no one spends any time looking at them? What if the assignment is just a bust and we have nothing to talk about? In the past when I have given this assignment it has been at the end of a section on Surrealism, this time it is at the beginning. Will the students have any idea what I mean by juxtaposition or clash of elements? Will they all just look up Surreal images online and copy what is there? Many question and concerns. However, as has always happened in the past, I was delighted by the outcome. Given the chance to be creative or do unusual assignments the students here tend to rise to the occasion. So that it wasn’t just an exercise in wandering around I gave the students a few things to consider up front and about a half an hour to explore everyone else’s projects.

Do you have any questions for anyone?

What do you see in projects executed by others?

Any intended meanings?

Any unintended meanings?

Any of the projects funny?

Any of them disturbing?

All of the pieces reflected the nature of the question posed. It was interesting to see what the students noticed in the discussion. Some of the same themes came up again and again – a number of stuffed animals and references to genitalia – either explicit or implicit. It was interesting that given the same assignment some of the pieces were moving, some frightening, some just laugh out loud funny. The intent of the conversation was to begin to explore this type of activity as a technique – one that either is useful or not useful in a kind of “tool box” of artistic techniques. In the discussion we further explored the following questions:

How did executing this project compare to the time project?

Is it simple to put random things together?

What of the see what happens idea?

Is this a technique you work with all the time?

Does this technique have a use value?

Did you discover anything you were surprised by?

What I like about this project is that is it asking the students to do something that they are not necessarily asked to do in arts classes (Julian’s classes aside). The general intent of projects in arts classes is refinement. Zeroing in on meaning or intention and shaping the work to fit a certain goal or parameter. It was interesting to hear that some of the students struggled with this project in wanting to refine the work. Others had the opposite reaction, that this project was easier than the time project since it required them not to think about meaning or refinement.

This course is not designed as an art class, but hopes to use these projects as a way of exploring certain techniques and the philosophical ideas behind them. Techniques that rely on chance combinations can ultimately take us places that planning and logic cannot. I need to weave all of this together and draw back on the Dadaists and Futurists in the next class but also tie it to Surrealism. So we will be moving backwards into Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto from 1924. The goal is to create connections between the projects and Breton’s writing. This is where I felt some of the projects were quite strong – the ones that included the paragraph about the process. Why the object ended up looking the way it did is just as interesting as the object itself. I need to push more on this both connected to the projects and to the blogs.

We do have some more surrealistic thinking to do in the next class. In all likelihood I will start them with some automatic writing.

Dissonance Day Ten: What is the difference between an aesthetic function and a cognitive one?

Does “art” make me think? Is it supposed to? I guess the question is what do I mean by “art” and what do I mean by “think.” While I can easily accept the artistic categories that have developed over the course of Western history do works created within these categories make me think? Think about what? Plays and films and paintings and sculpture and music and dance may make me think about social issues or aesthetic issues, or moral issues, but do they make me think about plays and films and paintings and sculpture and music and dance? I certainly buy Clement Greenberg’s notion that “The essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence.” But what happens when an artist uses the medium to criticize itself? Is this the shift to the “postmodern”?

Hugo Ball, under the sway of Bakunin, points out: "Know thyself." As if it were so simple! As if only good will and introspection were needed. An individual can compare himself, see himself, and correct himself wherever an eternal ideal is firmly anchored in closely knit forms of education and culture, of literature and politics. But what if all norms are shaky and in a state of confusion? What if illusions dominate not only the present but also all generations; if race and tradition, blood and spirit, if all the reliable possessions of the past are all profaned, desecrated, and defaced? What if all the voices in the symphony are at variance with each other? Who will know himself then? Who will find himself then?” (Flight out of Time)

