procedures —
see notes and recollections, 9 for schedule of who presents what, when.
Thursday we'll be hearing/learning from :
Patrick
presentation on Neville Brody
Josh
presentation on Joseph Schillinger, The Mathematical Basis of the Arts (1943), available entire at archive.org : link (lands at pp 426-427, “Positional rotation applied to kinetic design”)
John
background on Puma (the company — including historical DNA, relationship with Adidas, &c., the brand, its advertising)
still to go, Sarah
lead discussion of passage from Mary Roach, Stiff : The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2004); date TBD
in progress.
Josh showed index cards upon which he had made various markings (different color on each card), that he used as guides to creating a musical composition; the specific method he used was not shown. hoping to hear the separate components derived from the index-card notes Josh showed; which presumably would yield thinner (less thickly oceanic) sounds.
in discussion of index cards, JM mentioned Zatocoding. See wikipedia entry for Superimposed Code : link
in addition to ruled and blank index cards, there are “Oxford Grid Index Cards” (available in the usual places). The point of index cards is they are sortable; tabbed dividers are available as well.
Thea showed a small booklet of close views of her great-grandfather’s writing. Struck by the shifts in densities (of ink), stroke weights, minimal marks, neat marks, followed by giant graphic gestures (Franz Kline — link — came to mind).
Thea also showed there wide images under the heading spaces between words — link — in which garden views (tomatoes, spent poppies) were visible through a screen of two or three handwritten (script) letters. What is visible between the words, between the letters. What is mostly obscured by the words. JM mused about once a thing is named, it is made (in some ways) invisible, unseen. One long-ago article on the topic (of what is called “verbal overshadowing”) came to mind :
“Words Get in the Way : Talk is cheap, but it can tax your memory”
Bruce Bower. Science News (April 15, 2003) : link
Stacey showed new variations, two hands (wrists cut off, in larger rectangle with plenty of surround, in which petals etc); and four hands (two pairs, from top and bottom), holding variously positioned (but same images, in the two examples shown) collage elements. Four pairs of hands (with others coming in from left (west) and right (east) might make better use of the space, and allow for other kinds of permutations, sharing (giving and receiving), etc. Formally becoming more adventurous and, at the same time, disciplined.
Sarah showed new pop-up (moveable) book models, with some visual content. We also saw a pop-up book with interesting structures — Marianne R. Petit, My Anatomical Journal (2022) : link. A discussion ensued about whether the form might better be leveraged to make a point or communicate. While trying to remember what that book had been, stumbled also on Richard Walker (and Rachel Caldwell, illustrator) their Human Body : A Pop-up Guide to Anatomy (2018) : link.
Might these book objects function as a “letter” to either one person or many, or multiple “letters” to different recipients. For instance, each “book” might be a letter from “beyond”, articulating the process of decomposition, un-doing, un-being. JM later mentioned Robert Seethaler his The Field (2021), in which people whose names are on gravestones, in a village cemetery, are given an opportunity to speak of their lives. Obviously different from what Sarah is engaged in, but the idea of “messages,” stories, seems useful at present.
in progress.
