do it (home)- Philosophy of Art ARTH 265

Artists’ Instructions
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Response
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This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Gabby Follis

I created a collage with images from a travel magazine. I followed the prompt of Nairy Bagramian (2012) to sit with your back on nature. At first, I thought this might mean that I should go outside and enjoy nature. After doing this, I realized I didn’t just want to capture an image of the outdoors, I wanted plenty of images to embody the theme of nature. I went back inside and found a few magazines my mom had sent me. I cut out pictures that were of the outdoors and pasted them onto a blank piece of paper. I also cut out words about adventure, mountains, and sceneries. This meant a lot to me since I’ve been very stressed recently and the outdoors is a place for me to destress. Even just creating this collage allowed me to destress. It was an enjoyable experience that I would gladly do again.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Walter Ellis

I chose the doodle instructions, which were to just doodle. I own a small clothing brand and I’m pretty good with graphic design and can create almost anything that comes in my head on a computer if I have the software I use, but in terms of physical art, like this drawing, I’m awful. But I think that is the whole point. I tried to show a human figure in a thunderstorm and my thinking was behind this was related to the constant craziness and confusion that life presents. It was really fun for me because the majority of the time I spend making designs for clothes, I already have an idea of what I want to create and the whole creation process is then geared towards a very specific goal. I just don’t really have time at school to just sit and create random designs like I can in the summer so it was really refreshing to just doodle and make something that was in my head, even if its ugly.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Faith Reilly

For my piece, I did the Doodle artist instructions from the DO IT (home). I drew my dream wedding dress and added in a “love” mask due to the current Pandemic Situations. At first, I was thinking about doodling something that was around me, but I have always really enjoyed fashion so I decided to draw a wedding dress. There weren’t any instructions for this project which is part of the reason why I chose it. I wanted something where I could really make it my own and be creative. The significance of the mask is that it can be seen as a fashion statement now a days with different outfits because people want to look good while staying safe. I really enjoyed this project because it was relaxing and fun to create my dream dress.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Sarah Wittmer

For my piece, I chose to do the prompt that read “doodle”. The doodle above is a picture of a girl surfing on a rainbow with minimal but bold colors involved. When I think of the word “Doodle” I always picture simple sketches. I also have always kind of held that doodles should be fun and exciting. So, with that thought in mind, I did just that. To me, this doodle represents happy thoughts. I live at the beach most of the summer and I’ve always enjoyed surfing, so when I think of my happy place I think of the ocean and good weather.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Hallee Coleman

For my piece, I chose Shilpa Gupta’s 2012 instruction, “LOOK STRAIGHT DON’T SEE.” When I read the instruction for this piece, I knew exactly what I wanted to create. As someone who suffers from chronic migraines with aura, “look straight don’t see” was something I experience a lot. A visual aura looks like electrical waves, as seen in my drawing, often starting small and then morphing into larger crescent shapes. Their lines are sharp and move like the sound of static on the radio. It symbolizes an impending migraine that’s going to be very painful as well as physically and emotionally exhausting. I ripped out the page where I’d stopped reading for my Greek Philosophy class when the aura came about and used it as my canvas. This illustrates my distrust of my most relied upon sense, vision, and experience with migraines.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Aries Contreras

TOMB
When I first met you
You were fresh and sparkling
I felt like a young moth with a simple charm to the light
Toddler trying to grab a fat thumb and destroy it
But I hugged you and loved you instead

One day, I noticed a stain on your cheek
A little darkness that seems to hurt
You shrugged it and insisted it was nothing
Never look in my eyes

The next day, your entire cheek rotted
I bandaged you
A little gaggin
With the feel of rotten meat

Shortly thereafter
Your entire skull was dead
There was disappointment and heartache inside
I tried to fix you, tore my own piece of meat on your behalf

I found you in the bathroom
Bones and dirt
Sacred in the sky
While watching myself fighting inside in an unknown battle, without patches
I think I tend to suffer these wounds myself
__________________________________________________________________________
The prompt that I chose was Gupta’s prompt from 2012, where the instructions were to “LOOK STRAIGHT. DON’T SEE”. There were a million ways one person can interpret this as a prompt, especially through the lens of conceptual art. I decided to close my eyes, and sit alone with my thoughts. In a normal context, I consider my emotions to be well balanced, yet lately I have been feeling as though I’m losing sight of myself due to outward pressures and stresses. I looked inward, processing thoughts of emotions and decided that a poem would describe myself well.