These are fantastic questions. Do we need rules to guide us? Could we cope in the absence of any and all authority? If we play by the rules because we have internalized them does that leave us any room for true and unique creativity? What happens if we place the genius in the same rank as the idiot? What happens if we accept that life asserts itself in contradictions? Western culture seems – then as somewhat now – mired in a linear logic. A logic of either/or as opposed to Venturi’s both/and. If I place a Shakespeare sonnet next to one generated via Tzara’s Dada poem strategy of cutting up words and pulling them out of a bag what is at stake? Does an art built on chance ask questions that an art built on skill and technique and training and rules doesn’t ask? If I place Duchamp’s urinal next to Michelangelo’s David what happens? Do I as the viewer need to draw the line as to where I think “art” is? If I dismiss the urinal then nothing has changed. If I acknowledge the urinal as “art,” even with the tiniest glimmer of doubt, do I then have to acknowledge everything in the world as art? Or, do I just have to follow John Cage’s dictum that "Everything seen - every object, that is, plus the process of looking at it - is a Duchamp" So it is a combination of object plus the looking at it. I suppose the “looking at it” part is where the thinking comes in. Hmmmm.

I’m not sure that we have ever gotten this deeply into these questions in this class this early in the term. Not sure why that is. The questions and comments from the students today were great, quite engaging. I needed to largely abandon my notes and follow those questions. I look forward to the Surrealistic Museum projects on Tuesday, mainly because we still need to loop back to discuss DADADAY as well as the notion of chance, juxtaposition, and challenging an audience. I am curious as to how these ideas fit into the scope and focus of a conservatory education.

In any case I agree with Tzara in that “ Logic is a complication. Logic is always wrong. It draws the threads of notions, words, in their formal exterior, toward illusory ends and centers. Its chains kill, it is an enormous centipede stifling independence. Married to logic, art would live in incest, swallowing, engulfing its own tail, still part of its own body, fornicating within itself, and passion would become a nightmare tarred with Protestantism, a monument, a heap of ponderous gray entrails” (Dada Manifesto 1918). In truth, “Morality creates atrophy like every plague produced by intelligence. The control of morality and logic has inflicted us with impassivity in the presence of policemen who are the cause of slavery, putrid rats infecting the bowels of the bourgeoisie which have infected the only luminous clean corridors of glass that remained open to artists” (Dada Manifesto 1918). Art that only follows the rules, that only adheres to a collective morality, that only in meant to be looked at passively and not thought about is a deadly art. Live art challenges – everything and each successive movement must in turn challenge the last. Not a snake eating its tail image, but perhaps one of creation/destruction/creation.  Much to think on.

Dissonance Day Nine: In which I attempt to abuse my authority to make a point and then just get bored with it

I wanted to change up the routine for today, mainly to make a point about authority and how we tend to silently agree and internalize the demands it places on us. Rather than start with the stretching and mind games I decided on assigned seats. The students were greeted by rows of chairs each with a name attached to it. As far as I could tell everyone sat in their assigned seat. Except, one student who swapped his name tag with someone else’s. Interesting. Little rebellious act I am trying to figure out if after a class of encouraged chaos I would be willing to sit where I was told. Maybe, maybe not. A Theremin also greeted the students – which by the time I got back to the classroom was making a horrible racket. Part of what I love about this instrument is that it sometimes has a mind of its own. I gave the students 5 minutes to ask me whatever they wanted to ask about the last class. A few good questions, but none really about “meaning.” Which is fine.

Today’s class began with two rules. 1) students that wanted to talk needed to hold the Barbie and unopened pudding packet I brought from home. 2) students could choose not to participate in the conversation (either by answering or asking questions or attempting to answer or pose questions) were required to give up a shoe for every 20 minutes they remained silent. The shoes were placed on a table off to the side. Shocking that so many gave up one shoe after 20 minutes. Fewer were willing to give the other up after the next 20 minutes. I let the last 20 minute interval slide without a penalty. The rules were arbitrary and a bit silly on purpose. I do wonder how far this obedience thing can be taken, but then I also wonder about when it crosses into a line of abusing power.

The subject today was largely anarchy, Bakunin, and Dada. I started by asking about the role of nonsense and play in the American educational system. Good responses at to what the problems are with how we are generally taught. Both positive and negative responses as well as different interpretations of “nonsense” and “play.” It was a good way to start. Then, we segued into questions of authority, power, systems of governance, etc. Huge topics and I simply couldn’t keep up with students interested in talking. I abandoned the hold the Barbie and pudding rule mainly as a way of asserting my authority and therefore conducting the discussion. If students pass the objects around they get to choose who speaks next. If I pick I get to choose, simple as that.  I should have let the object thing continue without interference. I wonder if the students would share the responsibility of distributing the conversation so one voice doesn’t dominate, or not. I need to think about that more. When given authority what do you do with it? 

