Video

New Elements at 1:45 /  2:23

https://youtu.be/hi7RhDwOalU

Family Collages

Over Thanksgiving break, I have taken photos of my family's hands, such as my parents' hands and my grandmother's hands. With their hands, I have worked on more substitutions in these collage experiments.

Parents' Hands

Family's Hands

In these collage experiments, I have played around with more substitutions, such as replacing some of the petals with photos on one heart piece.

notes and recollections, 13

procedures —

on Tuesday 29 November, John will present background on Puma (the company — including historical DNA, relationship with Adidas, &c., the brand, its advertising)

last week, met only one day (Tuesday 22 November); Patrick presented on Neville Brody; Josh on Joseph Schillinger, The Mathematical Basis of the Arts (1943), available entire at archive.org : link; Sarah led a discussion of passage from Mary Roach, Stiff : The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2004) that, alas, few if any had read.

There was a discussion of popup/moveable books re: Sarah’s work.
JM (later) pointed to Frederick C. Gale, Mortuary Science (1961), which “borrowable” (and renewable) by account holders (recommended) here : link. can’t download, but screen grabs work.
the idea : raw material for use/misuse, e.g., let prints/photocopies etc of this kind of material, be the paper used in popup/moveable book experiments.

Stacey showed new collages — link — with hands at NESW orientations; we continued to talk about collagistic substitutions.

Patrick showed a new animation, involving rotations of drawn figures (heads). There was some discussion of zooming in for details, that would make the work more abstract and contribute to a sense of dynamism.

Katie showed early version of book using contributions from others in Seminar; we talked about different typographic treatments for the text (smaller, Bodoni, etc.), that equally accommodated long and short text entries.

Thea showed book (assembled, also in google drive) of images seen through / screened by closeups of her great-grandfather’s writing. Some discussion of pauses between passages/chapters, perhaps involving other treatments of information (e.g., the “word cloud” formations involving Obsidian).
 

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On Tuesday 29 November, JM will select and show some “process books” from recent years. Seminarians should be preparing their own. These should document what work was done over the semester, and how the projects have evolved. They should include explanations/evaluations as well. I have not required that the “process books” be produced by Lulu (as is required in the Spring semester), but it is a good idea to do so.
 

Video

https://youtube.com/shorts/G-BV9i4Da4o?feature=share

Substitutions on Hand Collages

Throughout my hand collages shown below, I have played around with substitutions, such as replacing the heart pieces with photos of my maternal aunt and uncle in the Family Collages and photos of the celebrities I've met at comic-cons in the Comic-Con Collages. I have also played around with substitutions on my aunt and uncle's hands in the Family Collages, such as replacing one of my aunt's palms with my uncle's palm. For the Family Collages, I would like to take photos of my parents' hands and create more substitutions.

Family Collages (in progress)

Maternal Aunt and Uncle's Hands with their grandchildren's hands (The baby hands are a placeholder for now until I get photos of the grandchildren's hands)

 

Comic-Con Collages

Ralph Macchio

William Zabka

Chris Sarandon

Charles Martinet

Self Expression Nation, My City Begins

 

Self Expression Nation...

        

        Photographing the continuation of my city all together, from the "graffiti" houses,

template houses, and the buildable typography and graffiti boxes / buildings. With little 

additions such as town squares with some different typography as "murals". 

It was very neat to see them all together and set up in a different way than before, and

awesome to see how they all are adding up together. What couldn't nearly be possible without the help of others contributions, especially the variety that is created from so many different people. The houses are so interesting and creative, and so cool to look at all together.

notes and recollections, 12

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.
 

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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.
 

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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
 

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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.
 

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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.
 

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in progress.