Once I finished the poem, I thought along the lines of conceptual art. The standard of poetry is to have carefully crafted lines that have structured rhymes and carefully chosen vocabulary, which was what I initially had created. I then merged the idea of conceptual art within this, along with some rules that my foreign language teachers always instilled into their students: Do not use google translate. So, I decided to copy and paste my poem into google translate to Japanese. I chose Japanese because it was the first language that came to mind that did not have the same written characters as English. I swapped it back and forth between the two languages for maybe 5, 6, or 7 times. After reading it in its final form, I realized how different it was from my original piece and how the wording had changed drastically. It no longer was a neatly crafted work. It was a messy translation, but to me, it still holds merit.

To me, this poem represents how concepts and words can be lost in translation, and how someone interpreting your work can be entirely different than how you intended. It also provides the notion that mess and misplacement can be just as beautiful as a polished and organized poem.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Cody Wax

This doodle is a representation of my thoughts during my many classes. Sometimes classes get long and I become bored, prompting me to doodle the names of my classes and other random pictures and shapes. The face I drew is one of my professors. The reason half his face is shaded in is because part of his face was in the shade during our Zoom class. There is no particular motivation for these drawings, other than I was spacing out and bored. The instructions for this drawing were “DOODLE.”

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Kaitlyn Ryan

I chose to respond to the 2012 Uri Aran prompt, “Doodle”. My work is a page of notes from a class (pictured above). The prompt says only to “Doodle”, and thought this could be an interpretation of the instructions. Typically, I do not draw on my notes because I think it makes them messy and difficult to study from. However, on this day, I found myself lost in thought and with a page full of doodles. Maybe it is a reflection of how I was feeling at this time (disorganized, preoccupied, etc). My doodles were a combination of words, lines, shapes, and pictures. I suppose there is a juxtaposition between the notes and the “doodles”; and moreover, the doodles would not exist without the notes. I am not sure to what significance this page of notes has as it was a more passive creation. I did not doodle to create art purposely, but perhaps it can be considered art.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Sophie McQuaide

I responded to Etel Andan’s 2012 prompt of “You can become an (almost) instant artist if you follow these instructions (you can also become an artist otherwise!).” My work is 18” by 18”, and is comprised of different colored squares (I used colored pencil) arranged in a pattern. I chose this prompt because I was interested in the methodical and logical approach to art making that Andan proposes. As someone who makes art regularly, for class and for personal enjoyment, I’m used to art being something that is creative and challenges you to think outside of the box. This prompt is very inside-of-the-box, so I thought it would be an interesting challenge to let go of the loose, free-flowing side of art making in favor for something more rigid and straightforward.

I’m not a huge fan of the finished product, as I personally prefer art that appears more organic. This is a very abstract, geometric, and simplistic piece, which is quite unlike how I make art for personal enjoyment. However, that being said, I did find the process of making this piece pretty enjoyable. It was rather mindless and meditative in a sense, and the end product kind of reflects this meditation. I don’t see any meaning behind this piece, but there is significance to be found in the fact that it challenged my previous notions of art making and pushed the boundaries of what I can create as an artist.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Mason Rose

The prompt that I chose to do was by Uri Aran in 2012 and simply went as such: “doodle”. While I’m not that great at drawing, I’ve always found myself doodling on the side of my papers, so I chose to do this prompt. My conceptual art piece consists of a howling wolf on a cliffside in the foreground, and in the background there is a mountain range, stars, the moon, and other animals. Additionally, there are the bubble letter words “howl”. While my doodle not only was of something that I am familiar with drawing, the wolf, the meaning behind my piece was to focus on the beauty of nature and the need to preserve it. While my picture may not be presenting the most aesthetically pleasing trees, plants, or even animals, the idea is also that nature can be beautiful in many different ways. Following off of this, by recognizing the beauty of nature, there is also a recognition of the need to preserve it in a time where global climates are warming quickly and hurting ecosystems. Overall, the idea of a “doodle” being a form of art does challenge the traditional norm of what art is. Normally, doodles which are simple, not very complex drawings and many times done in a short time aren’t considered art. However, with conceptual art, the medium is the idea behind the piece and what the author was trying to consider when he was creating the piece. Due to the medium being the idea, the objects in the actual piece are only a mere means which allows for a wide variety of types of artwork to be considered conceptual art, and therefore, I do believe that doodles, with a meaning/concept/idea behind them can be considered conceptual art.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Olivia Sherman

This is my response to David Lamelas’ instructions. I followed the directions while wearing very red lipstick and with my face against a sheet of paper to create evidence of my participation. I wanted the process and product to be simple, to reflect the simplicity of the instructions. I also thought the 2D print format worked because of the “perfect circle” the instructions describe. The lipstick also allowed me to capture the movement involved in following these directions. You can see where I initially placed my lips and how they moved, dragging across the paper, to say ‘moon’.

