Saturday, May 14, 2011

Some Lines

Source text was collected by asking train commuters on the red, orange, green, pink, brown, purple and blue lines what they were reading. Excerpts were taken and cut into individual words and phrases, which were then piled on seven pieces of correspondingly colored cloth and placed around the performance space.

Each participant received a different order in which to visit the cloths, and a needle threaded with colored floss to fill with words. When the string was full or the time limit exceeded, each participant came to the front of the room and knotted the strings together into a structure not unlike a map of the train system. The completed text can be read from many directions, and does not have a distinct beginning or ending.

Some Lines

One possible interpretation:

And I lost this fight with Europe significantly since my jaw was opened for someone more developed, time for you and for so-called handsome aluminia I’m afraid. Insubstantial she was white girlfriends, google’s lipstick interacted against the sky google’s prettiest competition determined like a search that was true but matched just some Mr. Aristocrat out with girls! Tedious ideas and time of Michelangelo at the party. White flannel trousers, meet the meteorites programming the women come and Microsoft set fire for the company me an accomplice? Microsoft has done this once about the house for a hundred companies to replace the noise. Following services emphasized something wearing probably complaints of the subject of suicide negotiations denying patient buys. In Europe against attended. Think of the and come interested station somewhere that google controls completing we were walking investigation said afraid backstreets surprised beside she told him with to undress I had kissed, hours ago, cheerfully someone with my complaints a wide-ranging library of improbable experience we won’t have understood and only would be minnows or mermaids of the sea upon it’s thirty DISASTER happy to kissed. Mr Sector. Um that it was a soft the backstreets and it’s maze interfaces maze behind him be in the works,” Mr. Verney said. A sound wreathed outer space. When the wind assault was liked I said “Come On,” “We’re going 130 Till Human anyway – listening to desperately boots kitchen listening grimy relative let us go, walking technologies.

Post

Six packages containing interactive, whimsical objects were assembled, each describing a character from a book I loved as a child. Each package was sent to a person who embodied that character in my own life, with a self addressed stamp envelope and an invitation to reply to the ‘letter’ by writing a story or speculating on the owner of these objects.

The six packages and their recipients are:

Letters

Public Stories

Four drawings of three panels were completed in chalk on the concrete near Lake Michigan. The first two panels suggested narrative, and the third was left unfinished, with three pieces chalk placed nearby, in the hopes that people who came across them would choose to alter or complete the series.

Drawing one contained zombies approaching an unaware group of lacrosse players.
Drawing two contained a terrified sheep and a hungry dragon.
Drawing three contained a mermaid irritated by a noisy motor boat.
Drawing four contained a bear stumbling on a cello in the woods.

Unfortunately, heavy rain erased the drawings and melted the chalk before any responses (Or lack of them!) could be discovered. Definitely one to try again on a sunny day.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Electronic books and paper books





The class did a choral reading from the prologue from Romeo and Juliet. Words and phrases they remembered they wrote on post-it notes and stuck to the wall. Discussion raised questions about how using an electronic reader effected what we remembered from our readings. We did note the differences between text and digital mediums. The exercise was enjoyable and thought provoking.