CAVA1001: Visual Art Foundation 1 / CAVA1003: Visual Art Elective 1 S1, 2024
Final Work Project
Week 12 Steps Towards Your Final Project:
Brainstorming / Experimentation to Generate Ideas
Over the previous 11 weeks of the semester you have explored a range of approaches to creative practice within CAVA1001/CAVA1003 and engaged in giving and receiving feedback. This has primed you for the next and last stage in the unit: the Final Work Project.
To explore future creative directions in Week 12 you will undertake a series of brainstorming exercises.
Exercise 1: Thematic Trioletic
To begin, you will work with three words. One word will be provided to your class. One word you can select from all the material provided in CAVA. One word can come from your self-directed research.
Draw an equilateral triangle and write one of the words at each point. This is your unique Thematic Triolectic. It is a visual tool used to generate new ideas!
Asger Jorn’s 1st and 2nd Triolectics: https://www.hildegoesasger.org/2012/05/the-silkeborg-interpretation-redux-or-jorns-detournement-of-niels-bohrs-complementarity/
Run your eye along the edges of the triangle and consider the relationship formed between the words in pairs. Then move from each point back into the middle of the triangle and consider all three words together. Or start with one word and traverse the triangle and connect with the concept existing between the other two words.
This dynamic approach to mapping conceptual relationships is associated with Asger Jorn, the Danish Avant Garde artist. One of the ways Asger explained his triolectic philosophical system was to compare it to a game of football played by three sides with three goals.
Hot Tips:
Your three words will naturally influence your creative approach to the Final Project.
As one word is provided to you (this word will be announced in class in week 12) it is a good idea to be fluid and flexible in your thinking.
The selection of your other two words is up to you. Looking back through your Visual Diary is a good way to survey the possible words you might choose.
You might go back to the work in CAVA that you found the most interesting.
Or you can be wild and simply choose words at random.
It is a good idea to find words that you find inspiring or evocative.
Avoid cliches, stereotypes and words with narrow definitions.
Seek words that are conceptually alive, that resonate and trigger vivid mental pictures.
And it is okay to make a few experimental triolectic diagrams before landing on one that will become your thematic generator.
Asger Jorn’s 1st and 2nd Triolectics (translation): https://www.hildegoesasger.org/2012/05/the-silkeborg-interpretation-redux-or-jorns-detournement-of-niels-bohrs-complementarity/
Aim
The ultimate aim of creating your Thematic Trioloectic is to discover an idea or theme that you can carry forward as the conceptual focus of your Final Work Project. It is important to enliven the idea through further brainstorming and studio-based experimentation. This is called practice-based research.
Instructions for a Dada Poem, Tristan Tzara 1920
Exercise 2: The ‘Cut-Up” Method
This exercise is all about embracing random associations and including an element of chance in your creative process.
· To begin take your 3 words from your triolectic and develop each word as a phrase (2-8 words).
· Write each phrase on a piece of paper and cut it out.
· Play with the sequence of the phrases as a catalyst for new possibilities.
Now start looking at your sequences of words creatively, taking inspiration from Dadaist Tristan Tzara’s “Cut-Up” Method made famous by the Surrealists and employed by William S. Burroughs and David Bowie.
Image credit: Extract from invitation to William S. Burroughs Centenary Exhibition, the “Cut-Up” Technique / Boo Hurray – Emory University
Hot Tips:
Arrange your phrases at random then re-arrange them. Use the words to trigger a brainstorm of ideas. Work through a series of possible combinations until you arrive at one that triggers an idea that appeals to you and that you see as having potential to be progressed further.
In your visual diary document the key phrase sequence that you arrived at using the “Cut-Up” Method and then explain in brief how you envisage developing this idea as an artwork.
By adopting the “Cut-Up” Method each of you will generate a unique list of words/phrases (the more unique the better!). From this original starting point your thinking will become even more idiosyncratic through further creative development.
Be playful. And be aware that you can treat this process as a simple warm-up exercise, or you can use this task to establish the conceptual foundation or theme of your response to the Final Work Project.
https://www.openculture.com/2011/08/william_s_burroughs_on_the_art_of_cutup_writing.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1FcS7KTnNY
Man Ray, Tristan Tzara, vers 1921, Paris, Centre Pompidou, © Man Ray Trust / Adagp, Paris
Exercise 3: From Thematic Triolectic to “Cut-Up” Method to Line Drawing
The next step is to generate a visual interpretation of your idea or theme.
This task is very simple. You have 15 minutes of working time.
· In the first 5-minute bracket create a line drawing that relates to some aspect of either your Thematic Triolectic or your “Cut-Up” Method brainstroming.
· In the second 5-minute bracket look at the first drawing and then repeat the process of drawing a visual interpretation of your idea with the intention to develop, enhance, adapt, intensify or improve the communicative power of the image.
· Then repeat this by making a third drawing in the final 5-minute bracket.
You now have three drawings which should record your creative thinking and document the evolution of the idea. The time limit should force you to work quickly.