I do not think there is significance or meaning behind my response to this prompt. I just wanted to visually recreate what Lamelas is asking of us to do with his instruction set. I like it though, it is aesthetically pleasing to some degree. I also think it is interesting that if I gave this to the Samek as my response to this prompt, they might put my lipstick stain on the wall.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Margaux Vaccari

The artist I chose to follow and interpret their instructions was Uri Aran. Their prompt and directions were simply to “doodle”. My piece of conceptual art as shown above is a pair of eyeglasses and in the reflection of those glasses are the images of a Purell bottle, mask, a pumpkin, and a stethoscope wrapped around the glasses. There are also the words reading “covid19”, and “Happy Halloween” in the reflection of the glasses. The idea behind my drawing was to reflect the world around me. It holds great significance because it illustrates how the excitement for upcoming events, holidays such as Halloween, and other things occurring are overshadowed by the fear of covid19. Its meaning to me is how I personally see the world differently now. When I go somewhere now, I immediately wonder if I have hand sanitizer with me after I open a door or if I have my mask in my pocket to go wherever I am going. It also holds significance in the way we all go about our daily lives. The schedules, tasks, and overall things we do on a regular basis has completely transformed and is categorized as the “new norm.” My “doodle” is classified as conceptual art in the eyes of Goldie and Schellekens because they would claim that my drawing holds the feature of dematerialized, which is appreciating the idea behind it rather than the material object itself. My drawing can also be described as portraying the feature of being anti-aesthetic, in the sense that to some my drawing may not be the most aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Overall, my “doodle” serves as an interpretation of the “new norm” today.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Yvonne Zhang

This is a drawing I made on my iPad using an iPad pencil in 99 seconds. The artist’s instruction was to make a drawing in 99 seconds with any body parts in any median, time, space and condition. I used my left hand, which is not my regular hand, to hold the iPad pencil and use my right hand to cover my right eye so that I can only see with my left eye. The experience was quite interesting and I was satisfied with my final drawing. I tried to draw an abstract version of an object in my room, and because of my monocular vision, my depth perception was not as well as normal situation. There were also lots of time that I felt not in control of my hand and strokes because I was not used to draw or write with my left hand.

This 99 second drawing does challenge the traditional aesthetic standard of art. In traditional art, a standardized work could never be created in 99 seconds and be this sketchy or incomplete. This instruction makes the audience to think beyond the artwork itself, and to think of its creation context, artist’ emotion and the creation condition. It allows variability and diversity among the field of art in its nature of anti-definition. Artists have more degrees of freedom when it comes to creating works and expressing feelings or ideas. At the same time, the audience has more degrees of freedom in interpreting conceptual art and incorporating personal feelings.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by:

So the work I chose to do was the third prompt by the Critical Art Ensemble. The domestic artist will need a functional television (preferably color) and a camera (polaroids are highly recommended). Turn on the television and process the images by aggressively distorting the color, tint, contrast, and resolution. Prepare the camera by turning off the flash, or by placing electrician’s tape over the flash. Turn off the lights. Get close enough to the television to allow the television image to completely fill the frame of the camera. Photograph at will.

I used my favorite show, an anime called Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure as I thought the vibrancy of the show would lend itself well to the prompt. At first I was going to use the prompt to watch television for an hour without sound as this show is in Japanese and has subtitles, there would be nearly no change to the experience. However, I thought that taking pictures would really bring out all the things I love about the show. The anime to begin with has such intense and vibrant colors to begin with that the distortion doesn’t actually do that much to the end pictures. The actual dialogue on the show is as the title suggests Bizarre and there are great one liners that translate well through subtitles. The creator of the source material Hirohiko Araki is known in Japan as one of the most successful manga artists in Japanese history. His notably been commissioned by the Louvre, Gucci and most recently did the poster work for the 2020 Japan Paraolypics. I wanted to use this work as this work is originally a manga, translated to an anime and then taking photos of them shows the versatility and phenomenal translation throughout so many different mediums. Overall, I think his work is beautiful and I just wanted to highlight a more unknown artist in the western world.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Christine Cha

