Final Projects:

The last time I taught this class I neglected to comment on the final projects – which I think is important as a way of reflecting back on the process of this type of class. Whenever I teach project-based work there always comes a point in the term where I begin to doubt the process. Is it going anywhere? Is this class really just about fucking around? Why aren’t more students diving into the projects to create unique and interesting work? I must admit that this term felt a bit more like a struggle than in the past. There are likely a number of factors involved that have very little to do with the class. The class is mainly targeted at second year students. Their entire college experience has been in covid times and ducking in and out of the classroom and onto zoom. This really does not help with the conversation portion of the class. Beyond that there seems to be a reticence to offer opinions – as if there is a hesitation to not be wrong or not offend or upset anyone. There were really only a handful of times where I felt we had a robust discussion about the material – ironically one highlights is when we had a discussion about why it is so hard to have a discussion. Aside from all that – I do think the process works. I am always nervous about projects days – will the projects be interesting, will we have enough to discuss, are the questions posed allowing the students space to explore the material as well as learn from it? As always, there are pieces to get excited about – and yes – by the end of the term many students are presenting just wonderful material. Thoughtful, thought provoking, deep beyond what the surface implies. Even though we ended up presenting final projects on Zoom – all of this was true of both sections. I don’t believe that a class structured this way will get every student to the same level of understanding about the material – but allows them to build on their own skills and understanding and interests. Some will always resist, some merely go through the motions, but then there are students who completely get the possibilities of working this way and how the results can often be surprising and enlightening. I have no idea when or if I will teach this class again. The updates and additions were useful in diversifying the material, but it is probably time to tear the whole thing apart and rebuild from the ground up.

Auto Destruct projects and a series of topics:

As often happens by this point in the term – students that have realized they can use the projects to challenge themselves do so, and students that realize I am not rejecting or dismissing any projects often don’t challenge themselves as much. One question that was posed is what would I accept or not accept as a project. I realized early on teaching this way that in order for students to be free to experiment and to “fail” that I had to remove judgement from the answers to the prompts. The example I often give is when Bob King and I were first teaching Generative Art and a student showed up with what looked like a box of junk. We couldn’t quite figure out how this was an answer to our question, but asking the student to discuss the process revealed a great deal. It was something he wrestled with and tinkered with until it sort of just fell apart. The box of junk was nowhere near as interesting as the story of the process. So, particularly with the destruction project I need students to describe process. Most of the answers were just wonderful – thoughtful, creative, clever. There does seem to be a good strong connection between what students learned from the project and how much they challenged themselves. It was nice to hear one of the students describe this class as the “fuck around and see what happens” class – ‘casue that is basically what it is. I did feel that, unlike the sound machine project, it was the second section that gelled on this one. Which is about as far as I could take them this term. Most of the major pieces are over, save one last project for the final, and we have established most of the main ideas – terms and techniques – for the course. The next few weeks just sort of add to this information. The rhythm shifts at this point to be more about information than projects. My hope is to offer a number of interesting avenues that can be explored in the final projects. Glitch, Afrofuturism, Performance Art, and Glitch Feminism – or how the digital environment can be fucked with. With each of these topics the main question is: how are they using what we have already discussed? And, do they offer anything new to the conversation. The last week of class is given over to spending time on the final projects.

Fluxus follow up and Sound Machine Projects:

Returning from break we spent some time reviewing the Fluxus projects with a focus on modernism and postmodernism. We explored Hassan’s list of terms and ideas associated with each era. In doing so I posed four questions: evaluate usefulness modernist ideas, critique postmodern ideas, critique modernist ideas, and evaluate usefulness of postmodern ideas. My hope with this is to make an end run around the question of why to study all this weird indeterminate stuff in the first place. This discussion gave way to the presentation of the sound machine or generative art project. Students are instructed to build a machine with a certain number of steps and a certain timeframe to create a “sound.” Once set in motion they are not to interfere with their machine, but many struggle with this. Generally about 50% of the machines don’t function as intended do to a variety of variables – but they still produce interesting results. In the first section they were playful and fun and often funny. The second section, although still creating some playful machines, didn’t quite synthesize the way the first section had. But, the work was generally good and interesting to watch. From there we segued into a deeper discussion of the projects and an introduction to generative art through Riley’s In C and Trisha Brown’s solo olos. This class was followed by a discussion of Steve Reich and Brian Eno discussing generative or process driven work. I do have the students listen to Reich’s “Come Out” all nearly 14 minutes of it – in order to hear it shift from one point to another. So, here we cycle back to discuss duration again. We also explored some of Eno’s work along with other artists. It feels like some of this material is starting to cohere for the students. New to the discussion this time is to lean into the modernist/postmodernist ideas a bit more and ask about employing indeterminacy – as Reich does with his tape loops – but then learning from that experience and weaving phasing back into a more traditional compositional approach. I feel this is a better representation of our world in which the two ideas co-exist. Next it’s on to the auto destruct project. Considerably mor complex than what we have seen so far, but based on the skills students have acquired so far in the term.

John Cage, La Monte Young, and Fluxus:

One of the things I have been struggling with teaching this course is engaging the students. Their work on the projects is wonderful, but once we turn our attention to discussion things seem to fall flat. So, in anticipation of the Fluxus project I opted to shift things a bit by going back to the physical warm-up that was developed for this class ages ago. I’ll admit I feel a little silly doing it, but I do think it helps transition us from where we are coming from to where we are headed. I’ve also tried to structure more performative exercises at the top of the class. I really do love the John Cage inspired indeterminate sound piece in which students are given a chart with blocks of time to fill with sound. It always produces some lively and creative results. Given the horrible HVAC sound that dominates the gym space we have taken to retreating to the stage area for discussion in a more conventional seminar set up. Not my favorite choice, but it does seem to generate better interaction. We discussed the Cage material complete with some examples of his work. I’m trying to get students to see the idea of indeterminacy not as a simple approach, but one that can be developed in a number of different ways. It does seem to be a hallmark of postmodernism. The next class was an introduction to La Monte Young’s work and Fluxus. Some of Young’s simple compositional devices (like a line on a piece of paper) do seem baffling, but allows for a conversation about what we expect from a composer or author. Here indeterminacy can be seen as a direction, but not necessarily as a final goal. All of this leads toward the Fluxus project and the best way I have found of approaching this is to share examples of this type of work before the assignment. The student generated Fluxus pieces were quite nice, but largely remained on the level of small, quiet, Zen-like work. Which is fine. I have seen this approach before – specifically in the postmodernism class. Its interesting to me that this project can generate smaller more intimate gestures, but also huge, sprawling, loud work too. It all really depends on the make-up of students in the class. This time around I do not have any Drama students enrolled – so I wonder if that has some impact. At the half-way point of the term we established a good list of terms and ideas, but. Do feel like I have been leading them toward these rather than them discovering them. I do need to explore patience more fulling in allowing students to figure this out on their own. This was made clear by the student responses to what is going well and what could be improved in the course. More open ended question, more patience, don’t lead or fish for ideas, allow them to develop organically. It has been some time since I taught one of these project-based courses and I need to remind myself that it takes a good 6-7-8 weeks for these ideas to begin to gel. The plan now is to review the material from the first half with a specific focus on the shift from modernism to postmodernism and connections to Self, Society, and Cosmos ideas. I’m toying with the idea of attacking Hassan’s modern/postmodern list and exploring the ideas from multiple sides – where is the value in these ideas? Where is there no value? And then it’s on to the generative art machine projects.

Surrealism, Artaud, and Baraka:

The juxtaposition or surrealistic object project is one of my favorites. A fairly simple process – combine things that don’t go together – but yields quite a bit to discuss. I think this project works best when it is the first one, but the way this course is set up it comes in second. Some really wonderful work – a lot of food related projects – which adds that interesting dimension of decay. Perhaps we will revisit this with the auto-destruct projects. Rather than send students around for Surrealistic museum I opted to move from project to project with the “what do you see” questions. This, of course, means we don’t get all the way through the projects in one day – but it’s worth spending the time on this early in the term. As always, we often see things in the projects that were either not intended or not on the radar of the maker. Particularly with juxtaposed pieces we could spin out endlessly. We paired the discussion with Breton’s Surrealistic Manifesto. We discussed how in creating short circuits to the brain we still struggle with “meaning.” That’s the fun part. But even with this discussion I feel like I am trying to pull observations out of them. Even simple questions like “what do you see in front of you” somehow baffle or cause students to lock up. On impulse I asked my first section – what do I need to change to lead a more vibrant discussion? Is it the questions, location, material – what? Ironically – we had a great discussion about discussion. Same in my second section. So, I’ll work on changing the dynamic. The follow up to this discussion was about Artaud and Baraka’s work. I returned to the roots of the class and started with a physical warm up. We then did an exercise with an audience inside and activity. I had indented to break them up into groups to do this, but felt we might not get too far into the process. So – we discussed what was on their minds, what is most pressing. No suppose that it is the workload of the school and the never ending treadmill – very similar reactions in both sections. So we created apiece with half the class on the outside and half inside a circle – with movement around the outside. Both section responded to movement that got faster and harder to execute until collapsing. We assessed the first round, made some adjustments, and then swapped inside for outside. Once we discussed this I felt it was a good example of some of Artaud’s ideas about the spectator in the center of the action. We discussed Artaud’s No More Masterpieces essay, his First manifesto, Baraka’s Revolutionary Theatre essay and Slave Ship play. The pieces fit nicely together. Part of what I want them to see is how connected these ideas are to what we have been discussing and also how they have been evolving. Went into the quieter and more intimate kitchen for the conversation – which felt a bit better – but I have yet to have a class where I feel like all cylinders are firing. On to Cage and Fluxus next.

Bakunin and Danto and Dada – oh my!:

So to prep the students for chatting about authority and power I changed the class dynamic by making them sit in assigned seats on a traditional classroom arrangement. Sometimes this backfires and there is a great sense of relief that they can just be told what to do. And, it does make me feel uncomfortable, which I guess is part of the point. Actually a bit more lively a conversation than we have previously had – may be due to the deafening heating/AC system being dampened by our distance – or a sense of familiarity at being in a “real” classroom.” In either case, I felt that we covered the material quite well and got to the major points of all the reading. I do like to raise questions about agency and how they can tell if someone is telling them something useful. The question of why they would trust me, or any of their instructors, always rankles a bit – as it should. The Bakunin and Danto conversation leads into discussing dada – through some of Ball and Tzara’s writings and Duchamp. We started creating simultaneous poems – three groups creating a minute of sound - which was fun and works as a good example of the dada stuff we will discuss. But, after the fun its back to struggling to get any response from the students about any of the questions. So, part of what I’m wondering about is not just engagement, but ideology. Are they disengaged because they don’t like the material , didn’t read it, don’t want to discuss it? I’m just finding it difficult to turn the corner on this class and have what I would consider a good conversation. Perhaps that will happen with the surrealist projects – or not.

Project 1 to Futurism to Dadaday:

So, having lost a day to the snow and ice we compressed the discussion of the projects into the material on Bergson and then into the Futurists. I don’t think we went as deeply into the projects as we have in past classes, but there were some good observations and connections. Some of this is about pulling ideas and techniques out of the projects – which we did, but I feel like I was perhaps offering the bulk of these ideas. This lead us into discussion Bergson’s notions of duration and simultaneity. I’ve also added palimpsest and defamiliarization as terms. This all led to discussing cause and effect and the relationship of the part to the whole. Not sure I have gotten to those things at this point in the term, but they are proving useful. The addition this time was Lorde’s essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” – which worked quite well. While I recognize that Lorde is discussing race and gender, I see her essay as universal (not to take away from its power) and the same observations can be applied to religion, law, education, aesthetics – any system of value. This offered a great way in to the Futurists. I do think that was the clearest I have ever discussed them. Finding new ways to articulate familiar things can open up a lot. This carried over into the next class when we discussed Russolo and sound. The main point here is that as a painter Russolo’s pallet was wide open – why then would it be closed to certain sounds in music? Not a huge revelation, but an opening up of the idea of what can and can’t be used artistically. We may or may not see this pushed on in the surrealistic projects. This gave way to a truncated Dadaday – with three activities – dada poem, exquisite corpse text, exquisite corpse image. Three groups rotating between the stations. Some fun appeared to be had and we posted results to discuss. This is where things are not quite gelling. I’m really struggling to get students engaged in the discussion part. Not sure why. It does feel like we have a long way to go to establish a working dynamic for this class. My hope is that as we move to the next project students will become more engaged and more vocal. Well – chatting about authority and Danto and dada tomorrow – so we shall see.

