Using Order to Create Chaos

Generative Strategies

1. Dog Prints — have a dog (or other animal you choose) walk all over or eat something off of a piece of paper. They just have to somehow mark it all up and then you try to see objects and make shapes from it.

2. Blowing Bubbles — Pin a piece of paper up on a wall and blow bubbles at it.

3. Grab Bag — Write down items each on a little scrap of paper. They may be related whether you want each to start with the letter B, all be smaller than a cat, or all be irregular polygons. Then you just pull out a certain number of paper scraps.

4. M.A.S.H. — Create a couple different categories with a few different options under each then, ‘mash’ through them as you would in the game.

5. First Thoughts — Go up to a couple different people and ask them to tell you the first thing they think of when you say a random color or letter to them. You can make it so that it has to be that color, or start with that letter. Then, you take what they gave you and create something

6. Make a list of actions/requirements and then follow them through. Ex: Grab the item to your immediate left. First thing you see when you step out of your room. Most used item in your top desk drawer. One would them combine these objects.

Scribbling Exquisite Corpses?

This weekend we had an Exquisite Corpse assignment.  At first, I had never heard of the game, but once it was explained I realized that I had never played it, but I had seen books where you can flip through and creat your own ‘monster’.  What the game is, is you fold a paper in thirds, Draw a head in the top third so that the neck comes down to the fold.  The paper gets passed to the second person, who can only see the middle fold, and the little tick marks at the top from where the neck was left off.  They then have to create their own body to add to this head that they do not know what it looks like.  This process is repeated.  Paper gets passed to the third person who only sees the bottom tick marks where the body was left off, and they have to draw legs for this ‘monster’.  My images looked like…

Then, in class today, we worked on more abstraction and imagination.  We closed our eyes and scribbled on a piece of paper while our partners turned and moved that paper.  We then had to find things in those scribbles.  I have to say, I did something similar to this in high school and hated it.  I can’t say my feelings changed much for it, but I did find it interesting to be scribbling with our eyes closed and our partner moving the paper.  This was the result of my scribbling and searching…

It is called Pareidolia, that’s where you see faces in things that don’t actually have faces; like cars, and buildings.  I would much rather be cloud gazing on a warm summer day, or playing ISpy in those books personally.  This is all in preparation for the next project!

Groups Grouping Groups of Cardboard

Oh group projects! How I cringe when those two words come together. I do have to admit that my group was pretty decent though, We may have been a member shorter than the other groups, but I think we still dealt with that aspect pretty well. Because of my Candlestick, our group immediately thought of the board game, Clue. This worked out perfectly. We had Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick. The hat and the boot represented the Colonel, and the candlestick was the weapon. We chose to place the candlestick in the open on the table, and in the direct spotlight because that was the weapon and we wanted it out of place so that when you look at the scene, you just know something isn’t right and that something has to do with the candlestick. We also loved the dramatic effect that the light and shadow played on the piece. It was suggested to our group that we should have had the furniture thrown askew and books everywhere, but if you have ever seen the movie Clue, you would know that that is not how it works. There isn’t a huge fight and throw down that takes place. The killer sneaks up and kills the person without them knowing that it is coming, and the sound is minimal. Had there been a fight, the other house guests would have sure heard it and seen what happened. Here, in our scene, clearly Colonel Mustard snuck into the library with the candlestick unseen, and beat the victim on the back of their head, knocking them out cold. He left the candlestick on the table, not wanting to be seen with it and possibly leaving a few clues behind, his hat, and his boot. (Or maybe someone else’s hat and boot to frame them) Either way, when the lights flicked out, Colonel Mustard was not in the kitchen with the rest. We also wanted to incorporate some color to accent, but we didn’t want to add too much to distract, and we wanted to keep it balance. The little bit in the plant, the photo, and the hat were just enough. With the color, we used the gestalt principles, proximity and continuity to move your eye around the scene. There was supposed to be similarity incorporated between the table, chair, and bookcase with the trim and style, but I guess it didn’t happen. This may have been one of those ‘If you want something done ‘right’, you have to do it yourself’ If we had more time, I would have liked to put more work into the chair and table, and maybe make a few more books.