My piece is “Trash,” and it continues the conversation that Joseph Josuth created with his One and Three Chairs piece, exploring ontological and epistemological ideas. I combined two DO IT (Home) ideas, Aran Uri’s “Doodle” (2012) and the Critical Art Ensemble’s “Entropic Sculpture” idea, creating a doodle of trash I accumulated not on my floor but on my desk over the day. Conceptual art is really interesting in expanding the mind and allowing one to create and process thought experiments on art and philosophy. It was fun.
The idea idea, so what I am exploring, is “trash.” What is trash? Who makes trash? Is trash more real or true as a drawing or in its physical form? If the trash is on the same piece of paper and formed into a flat object through photography, can we say one is more trash-like than the other? When trash is made aesthetically interesting, does that give worth? Is trash truly worthless? When does or does it not have value? Where do we get our conceptions of trash? Why do we even have the concept of trash? Is it truly a useful or beneficial idea? Is this art? How or how is it not art? Who determines whether this is art or not? Is trash negative? Does it or should it have any kind of connotation, whether negative, positive, or neutral? There are many more questions that make up the medium, the idea, of “trash.”

I am joking here about how the art that we make often seems, is deemed, or is trash, depending on the viewers, the artist’s mindsets (including mindset changes overtime), the society at large, the different art world’s ideas. Also, it is part of the irreverence of high art and several art forms, photography, sketch, and physical art. I am basically making fun of my own fears and concerns of art because of my tendency to overly seek aesthetic reactions rather than the more “artistic” mindset that I aspire towards but often forget. This art is self-reflective in that it was also a freeing exercise, helping me explore art in the more conceptual art form that I have wanted to try, especially as a philosophy major, but have not explored. It’s an ode to “eff-it” or the philosophy of bullshit. There is a great book called “The Philosophy of Bullshit” by Harry Frankfurt.
It was just fun to go past my fear of the empty page and just play and have fun with art, which I have lost overtime but want to re-explore.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Patrick Hanley

This is my piece I created following the instructions on DO IT. It falls within the category of a conceptual piece of art. A standard feature of the piece is the focus on patterns and movement of color. Since conceptual art focuses more on the ideas within the piece as opposed to the artwork itself, I consider these standard features. A variable feature of the piece would be the colors used as well as the grid layout. While these features make the work unique they do not affect whether it falls in the category of contemporary art. The contrastandard features of the piece would be the use of typical crayons and paper as the medium of the piece. Conceptual art typically works with mediums that are not typical for common artwork. Therefore, the medium of my piece could be considered a contra-standard property.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Caio Jordao

For the DO IT HOME project I decided to do KOO Jeong-A’s Untitled (1997), in which I had to grab a black or blue pen and draw lines according to the directions in the instructions booklet. This work of conceptual art follows much of the ideas discussed in the readings and has many of the features that we would be able to attach to the category of conceptual art. The standard feature that my conceptual work of art had that was in virtue with other features of works in this category was the idea of “anti-definition”. The drawing that I came up with after following the instructions from the booklet does not follow the “traditional” senses of what art should be and look like. Much like Duchamp’s Fountain, I did not have any real part in the creation of the work of art being that I simply followed rules telling me how to draw my lines, however this end product drawing on the sheet of paper that I have represents the way in which my brain interpreted the directions on the sheet of paper given to me, which works well for a work that is aiming to be included in the category of conceptual art being that it was a psychological test of how I read and interpreted directions. An example of a variable feature of my work in respect to the category of conceptual art could be the color of the pen or where I hung the paper in the end. My decision to pick the blue pen over the black one or over using a pencil was not a decision made in thinking how it would affect my work, this decision did not have anything to do with the fact that the work is a conceptual work of art. Finally, an example of a contra-standard feature of my work with respect to the category of conceptual art could be the fact that my work is not an ironic self-reflection of art and of me as an artist. Being that this is a common feature of conceptual art, I am tempted to identify this as a contra-standard feature of my conceptual work of art.

This work has been interpreted and responded to by: Sheila Lintott

Critical Art Ensemble, Appropriately Processed Photography.
This is a still photo from the news on the eve of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. I suspect this representation captures the ethos of the event pictured quite well.

do it (home)- Philosophy of Art ARTH 265

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