Week Two into three:

Well we lost Tuesday to the snow and ice storm that was way worse than expected. Even digging out by Wednesday was tough. So, projects were pushed to Thursday. One of the things I will remind the students is that they need to trust the process. It may seem like we are just fucking around or aimlessly wandering in ideas, but it will begin to cohere as the term progresses. I need to remind myself that also. I went into the first project day apprehensive – with all the standard worries – will the projects be interesting, will we have enough to discuss, will they establish ideas that we can work with during the term. And, of course, the work was wonderful. Although we only got through 2/3rd of the projects we could see variety of presentation mode, and, perhaps more importantly, so many wonderful different ways to think about time. This will give us quite a bit to work with – but already I can see ideas like: compressed time, layered time, elongated time, personal relations to time, progression, degeneration, frame or ground, implied spectator, anticipation (of evolution), the cyclical nature of time, intentional VS random composition, Bergson’s notion of duration, time capsule – projection into future/relation to past, where pieces begin and end, palimpsest, useful time, waisted time, the everyday or mundane, is “present” really present?, do. We see or create meaning?, perpetual evolution, erosion, how we use time, actions shaping action in time. Ans, we still have about 5 presentations in each section. The second round of projects were as engaging as the first. Really good work – and lots to think about. In discussing them I tried to make connections between the pieces with the above list – which I think may have set a tone I need to shift. I’m not sure why I am spending more time explaining and projecting ahead in the term than focusing on the present and asking questions. I seem to be doing the same thing in my MWF classes (which is compounded by not yet finding the rhythm of teaching 50 minute classes after not teaching them for 15 years). When I do pose questions the energy level seems quite low – so I need to start each class with some project or exercise to wake folks up. I also need to remind myself to be more patient to wait for answers – both Joe and Bob are way better at that than I. We have good information to work with so far, but I need to find a way to have the conversations gel better. Ais this always how these classes are in the first few weeks? Maybe.

First week – Day one and day two:

It is really fantastic to be back in the WW5 gym for this class – where I taught it last in 2015 (7 years ago?) Some things about the space have changed, but it’s great to have an open room to work in. The first class was largely dedicated to going over the syllabus, requirements, etc – and with this class trying to sort out those that want to play with this material and those that don’t. I’m trying to avoid any surprises about the structure. The icebreaker game this time round was based on the surrealist idea of question and answer – where the two don’t have to match. My initial intent was to have students writs down a question and an answer on separate index cards and then shuffle and distribute them, but in covid-times that didn’t seem like a great idea. I hope we can resolve this before Fluxus day. Students wrote them down and we circled the room posing questions with indeterminate answers. Then on to the Self, Society, and Cosmos ideas – good list of what students remembered from this class with the 8:30 section being a bit more awake than the 10 – which always seems to happen. This is why last time we started with stretching and whatnot – I may lean back into that as the term progresses. Then I assigned the first project due next week – I love this project which has students presenting three different types of time. Always interesting to see what they come up with. I’ve reminded them that the question is deliberately vague since I am not looking for any specific answers, just how they respond to the prompt. Day two was about discussing traditional aesthetics and so we started with each person showing/discussing something they find “beautiful.” It was interesting to see the difference in the sections with 8:30 leaning a bit more into process – complexity, layers, catharsis, formal elements and 10:00 a bit more on effect – mood, environment, impact. I always feel like benefit from this conversation in ways the students don’t so shared a bit of the 8:30 with the 10 and will do the inverse on Tuesday. The rest of the class was about discussing aesthetics, rules, patterns, cultural ideas, etc with regards to art-making and art-viewing. The examples students provided offer great detail for this conversation. I’ve tried to give them a glimpse of where we are headed – mainly as an extension of figuring out who wants to play with these ideas and who doesn’t. The first week can never really be more than exposition, but we’ve already played a game and students presented ideas – so we are in good shape. I’m looking forward to the first projects on Tuesday.

