Constellation writing task

I have been asked to describe a picture I picked for this writing exercise in two different ways. “In its own right” and “As it appears in experience”. I assume the point of this is is to bring home the distinction between what you see and what you know. And the difference between the idea being conveyed and the marks made to to do it. But I’m just guessing there.

The image I chose was a simple doodle done in Microsoft Paint so I wouldn’t have to put too much effort into this exercise. It is of a single blue dot, shown below.

Sadly. I feel my attempt to be lazy might have backfired.It certainly generated a lot of discussion in the group. This is why I hate postmodernism nothing is allowed to be simple anymore. Everything has to be torn apart in search of a deeper meaning that isn’t there (And normally just serves the theorists ego). While work that has actual time and effort put into it gets ignored because it has a an identity and themes of its own. Why can’t a man just be lazy!

 

Anyhow the criteria.

 

What is the image in its own right?

The image is a bitmap picture of a cold, darkish blue dot. Against a white background. It is near the middle of the middle of the picture vertically. But very left of centre horizontally. The dot is made using the spray-can tool. Sprayed into solid colour. It looks circular from a distance. But in keeping with pixel graphics it is very jagged and not very circular at all when looked at close up. Even at a medium distance it’s not very convincing. Four pixels at the top, bottom, and sides stand out awkwardly.making it look like straight lines are coming out of the dots.     

The white background has no features to it.

 

How does the image appear in experience?

One sees a crude pixel rendering of a blue dot, just floating in a white void. It doesn’t appear to be in motion. There is nothing around to show where it is or how it got there. In fact there doesn’t seem to be a “there” for it to inhabit. It’s more of a blankness on the screen. It’s a bit disorientating to look at because it’s hard to tell where the picture starts if it’s on a white background. If it’s not on a white background it looks like a blank piece of paper with a smudge on it. This shows the importance both literally and figuratively of having your work well framed if it is to have consistent context in different mediums and situations.

But that’s me critiquing it as it’s maker. As a viewer I’d say it’s dull and generic post-dadaist/minimalist art with a bland choice of colours that anyone could make. It’s boring. The only thing about it that makes it slightly interesting is how the dot is off centre. But that just robs it of symmetry. Making it even uglier. It’s that little bit of effort and imagination that shows just how lazy it is.

Unlike my classmates I do not see it as standing for something else. It’s a dumb abstract with no artistic intent. I have made way better works in MS Paint. Such as this

But they weren’t so easily reinterpreted by pretentious postmodernists. So they would not get so much praise.

 

If I had to liken my blue dot to something it would be a floater in the corner of my eye. Annoying and slothful. And that makes me hate it even more.    

 

Final thoughts

This was an awkward exercise. I’m still kind of glad I went with the blue dot. The trying to define the nuanced difference between objective analysis vs subjective experience of a work of art is something that takes a lot of self mental deprogramming. It’s hard work. And the more complex the image the longer both descriptions would be. This is the sort of topic that can take weeks to cover. So giving myself a simple task still did save me a lot of work. If I’d picked a Turner or a Goya this essay would be 8000 words long. So I still did manage to be lazy after all.

But on that subject. I do still feel a bit annoyed with myself. I realised a bit too late that I could have  come up with something simpler. If I had just mad my MS Paint work a simple block of one colour that would have been a lot more in line with minimalist ideas.

[Citations to be added later] I see now why the Minimalists never used brush marks or colours inside other colours. Either of these things will draw the eye away from the piece as a whole. And individual marks will invite figurative readings just by having their own separate existence beg to be read as things. A circle was a particularly poor choice on my part given how many associations a circle has. One maybe one mark was worse than several marks. Several marks could make a pattern which could be seen as a thing in itself. Even if it wouldn’t be Minimalism proper.

I wanted to make a minimalist work to save time and to avoid there being a distinction between the subjective and objective interpretations of the work.  I managed the former but not the latter. My fellow students were all over the work with reinterpretations. If I had just waited a bit longer and remembered and applied the minimalist theory I learned last year I could have saved myself the embarrassment and writing all this out. I managed to fail at being lazy, and gave myself more work than if I had put in a bit more effort.

It reminds me of something I read in CS Lewis. I think from ‘Mere Christianity’ [Citations to be added later]. It went to the effect of

“Who has to do more work. The boy who studies hard or the boy who copies off him? In the short term the student who burns the midnight oil has to work much harder. He will feel stressed and burdened while the cheater feels at ease. But when finals roll around the it is the studious one who will have it easy and the copier will be lost. For the student who studied will know the method to arrive at the truth on his own while the lazy one will not know how to work on his own and have to learn the right way to methods at the last moment and without help from teachers”.