Label Gazing

Investigating identity through labeling. Literally. Adjectives on Avery labels on Post-its on us. Sensitivity training gone wrong or soooooo right. A project spawned from Erica J.s' consideration of labeling of the Obamas and the McCains.

1) Send Kate 15 adjectives that define yourself by Saturday.
2) Kate will print out adjectives on labels.
3) We'll transfer labels to post-its in class a la assembly-line.
4) Tag each other? See what happens? Other ideas?

Objection: Purloined Letters

I was thinking about Tom's shorthand pieces and wondering about the hidden meanings behind the text. Also, last week when we did the erasure activity, there was talk about how when the text became obscured on the pages they somehow transformed into being "text as object." I wondered if Tom considered his shorthand pieces "appropriated text," even though the legibility and the meaning of the text was obscured. What makes text become an object? When its legibility is obscured? It made me think of the idea of the purloined letter, where the idea of the letter with unknown text takes precedence over the actual meaning of the text in it. Is the way we view the shorthand pieces markedly different because we know that there is hidden meaning in the shorthand text used to make the piece? If it were a piece made of multiple curved lines, how would we view the piece differently?

lawrence weiner: language as material (itself?)

hello all,
thinking about our in-class discussion on materiality the other day and noticing the lawrence weiner link on the wiki, i decided to embed this short video which, i think, nicely illustrates weiner's practice in relation to the materials he engages with. he is working in a discursive space where materials--language, paint, museum walls, etc--are used to both define that space as well as dissolve that which defines the space. he aims to collapse the art object ("a-r-t"[language]) and art material (paint, wall, floor, language, etc.) into one complicated loop of circular fun in a way that plays with the importance of the material art object's relational status.

it is also worth noting that L.W. has done several "art" books which consist only of words on a page (yet which somehow escape being labeled poetry [not even concrete poetry!] or even writing!) our library has several of these in the art stacks and they are all worth checking out (with your eyes not your id since artist stacks are reserve only:). I wish i had cough syrup as an excuse for that horrible joke but i don't so i will just see you all in class tomorrow.