Aesthetics of Dissonance 2022

Coming soon - ramblings and thoughts on teaching two sections of a revamped Aesthetics of Dissonance in the age of COVID and American fragmentation. Should be fun. 

Generative to Situations

Part of what I like about the Generative Art pieces (the sound machine project) is that inevitably one of the machines goes awry and does something it is not intended to do. Not a huge diversion – but the comments often cycle around “it worked better at home” or “ can I try it again?” I ma amused by this largely because the parameters of this project are set up to insure that something will happen that the creator couldn’t control. The conversation then turns to what this means aesthetically. So – if traditional art making is about control – in the sense of skill, training or technique – then what do pieces like this have to offer? This gives us an opportunity to talk about the whole life/art thing that we addressed with the Fluxus projects. I continue to reflect no Cage’s art should reflect nature in her manner of operation – which isn’t always controlled.

So we talks about how the machines worked and what the process was of creating them in the first place. So, basic questions about approaches – each machine was designed to do the same thing – make a sound – but how each machine went about it was very different. IN reflecting on this we talked a bit about the Flaming Lips Zaireeka – designed to be listened to on four CDs simultaneously. This gave way to a discussion of other indeterminate pieces such as Milan Knizak’s prepared vinyl project Remko Sha’s machine guitars, Terry Reily’s In C and Cardew’s The Great Learning paragraph 7 – all driven by an idea that develops once set in motion. So – indeterminacy as an aesthetic device.

We followed that up with a discussion of Steve Reich’s “music as a gradual process” and Eno’s comments on Generative Music. Staring with Reich’s Pendulum Music – a microphone suspended over a speaker and swung with feedback like a pendulum. The process is both visible and audible – you can see and hear it slow down. It is both deterministic and indeterminate at the same time – it will always come to rest, but not always by the same pattern. Then we listen to “Come Out” – all 13+ minutes of it. It is a process of listening to changes over time. As Reich points out this piece does not develop by chance – once it is set in motion it simply executes the process. This leads to Eno’s generative music, apps, 77 Million Paintings, and Conway’s Game of Life. I love the connection to contemporary scientific models in that traditional science is like classical forms – driven by order, where as contemporary forms are often driven by chaos.

Framing it this way is helping to bring focus back to the class. I struggled with this the last time I taught it. After the Fluxus pieces – which were set just before the break last time and just after this time – the energy seems to dissipate. I think largely because the first two thirds of the term are driven by groups with clear ideological ideas – Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism – which gives way to less clear focus. So for the past week or so I have kind of felt like, well we have this list of terms and ideas and here we are looking at yet another example. Moving past the gen Art stuff helps with this. For me the revelation was Reich learned from his tape loop experiments and then brought that phase shifting into his compositional approach. So – he absorbs that process as a more traditional aesthetic technique. Eno does the same thing, but he is still keeping some of the outcome flexible. One of the students defined that at the difference between destination art and non-destination art. One you know in advance – the other you don’t.

That brought to mind Bill Viola’s note about the statement “if all you have is a hammer you tend to treat everything as a nail” which has become my mantra for the second half of the term (the first half it was Duchamp’s “I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste). The point here is that these ideas become different types of hammers and ask different questions. This led us to the Situationists – seemingly off the topic – but brings together the aesthetic ideas with larger cultural ones. The Marxist/ Anarchist frame. The point with that is Debord’s comment "that which changes our way of seeing the street is more important that which changes our way of seeing painting.” So – the ideas evolve and, with the Situationists, the objects disappear. This links back to the notion f concept art we discussed earlier in the term. What I always like about discussing the Situationists makes me want to roam – so we wandered across campus talking about Detournment, derive, and psychogeographical spaces. I will tie this all in with Punk and the discussion of our next project - the Auto Destructive Art projects.

