Act of Us | Poems + Impressions

This project was completed with partners (my group consisting of myself, Christopher Petrus, and Janine Feng) and focused on the associative qualities of language through the investigation of everyday objects as everyday peers. The task essentially involved adopting the experimental writing style of Gertrude Stein in her book of cubist poetry titled Tender Buttons (which was discussed in Seminar) to collectively write impressions of seven different household objects using the format of an exquisite corpse. Then, inspired by these impressions, we had to create four poem drawings, which are images that illustrate the associative qualities of the objects chosen. The task as partners was to use each other’s drawings as inspiration to write another set of impressions, and then to match these new impressions with the original object depicted in the illustration.

Ideation

The ideation process for this task began with collectively deciding on a list of seven household items for which to write impressions for our Seminar assignment.Writing one line after another, as a group we composed impressions for a lamp, a refrigerator, a writing utensil, a cell phone, a bed, a mug, and a writing utensil. From these objects, we decided to individually choose four to base our drawings for Studio on. I chose the mug, lamp, refrigerator, and writing utensil.

After completing the Seminar task as described above, then began the process of brainstorming to create visual translations of our impressions for Studio. In doing so, I broke down the representations of my objects in two ways – first by deciding on which associative qualities to focus on for each object (as shown below Figure 1 and 2), and then by connecting and contrasting them based on their natures and spatial requirements. I made these distinctions in order to fully explore the conceptual connotations of each object as deeply as possible so that my both my group members and the audience viewing our presentation would be able to better guess which objects had been represented.

NOTE: The screenshots below are from my Ideation Sequence for this Bridge Project.

Final Work

Before continuing on into dissecting my drawings for studio, here is a link to our final Seminar submission.

Drawing on the ideas that I developed above, I created the following works to represent my objects:

 

 

As can be seen in the images above, the works titled Lamp and Refrigerator both represent their respective objects using imagery drawn from nature, and are also painted in the same abstract cubist styles using the same colour palette. These choices create relatively static compositions that derail from the usual organic portrayals of nature in order to emphasise the fact that although these objects serve as extensions of nature, they are still artificial and are simply imitations of naturally occurring phenomena. Additionally, in the drawing of a fridge, the qualities focused on are that of preservation and death which are depicted through the symbolism of a cluster of mushrooms as they both give and absorb life; whereas the drawing of a lamp emphasises the qualities of guidance and artificiality through the illustration of a seemingly illuminated landscape.

The works titled Mug and Writing Utensil are also created in the same style with the combination of a complex, intrinsic pattern bordered by thick, bold, black lines. The two are also composed in the same way with the two drawings containing an abundance of white space surrounding a central focal point. The purpose of this was to convey that the objects represented by these drawings can exist in isolation, i.e. do not require a spatial / situational context in order to be used appropriately. Consequently, the drawing depicting a writing utensil highlights the capability of the object to document infinite knowledge shown by the intricate pattern in the middle of the rectangle (that is possibly a more literal allusion to a piece of paper) limited by the finiteness of the resource, as the pattern abruptly cuts off through the page. On the other hand, the drawing of the mug is symbolic of containment and its capability to withstand extreme temperatures, but also its fragility and the catastrophe that can arise from it, as depicted by the incomplete border of broken concentric circles, which allow the pattern to escape towards the ends of the page.

Presentation Format

The format we chose to present our work is an Instagram account called @bridgeproject2. We chose this format as we thought it might be a good way for our audience to engage in a very direct way with our project. The six posts at the top of the account are 6 of the initial Seminar impressions that we wrote pertaining to the objects we represented in our collective drawings. This prefaces viewing the account as it gives some context for the associative qualities that we’ve depicted in our drawings and also allows for the audience to gain some insight into our ideation prior to beginning our Studio task. Each post thereafter consists of four slides – the first is the drawing itself, followed by the 2 impressions written by other group members of the drawing, and finally the correct answer for what object the drawing represents. We thought this would enable the audience to partake in the same “guessing-game” style process that we undertook, of developing their own impressions of each drawing and then being able to compare it with the interpretations of others versus what is actually portrayed.

Challenges and Surprises

One of the most significant challenges I faced was really understanding Gertrude Stein’s writing style and how she was cultivating meaning in her work. Initially, I couldn’t escape the mindset that her poetry was “meaningless” in a sense that she was not actually trying to convey anything specific about the objects that she describes, but rather was attempting to conjure ambiguous images in the mind of the reader. But eventually, I realised that even though her sentences were abstract, they were still quite specific and used the tools of language to present cohesive ideas or interpretations of the different objects. Hence, keeping this in mind, a pleasant surprise for me while writing was how simple it was to think about objects in terms of their associative qualities (albeit it was not as simple to translate these thoughts into Stein-esque writing) which definitely helped in Studio as well in brainstorming different ways to visually depict these associative qualities.

In terms of Studio, a surprise that I encountered in speaking with my peers about our Studio task was how despite correctly guessing which object had been represented in someone else’s drawing, we individually drew different conclusions about the associative qualities that were illustrated. I found this to be a strong testament to the potential of visual elements to communicate specific messages that are nevertheless shaped by the experiences and perceptions of a viewer.

Reflection

To sum up my experience working on this Bridge Project, I would say that it was a very productive learning experience. This being my first time collaborating with other students in any capacity during my first semester here at Parsons, I found it a very enriching experience to be able to hear others’ perspectives in a more direct way and learn more about how they approach the tasks that have been assigned to us. I think this opportunity to discuss ideas openly and improve on each other’s contributions was in many ways a very effective way to produce intriguing work. Consequently, the ease with which I was able to communicate with my group members and their willingness to collaborate, especially across very different timezones was very fulfilling.

Moreover, being a long-time literature student with a lot of experience writing analyses and critical essays where sentence structure and semantics are heavily emphasised, I found that this project really enabled me to break constraints that I didn’t even realise I had imposed upon myself. The process really allowed me to see that meaning in writing can be derived from the larger conceptual meaning of a work rather than from fully-formed sentences or contextually accurate and specific vocabulary. It also allowed me to think outside the box when it came to allocating meanings to a word, and to experiment with how these meanings change when the same words are inserted into different, unusual circumstances. Overall, working on these drawings and sharing our interpretations of each other’s work allowed us to have a deeper conversation about the symbolism of different objects and whether / how the qualities we attempted to convey in our visual translations of them would be apparent to others. Finally, through evaluating the differences in our interpretations of both Stein’s and each other’s work and questioning what this could mean, I gained a better understanding of how personal experiences can influence how we see and engage with the objects around us.

Connection to Creative Practice

While this project does not link to any work I have done before in terms of process or outcome, I think it relies heavily on symbolism which is a concept that I have been quite interested in exploring in my work. Additionally, I find that the close relationship between literature and art in this project, similar to Bridge Project 1, is very intriguing to me and motivates me to want to develop this further in the future.

Work from:
Integrative Studio 1 with Professor Matthew Villarreal
Integrative Seminar 1 with Professor Marina Blitshteyn