- A Focal Thing: Jasons' Motorcycle
- The "Hello, Neighbor" Doll
- A Knight of the 12th Century
- Religion, philosophy, and politics within our present social context .
- News Visuals of Culture
Robert Neubecker for the LA Times.We borrowed this wonderful example from the Los Angles Times, Sunday, October 22, 2006.. Robert Neubecker used many of the techniques we've been exploring to give our work a professional edge without formal art studio study.Check out the variety of marks he makes in the thought bubbles. Lots of musical notes - the i-pods? - an art student, music inspiring her to tell her friend about her idea for a new project: (@@@)? - a robot dancing to postmodern notes, digitalized cards and manual instructions? - an artist lost in the inspiration of music for his latest projects? - a business man, juggling a couple of negotiations in the background, talking to his wife in the foreground with his music tying it all together? - the green outsider, marching to his own tunes, worrying the formulae for his inventions - a poor dear teen-ager, bathed in black, suffering the throws of Gothic depression with even her bubble depressed: Little Black One Note, but with dark music to lift her back to the normative stream of life? - a child dancing happily to his own exuberant tune, one bubble filled with the swirl of life before him? - and a typical college student, her music following as she ponders the physics lecture that just won't sort itself out into an intelligible language yet; the orange writing of the physics bubble shows some of the confusion of the teen ager's black morass. Look at it's edges.
What a wonderful world of inspiration for those of you who like to write poems or tell stories. Here, Robert Neubecker offers you an entire cast of characters. And that's just my off-th-wall description of them. You tell us who they are, and Neubecker's drawing to start a dialog on who we are today who make up our neighborhoods.
- Boxes
Boxes offer us an opportunity to visualize complexity. The box itself, its decoration, its sculptural qualities take on the overall perspective. As we open the box, we encounter representations of the factors that contribute to or affect the relationship represented in the whole structural piece. For example, a box decorated with a forlorn creatue might represent someone feeling out of place. Upon opening the box, we may find dozens of cranes, all one color, with a single crane of a different color. Visual representation of how color contributes to inclusion and exclusion. Sometimes that's based on race, sometimes on gender, sometimes on class, and sometimes on arrogant stupidity. But our boxes help us visualize and see complexities we might miss in the squalid clutter of the real world.
- The Luxor's Pyramid Box
from which I took the inspiration for our pyramid box. jeanne
Pyramid Box Instructions. No Gluing. Just decorate, cut, and fold.
The practice of sharing images encourages our coming to know one another, as we try to understaand our differing perspectives on social, economic, and political issues. (illocutionary discourse, Maria Pia Lara - communicating for purposes of understanding, that we come to see how many perspectives we really do share as humans- from here we lead into Habermas and Foucault, and reconciliation with Kant.) In plain English, coming to know each other through disourse on our focal things helps bind us into a community of humans who must resolve the power/violence issues that face us today. We are trying to stimulate talking about focal things on a personal level as a prelude to talking about focal things on broader community-wide and global levels.
By Jason Herrera, CSUDH
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The inside of Jason's card brings greater depth to our understanding of Jason. His reference to the fast track is a concern we all share. Where has all the time gone for smelling the roses? We need to find more time to "love out loud." How? But just knowing that these are concerns Jason sees gives some depth to communication that otherwise becomes purely instrumental. Time with our students to talk about Nietszche, Habermas, Foucault, Kant - and provide some understanding of the power/violence relationship that we hope will tranfer to governance discourse. Seeing the broader context, even in summary and discussion, helps.
Jason may be able to make copies of his motorcycle card to offer as reminders to those he talks with (his community-building activity), but he might also just share his own card. Sometimes we just talk. Sometimes we offer reminders. (The Live Out Loud stamp used on the doll came from the Paper Source.)
While scanning and uploading Jason's motorcycle card, I kept glancing up at the screeen, seeing a fascinating character. Ultimately, I could no longer resist, and so I offer you these two cropped versions from Jason's Motorcycle picture:
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Mr. Green - Mr. Orange
Can you find Mr. Green or Mr. Orange on Jason's motorcycle? I can see him best on the larger image. Now, just what stories can you imagine these two might tell?
By Micaela Adams, CSUDH
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Mica's addition of the Christian fish icon and caring messages are visible when we open the card to display the string of dolls. Notice that a heart appears in the space betweeen the dolls. You have to be careful to preserve that if you want that effect.
Detailed instructions and models for this doll can be found at Live Out Loud. She's a card that opens up to form a string of dolls. We work at creating brief messages that can be added to each doll. Like: Say hello! Vote! Wash Your Hands to Avoid HPV! Pejoratives Hurt! We work collaboratively at a selection of messages based on current issues and share them on our visual projects.
12th Century Knights of the Roman de la Rose
By Jason Herrera, CSUDH
Escutchons, shields, knights and armor, the romance of the 12th century. Or was it so romantic. The Crusades were bloody and violent, the knights behaved badly, and Eleanor of Aquitane, Queen of France, chased the knights our of her caste for misbehaving, like swordsplay indoors. The Romance of the Rose was written in those days to tech the boys some manners. What a delightful introduction to morality and manners and their role in ethics, gender, and race today.
Untying the Ribbon Displays the String of Knights
Notice that instead of displaying a heart between each other, the knights display a pyramid. Now there's the start of a great story or quest.
Oh, and just in case, as part of your community-building activity, you're looking for something to share in the interest of getting your fellows and friends to vote, look how nicely VOTE fits on the knight's upraised arm!
Christian Fish and Bomb Icons
By Juliette Peat, CSUDH
The Peace of the Christian Icon or the Bomb-Protected Dash from Fear of the Other?
You'll find all the components of this piece on Instructions for Fish/Bomb Card No. 2. You can add and subtract pieces as you wish, size them as you wish, color them as you wish, texturize them with newspapers, stamps, sharpies, whatever. Notice how iconology permeates our culture. Be aware of the visual. Share iconology and ideology as one of the skills of community-building and social and political issue dialog you are learning.