  

Fluxus and after Fluxus:

I love the Fluxus project – it is often my favorite class, largely because it is built out of what is in the space at that moment. The assignment was to develop three Fluxus event scores on a 3 x 5 index card – one sculptural, one sound oriented, and one performative – so one to be looked at, one to be listened to, and one to the watched. I asked the students not to label their cards, but simply put their name on the back. When they arrive for class I gather and distribute the cards – explaining that students should not randomly pick their own card. Then we begin. The first card each student executes is the one they had an immediate reaction to. So – that is round one. Round two is to pick the one they have no idea what to do with. Round three is open. The pieces take on the characteristic of the class – they are often a mixture of funny, sad, touching, boring, loud, quiet, too short, too long, thoughtful and phoned in. Some touch me deeply, some do not. It is clear once the performances start that this particular moment could never be recreated.

Part of what I like about the Fluxus pieces is the simplicity – they require no special skill or training, just a willingness to follow an idea. But that also means that there is a great deal of room for interpretation. Students are instructed not to read the card prompt until they have completed executing it. Many times students don’t even realize when someone is performing their card. We all also try and guess what the card says. Some times this is easier than others. When asked, many students never saw a particular interpretation as even an option. The question of who owns the piece or who is the creator becomes moot.

Beyond the simplicity I love that these are conceptual pieces, pieces that acquire meaning as we think about them. The prompts that pose a question or a philosophical idea often require a level of engagement that goes beyond executing a task – but not always. It is interesting to watch how the pieces are performed and not necessarily what is being performed.

The follow up class was wonderful. I do try and use these open days as a way of gathering together the ideas that have been developed to this point in the term. We started the day with students creating a sound piece from a situationist psychogeographical map. What was surprising about this was how quickly these pieces came together. Asking this in the first few weeks would have taken ages – now – students just dive right in. It is with these projects that the make up of the different classes becomes much more pronounced. The 8:30 class seems to be much quieter – and so very often their projects have a more introspective quality. The 10:00 – a bit louder and generally more vocally engaged tend to produce less introspective pieces.

So – from this we reviewed the Fluxus material. The main question to start revolved around how we derive meaning from an open work. We listed the traditional aesthetic criteria – things like unity, balance, order, skill, technique, process subsumed into product, etc and then talked about how this could or could not be applied to an open work. This lead to a discussion of the Paths to the Present classes and the major questions. Looking over the list of techniques we have discussed so far I asked has anything changed from the Self, Society, and Cosmos classes to this material. The general consensus – as it often is – is that humans search for meaning – that has not changed – but how they search and what questions they ask has.

This lead to a discussion of modernism and postmodernism – with specific attention to the Internet as a postmodern phenomenon. I do find the recent FCC ruling that the Internet remain neutral an interesting modern/postmodern rift. Wanting to lock it down, control it, monetize it seems very modernist – the openness seems more postmodern. This rejection of authority is dug in deeply to most of the ideas we have discussed. This has translated into placing more and more emphasis on the spectator. So – rebelling against authority allows these artists to rebel against their own authority and pass those questions of meaning on to the audience. When asked what overarching idea tied all of these ideas together the students generated this list:

Consistency of change

Reactionary

Conceptualism

Shake it up

Continual questions

Uncertainty of meaning

The question I posed at the end of this discussion is how succeeding generation(s) rebel against the rebellion? Perhaps we can address that with the final project – now it is on to sound machines.

Surrealism follow up and Cage

Clearly the theme of this blog is how many classes can I cram together in one post. But, due to loss of class time it has also been about how we can get all of the material in in less time. So – that said – students presented their surrealistic projects and we discussed them all in one class, with a bit spilling over into the next class. The projects we fantastic – some wonderful pieces built out of the prompt – put two or more contrasting things together. The difference this time round is that I tried to employ the method of discussing that Lois Hetland used at the faculty/staff workshop on Studio Thinking. Looking at each object we start with ten observable things – not judgments – but observations. This is a much slower process than I am used to, but I have often felt that our discussions about the projects is the weakest element of these classes. By starting just with observables we are able to begin to dissect how the piece is constructed – what elements are at work and how they fit together. After observations we begin to discuss meaning. What are people getting out of this piece – what do they see in it? This allows for a conversation about intent, but also interpretation. Finally the student can then talk about how or why they put the piece together. Doing this with each project takes a long long time, since some pieces could be discussed for quite awhile. The danger is running out of time. With only an hour and 20 minutes to cover 17-18 projects – we barely made it in the first class (largely because two people were absent) and did not finish in the second class. I prefer to do this all at once so we have all of the pieces in the space, but it may be necessary to think about splitting into to presentation days.