The whole point of talking about these issues is to set up the conversation about Dada on Thursday. There we can take the ideas generated today and on DADADAY! And filter Ball, Tzara, and Duchamp through them. My hope is that it makes the seemingly chaotic nature of Dada make a bit more sense. Not that I want Dada to be sensible, but that there were reasons why they did what they did. I do want to address issues of beauty, skill, talent, aesthetics as they relate to concepts and cognition. For me the most interesting question today was what is the difference between aesthetic and cognitive concerns when it comes to art.  The main point being that what we are dealing with is artists largely driven by ideas with aesthetic concerns taking a back seat. In order to address this we briefly looked at Duchamp’s Mona Lisa and Serrano’s Piss Christ.

A good gathering day, but I missed the exercises and the mind games. I hope that the students could feel the difference in not starting the class this way. In order for the exercises and projects to be affective I know that we do need the occasional “gathering” day – which basically amounts to sitting around and talking about the readings and projects. The main goal, of course, is that by the end of the term the class no longer needs me to demand these activities that they simply do them on their own. It was gratifying to see at least a few students interested in the Theremin at the end of class. I mean really, who doesn’t want to play with a Theremin, the things are just about as cool as they could be.

Dissonance Day Eight: DADADAY!

I absolutely fucking love DADADDAY! Over the years it has had a few different names – Dadaland, Order out of Chaos, a Happening, but the spirit is pure DADADAY! With fewer students it is easier to have everyone have a kind of communal experience, but with 30 it necessitates smaller groups. The students were broken up into 5 teams, each with up to 6 members. Team Tzara, Team Janco, Team Hennings, Team Arp, and Team Ball. When the students entered the space they were asked to pick a “card” from the fanned out pile. The “card” was the team designation. Part of the reason for this is to break up groups consisting of students who always work together. Plus it’s a chance thing. Each group a totally different makeup. Each team had to sit at one of five tables. Each table had a different activity. Make a Dada Poem, Make a Dada Mask, Make a Photomontage or Hans (Jean) Arp inspired image, Create a simultaneous poem, and play this wonderful game called FatDada (really just a Fat Albert game ransacked with the card replaced by Dada cards that ask the players to debate, proclaim, respond to a series of Dadaquotes. Each team had 12 minutes at each station.

Here is what I fucking love about DADADAY! The same pattern happens every time. Students start quiet. They sit down at the stations and begin to do what they are told. The instructions indicate that once a Dada Poem is constructed the student is to read it out loud. Once the Dada Mask is complete the mask needs movement. The simultaneous poem can only exist as it is performed. In the first 12 minutes the students remain quiet. Then slowly things begin to change. My job is to not interfere. I play music, wander around, shout out some Dadaquotes, etc. I also tell them when they have 6 minutes left, and when they need to move on to the next station. Things happen slowly. First someone knocks a chair over. Next someone gets a bit loud at one of the tables. Then one group decides that they would rather play the FatDada game on the floor on an overturned table. Then someone reads a poem out loud. Then three people get up and perform a simultaneous poem, which may or may not include the sound of the piano. Someone writes on the chalkboard. Someone does a dance.

Then it happens. The place erupts. Students are screaming, banging on the floor, banging on tables and whatever they can find lying around. There is a reason why we need to be up in the gym – isolated from the other classes. When I used to do this downstairs I spent most of the time reminding the students to be quiet. I didn’t need to do that today. But, it does bring up an interesting point. The projects are all designed to frustrate – it is almost impossible to complete any of them in 12 minutes. Any group that plays the FatDada game generally gets bored with it in about 10 minutes or less. The first group that played this game ended up lighting parts of it on fire. But I expected them to play it for 50 minutes – 12 seems much more reasonable. The noise, the actions, etc are all an outlet stemming from the projects.  These actions build off of the projects, but also provide something different from sitting down and cutting out little scraps of paper.