Hot Tips:
There are no rules or strict guidelines, as there are many ways you can approach the creation of an image relating to your idea. To begin try to capture, portray, define, represent or depict a visual element of the idea, and feel free to be influenced by your investigation into your Thematic Triolectic and the “Cut-Up” Method. Then once you have done this in the first drawing you can then reinvent, translate, interpret, reconfigure or erase a visual response to the idea or try to tune into the new possibilities that exist in drawing itself and progress this potential further in the second drawing. Once you reach the third drawing focus more on the image itself, while at the same time loosening the connection to the starting point. The key is to attempt to move further and further outside of the realm of words and text and to seek to shift your communication to a purely visual form.
The immediacy, flexibility and subtlety of drawing makes it the perfect visualisation tool. How you approach drawing is up to you. Remember that drawing can be spontaneous and gestural. So don’t be too precious about the process and place no pressure on yourself. I encourage you to be fluid, and to draw with a free spirit and no expectations of the outcome. If you adopt a playful, speculative attitude as you draw you can make new discoveries and encounter unanticipated and serendipitous outcomes. And in this way drawing can introduce fresh, unforeseen elements into your creative process. Your choice of drawing materials can be helpful here – perhaps try ink, charcoal or something that lends itself to expressive, experimental mark making.
Now that you have created the three drawings reflect on the visual material you have in front of you and see if you can see some element or elements that have potential to be developed further? Once again, you can treat this process as a simple warm-up exercise, or you can use this task to establish the conceptual foundation of your response to the Final Work Project.
Asger Jorn, the great relief (detail), 1959, Aarhus State High School, Denmark.
Final Work Project
Asger Jorn riding a scooter across a bed of clay in 1959 as part of the process of creating the great relief, a 30-metre-long ceramic work that is presented vertically on a wall of the Aarhus State High School in Denmark. Photograph: Ugo Morabito
Final Project
Exercise 4: Shape / Colour / Form
The next exercise seeks to prompt you to work in a looser, and more intuitive manner by exploring shape, colour and possibly three-dimensional form.
Again looking at your three words start drawing a series of lines and then shapes. Try to develop three distinct shapes that appeal to you in some way, each shape should be abstract representation of one of the words. Translate the three shapes into silhouettes, then apply a colour to each shape. If you enjoy a sculptural approach, consider the potential to develop the coloured shape as a 3D form? This can be approached very simply through collage and layering or can be addressed through more complex construction. Use all materials and techniques at hand. Remember the many ways of working you experienced in this unit!
Now look at what you have created and ask what significance these coloured forms can communicate? This might lead you to consider developing your conceptual trajectory through further studio-based experimentation.
Exercise 5: Self-Directed
The previous exercises are structured to encourage you to play with ideas in a dynamic context and to engage in practice-based research. That is, to attempt to discover more about an idea or a creative direction through brainstorming and studio-based processes. As outlined, these exercises can be approached as open conceptual development activities, or you can try to find something specific to develop further as a theme for your response to the Final Work Project.
What will you do for your Final Work Project?
Working out the answer to this question is now the task at hand.
Step 1: Reflect on your experimentation in Exercises 1-4 and try to select 1 idea or that you can take forward as a possible response to the final project. This is your unique theme!
Step 2: Develop a studio-based experiment for your theme that will assist you in understanding the idea even more. It is good to explore a range of possibilities and seek to discover new opportunities. Be creative, playful, experimental, inventive and innovative.
Step 3: Present your experiment in class for discussion. And then engage in further creative development. These activities will be the focus of the Week 13 Class where there will be opportunity for discussion and critical feedback on your idea and work-in-progress.
Cut up lyrics for “Blackout” from Heroes, 1977. Courtesy of the David Bowie Archive. Image © Victoria and Albert Museum.
Final Work Project
Week 13 Open Studio and Work-in-Progress
Presentation / Discussion / Feedback Session
The Week 13 classes are open studio sessions in which you can develop your work in a self-directed manner. During this time you can continue brainstorming and once you have an idea or direction you can then focus on the development of your theme as a response to the Final Work Project.
During the class you will be encouraged to present your theme or idea for the Final Work Project and the related experiment and work-in-progress for feedback. Each student will have approximately 3 minutes to do so. After each student presents, there is time for questions, discussion and feedback.
NB this isn’t a formal presentation. It is a very relaxed and enjoyable process. It runs as a simple “show+tell” in which you talk about your theme and the process of creating the work. If relevant you can also present parts of your process work including the Visual Diary. It is up to you. The only tight constraint is time, as we can only schedule approximately 5 minutes per student.
NB The assessment process for the Final Work Project will be explained as a part of this last class and there will also be the opportunity for you to ask questions.
Remember this class is the last chance to ask questions prior to working independently during Stuvac, and then moving onto the assessment process!
Left: Photogram by Man Ray. Right: Asger Jorn using a ‘light pen’ to sketch.