We started the next class reviewing the pieces that students were able to bring back – some of which had decayed in a beautiful way after a week off for spring break. Then on to a discussion of intent. Did any of our observations go beyond the intent of the artist? Did we miss anything? What I find interesting about this process is how well we rationalize meaning. Random pieces together must have an intention, there must be an underlying reason – and so we look for it or construct it. This adds an interesting layer to how we discuss works of art. Next was to tie this to Brenton’s surrealistic manifesto. Why, for example, would an artist try to create as many short circuits to the brain as possible? What happens in these moments. Were there any pieces that could not be rationalized, where the logic could not be figured out? What does this do to how the piece is viewed?

The next step was to create a list of terms, ideas, technique we have discussed. We came up with this list:

The next step was to discuss John Cage. Bit of background, but mainly his work as a composer using chance and indeterminacy – so students listened to the Williams Mix and watched a video on how to prepare a piano. I love the fact that Cage was incredibly specific about how the piano was to be prepared – what object, how far along the string to place it, what strings the object to interact with – except not specifics on the objects – so each time the piece is performed is sounds a bit different. One of the really interesting things to develop in the second section was a bit of a argument surrounding 4’33”. In a way, the reaction was to this wry game Cage seemed to be playing – baiting the listener – and how that might deviate from a more traditional artistic form of expression. But, that is exactly the point. Pushing out beyond what is known into the unknown, or unpredictable. Cage’s notion of non-intention – while still showing a great intention – is an interesting approach – but it does seem to contradict itself. We do need to cycle back to these questions after the Fluxus stuff and delve into how this material relates to the Self, Society, and Cosmos stuff.  

Snow, loss and compression

Wow – lost two weeks to snow and me out of town. Whatever rhythm we had established has been curtailed and will take some time to get back. This is interesting, since the last time I taught the class I feel we had really peaked around this point in the term. This time around we still have along way to go – which is good. I always find it odd re-teaching a class since part of the objective is to hit all the same marks that were hit last time, but also discover new material. Today was a compressed day to make up for lost time, and so we did dada projects in the first part of the class and then talked about them the rest of the time.

Three projects – make a dada poem, make a dada collage or photomontage and create a simultaneous poem. Executing the projects in ten minutes each is not the hard part, but missing out on seeing what everyone has created or what happens when the students get board with these projects is not possible in that amount of time. So, t was just a taste. I seem to recall last time I taught the class dada day was what broke some of the energy open.

From the projects it was a quick romp through some basic dada ideas. I am leaning on Roselee Goldberg’s book to provide some of the historical context. It is just impossible to cover both and do projects in the amount of time we have in class. So – the main question was – if, as Danto suggests, the dadas were basically rejecting western culture how did the projects exemplify that? We focused in on things like chance, randomness, and nonsense – with a health dose of not taking any thing seriously, but also seriously at the same time.

One of the connections I don’t think I have ever made as strongly as today is what position the spectator is put into by statements like “dada is a farce of nothingness in which all higher questions are involved.” Ball fractures the notion of western logic by creating a statement that demands you hold “yes” and “no” in mind simultaneously. He doesn’t decide which side to come down on – the spectator does.

The same is also true of Duchamp’s readymades. With pieces like the urinal he is posing fundamental philosophical questions about art but not giving an answer. His pieces, by virtue of being conceptual in nature, demand a spectator to complete the work. In short, the urinal isn’t art unless someone looks at it that way. I am not sure the same can be said for, say, Michelangelo’s David. But possibly it can if it is viewed outside of the western cultural tradition.

In the end, an interesting day – compressed, but not without value.

Bergson and Marinetti and Jarry, oh my!

Clearly I need to get my shit together and blog about this class more often. Another four days have gone by. In that time we have discussed the time projects, Bergson, Jarry, The Futurists, authority, and are at the doorstep of dada. Far too much to encapsulate in such a tiny frame.