As the room becomes more and more chaotic I wrestle with how far to let it go. If I court chaos I have to be prepared to accept chaos. But then, I don’t want anything broken. I don’t want anyone hurt. These become the ground rules. I need to add no live flames, and no broken glass. When we get to destruction projects probably also no toxic chemicals. It is for this reason I tend to hang around during these class days. In the past I tried a number of experiments. One, where I didn’t want to leave, but also didn’t want to be present as the “authority figure.” So, I sat in a chair in the corner with headphones on, a blindfold, and duct tape over my mouth. Big mistake. Once the chaos kicked in I was the target. I wandered out blindfolded with all kinds of shit draped over my body. Giving instructions and leaving altogether generally means that the room will be destroyed. Torn up papers, magazines, stuff hanging from the ceiling, overturned chairs and tables, chalkboard covered with all kinds of stuff. It is cool to see the smoldering ruins, but I really want to watch the process.

Like any process this one ebbs and flows. It generally reaches a peak crescendo about 10 or 15 minutes from the end of the class period, about an hour into it. In the future I may take advantage of this and harness the energy before it dissipates. But – we are only 4 weeks into a 15 week term. We have plenty of time to court chaos and use this kind of energy. I find that some students are ready to dive into the projects and assignments at this point, but I still need to get everyone moving in that direction. My hope is that the students had fun. It looks and feels like elementary school work, but similar to elementary school it is not just play-time, but time in which students learn something from the exercises. I will have to find out at the next class what they learned. Since I want to tie these ideas back to the S,S, and C stuff I may give them five minutes to ask me any questions about DADADAY! It will be interesting to see if anyone takes me up on it.

Silly, playful, nonsense, whatever. As a teacher I have a choice. I can either have the students read about Dada and then we can all sit down and have a serious discussion about nonsense. Or, I cant let the students play for a day. This way is much more entertaining.

Dissonance Day Seven: In which we end up sitting around and talking about Futurism

We started with a group exercise based on one by the Oulipo group. Homoconsonantism: The sequence of consonants in a source text is kept while all its vowels are replaced. I had made up sheets with a sentence from Marinetti’s Manifesto.  This is the original sentence:  “Courage, audacity and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry.” Here is the sentence with vowels removed: C  r g  ,   d  c  ty  nd r  v  lt w  ll b   ss  nt  l   l  m  nts  f   r p  try. I will post the results once I double-check on them – I can’t read all the handwriting. This was the first real group activity of the term – that is in smaller groups than the full 30. There are more group activities set for Thursday. The energy of the group work was great and the sentences quite a bit of fun. There have to be ways to develop this exercise for images and for sounds also. So – perhaps at some future class we will come back to this idea.

After the time projects and the Bergson conversation and the Oulipo stuff having the students simply sit down so we could have a conversation seems a bit contained, a bit anti-climactic. It is inevitable that certain classes feel that way, especially since the projects come first and the talking after. The Gen Art class had a similar rhythm. But it does make me look forward to the next projects. This class was bringing us to the end of the Futurist stuff – so at this point we hit it head on with Marinetti’s manifesto and Russolo’s essay. A good conversation about the use and abuse of history – which can be seen as an inspiration or as an anchor. Lots of good points on why to keep the past rather than blow it up. It is also sort of humbling to think about how much the world has changed in the last 100 or so years. It is humbling to think about how the world has changed in the last 10 years. Part of the point I was trying to make is that our “traditional” art forms don’t always acknowledge these changes. If our world is radically different then it was 100 year ago why do we still perform the same plays, listen to the same music, read the same books as people from that era? Mostly rhetorical questions, but some good discussion.

We turned to Russolo’s Art of Noise next. Some excellent points by the students about intention and sound  - how noise can be shaped into music, but that some things just exist as noise. I still feel that the continuum idea is the best way to approach this. Something will not be completely noise or music, but somewhere between the two. We talked a bit about static. After class Emma told me that Skrillex uses static a lot – great example – I need to bring it in. It is a good point about how sound and music have changed in the past few decades. I really should have played more examples in class – Russolo’s sounds we on as they entered the class. But I did point them to the sound files on Bb. Next class starts Dada.