“If you’re not having fun, you’re doing something wrong.” Groucho Marx.
Initially set up as 'Alta Ego' A collective of different sorts who wanted to create work away from their normal practice and in doing so create new and exciting work. Our main aim is to have fun and in doing so create art that can either reflect that fun or become a deeper exploration into the artists mind and how we translate what we see and think into what we do. This unit we had a new member join us and we are no longer anonymous, we meet weekly, when possible, and create a variety of work from all sorts of sources.
This unit we have been mainly keeping core to our exploration and inspiration a list of words that have gone out of common use, we only look up the meaning for certain exercises, we prefer to not know. They are listed below:
accouchement
animalcule
bibliopole
bruit
camelopard
ceil
circumjacent
cicisbeo
cispontine
collogue
cordwainer
crinkum-crankum
darbies
doit
esurient
fainéant
filibeg
gammer
glabriety
grimalkin
guerdon
gyve
immedicable
izzard
kine
latchet
leman
lurdan
malapert
malison
nithing
numbles
orison
orts
otiose
paynim
peccant
pelf
peradventure
peregrinate
periapt
picaroon
piepowder
pismire
quean
quidnunc
sanguinary
scantling
scaramouch
sciolist
slugabed
taiga
tantivy
tapster
tenter
timbrel
tocsin
wast
weasand
whilom
yclept
These have provided much inspiration. Not least with the 10 minute tasks we often give ourselves during our meetings (currently held on Teams). Anyone can come up with an idea as to what to use them for and everyone is very individual in their response.
10 minute task
- Make a mask using one or more of the words from the list
This was fun and produced a variety of outcomes. Only having 10 minutes does mean you are quite spontaneous and make use of what is to hand. My response is below... I used the words; Pismire, Pelf, Taiga and Scantling.
A mask I felt was something to hide behind but yet be able to see through. When you put a mask on it does seem to encapsulate yourself within your body, almost as if a protective shield has gone down. The wire I added after I had made the eyes, meaning I had restricted the ability to communicate by speaking after giving myself the ability to see. I became an observer rather than a commentator.
10 minute task
- Draw an item and use the list of words as describers
After about 30 seconds of thinking what to do I turned to an old electrical and engineering text book that I have plundered before for reference. It is full of wiring diagrams and mechanical illustrations that make no sense to me. I decided to use parts of these to create something that looks useful but highlighting that by using the lost words as descriptors it became even more useless as a diagram.
10 minute task
- Create a creature using one of the words from the list
Coincidently two of us used the same word. We did, however, create two completely different creatures. My word was Picaroon. I felt it need a back story, so added a little bit of nonsense make it feel a little more like it might actually exist...
Picaroon.
A tree dwelling, three eyed creature with webbed claw feet, fur covered and large directional ears. A Picaroon’s age can be determined by the amount of teeth missing as they lose one each year, around their birthday. It’s favourite fruit is found in the Peregrinate tree, found in
the jungles of Leman.
It might have only been 10 minute task but I wonder how I might develop this creature into a three dimensional version and maybe even a whole collection of them, which I could display in a zoo/museum type vitrine.
10 minute task
- Create a 'Fandangle' -
( a useless or purely ornamental thing. "a solo with no end of shakes and trills and fandangles"
I had two main items, a motor I had partly taken apart and therefore wouldn't work and a paintbrush that was completely clogged up. By attaching the two items I rendered them even more useless and added a few embellishments purely for decoration. As much as the item was supposed to be 'useless' I still think I could use it potentially as a drawing implement, I used stranger.
10 minute task
- Create an unidentifiable image of an everyday item and a normal image of a weird item.
After a little bit of experimenting I had found an everyday item that I could make look unidentifiable.
There are many words I could use to describe this image. It has a very organic and fleshy appearance, it looks fresh, alive and potentially either edible or something to stay avoid. When we presented these images we all discussed the image before revealing what it actually what and in pretty much every case nobody could identify any else's item. This does start to make you think about the possibilities of how you could abstract everyday items, whether just photographically or to take on into another medium. It might not be something new but it does need consideration and this is all from just a 10 minute task.
In case you are wondering the object above is actually some water in washing up bowl, shaken to move.
Not quite an everyday item you would be familiar with but an item you would use almost everyday. It's the motor from a car windscreen that for some reason the garage had given me when they had to replace one, maybe they were justifying the £280 it cost...
I have since taken it further apart to see what the elements are and as to whether there is any use for them as items to power something, print from or to create an alternate three dimensional object that equally has no purpose.
Sometimes we set ourselves a little homework in order to give a task a little more time for consideration.
2 Faulty Homework
- Create a Superhero
For this I went back to the Electrical/Mechanical text book. Although this wasn't a 10 minute task I still wanted it to be quite spontaneous and by cutting out elements of diagrams I could start to see a figure appearing.
Dynoman
Dynoman can jump start anything. Plug him in and watch the sparks fly. Just remember to keep his points well greased and use the correct feeler gauges to ensure maximum power.
With the book being from the 1950/60's it already has a retro feel to it and the illustrations are of an era, something I was never going to lose and wanted to embrace.
Poems
These are a weekly affair. Quite simply, we pick a random book, we used turn to page 240 (Illiteration of 2Faulty) and our combined age. We now go to to page 210, our new combined age... and randomly type a line or phrase into the chat, no order, sometimes we make it difficult to hit return to mess up the order, ie do it left handed, with our noses or after counting down in a different language... random becomes more random. We write two lines each, giving us a ten line Dadaesque Poem, these are kept to play with later. In our previous incarnation we had many ideas about how to display them and finally decided to each create a label for a tin of whatever we chose. This we displayed stacked as a supermarket pyramid.
So far for this unit we have individually taken a poem each and created them to be part of a 'zine' we each creating and are hoping to develop as part of the end of degree show. TI chose a poem from 19th January, no particular reason, I just wanted to see how it might read and what I could do typographically with it
I used my Design head to apply some sort of logic to emphasise certain lines or words to engage the reader and even disrupt their reading of the piece, perhaps leading them to think there is some logic in the collective words and lines, when indeed it is totally random. This particular poem has a couple of lines in German as Beatrix was away for this session, so we google translated other words. By playing with the layout it can become something else, it can be almost a design and arrangement looking for balance. When we create these poems we do also read the final version out and it is striking how many actually make a certain amount of sense with lines linking and common themes being pulled together.
The raw words can be purer, in the way Jenny Holzer's 'Truisms' were when presented as a list before being applied to a signifier and leading the reader to interpret in a different way. I discussed this in my Year Two 3,000 word essay along with Barbara Kruger and Bruce Nauman.
We continue to meet up and create culminating in a zine or exhibition when we feel it is time to wrap up a set of sessions. We are also planning to continue as a collective post graduation, so more play, fun and output to come!
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