The follow up to the time projects was largely driven by a discussion of both time and aesthetics. The day started with an exercise to create “something” that would last one minute – the three categories were something to be listened to, looked at, and watched. Groups were not supposed to share which one they were working on. The project was designed to show how fluid these categories, or how any aesthetic categories, can be. This gave way to a discussion of aesthetic categories and how they may have their own specific criteria. Inevitably, with the Tolstoy article, we get into how traditional aesthetic criteria tend to value what a specific class or element of society values. Yea – kind of Marxist, but kind of right.

Bergson and Jarry proved to be strange but amenable bedfellows. The Bergson article gave us a good way to begin to talk about time as an element of life and art. Duration, simultaneity, dynamism are three ideas Bergson deals with that connect incredibly well with the Futurists. The day begin with an exercise called “one minute late” in which the prompt suggest that: “                                                            awoke this morning one second later than usual. Because of the time gap the following five events occurred.” It is always interesting how dark this gets. Cataclysmic events, death, destruction. Although the occasional bright of humorous story gets told.

Jarry and ‘Pataphysics proved to be both useful and baffling. Wrapping your head around the seriousness or necessity of nonsense seems like an odd path to tread. Particularly because the bulk of western education denigrates this idea or brushes it off as – well – nonsense. But there is power in Jarry’s loopy logic – one that I hope will pay off when we talk about Tzara and Ball and dada.

The Futurists! Ahh – the first legitimate group of the term. The class started with an Oulipo game Homoconsonantism  in which the sequence of consonants in a source text is kept while all its vowels are replaced. It is always interesting to see what sentences students come up with. So this gave way to a discussion of manifestos in general and the specifics of the Futurists ideas. It seemed to be a more general overview than I have done in the past, but we did pick up on a couple of key ideas. The point is to link them to Bergson, but also to changes in technology and the world around these artists. The class concluded with a discussion of Russolo’s “art of noise.” Thinking about how our understanding of sound has changed over time is fascinating. What once was considered noise is now woven into music. The pay off for all of this comes later in the term when we cycle back to generative music and such.

A great example of simulteneity and dynamism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MbJi0xtnEA

And – today. As a lead in to dada students read Bakunin’s ideas on authority and Arthur Danto’s notions on the intractable avant-garde. The last time I taught this I think I made it too complicated – assigned seats, students who talked needed to hold a specific object – sort of like Lord of the Flies, and those that didn’t talk needed to remove a shoe every twenty minutes or so. Arbitrary authority, but somewhat silly. This time I boxed students into a “classroom” and assigned them seats in rows. A typical educational structure, but not one we have employed yet in the term .I made certain to arrive a few minutes late.

Immediately in the first class it was apparent that most students were comfortable doing what they were told, but two were not. The two students that decided to sit outside the proscribed area did so openly. We asked to sit with the others they refused. When demanded to sit with the others they asked why. I queried the class. What are my options at this point? Kick them out of class or let them continue to undermine my authority. I could not have scripted it better. One of the things I need to remember about these classes is  if I invite students to play I need to accept what form that play takes. It was a great segue into a discussion of Bakunin, authority, power, natural and artificial laws.

The second class took a different approach, but with similar results. I arrived to find all the chairs turned around and the students facing the wrong direction. I barked at them to restore the classroom and sit in their assigned seats. Oddly, and without griping, they did. This allowed me to ask why? Given the rebellion why were they so quick to right it once an authority entered the room? Again, this led us into a great discussion of Bakunin’s ideas.

The Bakunin material gave way to a discussion of the Danto article about dada rejecting western conventions as a way of rejecting society. In opposition to order and logic, chaos and nonsense become the weapons of choice. This part felt a bit more like a stretch, but the hope is laying the foundation with the Bakunin material that once we get to discuss dada it will all begin to fit together some. I am leaning fairly heavily on the RoseLee Goldberg book to provide narrative and biographical information on these groups. Next we head into dada territory and since I had to cancel dadaday we will most likely look at sound poems, chance, dada poetry next class.

I don’t quite have a read on the class yet. Both sections have totally different vibes, but in each there are students willing to just dive into the material. Right now I feel like I am explaining too much, talking too much, and need to find ways of passing that off to the students.