Days four, five, and six:

As often happens, I fall behind on responding after each class. This has drawbacks, but also benefits. It does give me a chance to reflect a bit more on how all of the pieces are fitting together. Day for was what used to be called “DADADAY” and has since transmogrified into a mix of dada and surrealistic exercises. Five stations were set up around the room with student groups rotating between them. To save some time for discussion we gave them about 7 minutes a station – just about enough time to make a photo montage, a dada poem, a William Burroughs cut up text or image, an exquisite corpse with images and an exquisite corpse with text. We had them post the results on the blank white rolling columns that are available in the space. Immediately they recognized that this surface helped to contextualize this as a “show.” Individual pieces began to take on the quality of the whole. The conversation centered on the collaborative nature of these projects and the use of chance. These pieces offer a good quick way to do a deep dive into working with chance and randomness, something we will explore for the rest of the term.

The next day was one of reflection and a point to start to pull together some of the ideas that had already developed. Bob did an overview on artists and styles emerging from WWI and we used an essay on Zen and the difference between eastern and western art forms and Thich Nhat Hahn’s short piece on a cloud in a piece of paper. Part of what we are trying to get the students to wrap their heads around is that giving up control to chance can create some interesting results. To help with this we broke down the steps of the dad poem instructions. The first time we taught the class we talked with the students a lot about machines, round two it was processes, but this time around its systems. So – we examined the dada poem as a system – one that doesn’t judge the results. And also one that requires very little skill to execute. We ended the class with a review of the 20 some-odd terms we have already developed. We broke the students into their groups and had each group define and give an example of four terms. Some good comments and insights.

Day six was largely driven by the groups going out on campus to identify and detail a system. We started the discussion by following up on their writing assignment – which asked them to detail the steps of they system they have learned to make art. Some great reflections here. Bob and I distilled these writings into a kind of mater system that was – no surprise – linear, orderly, each step dependent on the one before, etc. These systems all drive toward the creation of a final product. At that point we sent them out to explore systems on campus – they came back with some great information – kitchen prep, applying for grant, getting arrested, etc. Far more interesting stuff than I had imagined. The hard part now will be to have them distill these systems into some clear steps they can follow for their first project. To help with this we though we would start by breaking down the dada poem into really clear steps. We also need to impress upon the students that the product of them working with these systems is not important – it’s the process that is. Don’t worry about the end result. This is often a tough sell for students taught to polish all artistic expression to a high gloss.

A few stray thoughts on how the term is going. The changes to the syllabus this time around I think have allowed us to get the students a bit deeper into the subject a bit more quickly. They do seem up to the task. Section one seems a bit more introspective about the material, whereas section two seems to come to conclusions a bit faster, but maybe not see as far. We will see how this shakes out. I like the use of the groups as a resource for students that might be lost if set adrift on their own. We will see how long we can sustain this. I do, however, miss some of the assignments from the last time we taught the course. I do love the make a sound machine project, but we may get to some of this in-class at some point, particularly toward the end of the term. Our focus at this point is getting them the skills and thought process needed to execute the three projects.