Day Sixteen and Seventeen: The built in contradiction

It makes sense to discuss these tow days together – basically a continuation of the ideas. We were able to have a good chat about the museum projects in presentation class period so we used Tuesday as a kind of catch all day. I love these open discussion days in the syllabus. They are useful if we need more time to discuss the projects. If not, we can expand on ideas in that space. So – a couple of things were covered. As a project students drew terms out of a bag and then grouped up to define them and provide examples from readings, discussion, projects, or new examples. We then moved to the word cloud created from all of the definitions of postmodernism. I love these things as a quick read on a large amount of info. We then discussed what terms caught their eye.

The rest of the class was used to discuss a few more ideas from the Lyotard reading –namely the ideas of aesthetics, beauty, rules, and change. It was an opportunity to bring in a handful of examples to discuss. Serrano’s Piss Christ was very useful. It is such a wonderful picture – works according to all the standards for “good” composition. But then it’s a picture of a crucifix in urine. So a useful picture to talk about what ideas have lasted and what has changed. This was grounded in a brief discussion of Eco’s Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. The question is what we replace “godliness” with in the aesthetic criteria to evaluate works from today. We ended exploring some of Rachael Whiteread’s casting pieces with the question “Is there an objective criteria with which to judge ‘good’ postmodernism.”?

Thursday was dedicated to discussing postmodern architecture and so I brought the Legos out again. This time students could work alone or in groups to create a representation of the idea of “absence.” Some great answers. I was also pleased that when asked each student had clear and perceptive ideas about the reading. Unlike last year where I felt we had peeked at the break and then couldn’t get the energy back I feel like we are still moving forward. The goal is to do enough exercises, enough projects, pack as many postmodern ideas into the students heads that when we form groups for the final projects they can just go. I feel like we have been prepping the ground for those projects all term. It will be interesting to see what happens. Especially since the students ability to produce some thoughtful and interesting pieces in 10-15 minutes has been refined over the past 10 weeks or so. Given 3 hours of class time my hope is they can produce some amazing stuff.

So after explaining why I use architecture to discuss ideas, plays, structure, etc we took a look at some of the terms and ideas in the Jencks and Venturi articles. The ideas that they develop are right in line with what we have been discussing all term – disharmonious harmony, difficulty whole, asymmetrical symmetry. The built in contradiction. The difference here is that it is generally easier to see. One look at Ghery’s House and the idea of a difficult whole becomes clear. It looks like a jumble, but beyond that has a wonderful sense of structure. Angles, materials, open space, contained space were all chosen for a reason. Amidst the seeming disjunction is a kind of order.

The notion of the difficult whole was countered with the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk – or the master art work. Wagner’s ideas are built on a unity of exclusion – things that don’t fit a re jettisoned. Reaching for a more contemporary metaphor we discussed Chorus Line. In order to fit into the chorus line each dancer needs to be unique, but give up a little of that uniqueness to form a unit. Whereas this idea requires elements in the structure to give up something in order to be included in the whole the idea of the difficult whole is built on tension. It is also build on showing the seems – like some kind of Frankenstein monster, but without the pitchforks and torches.

Al in all two sort of gathering days. Students were given their next assignment – the Fluxus assignment – with the understanding that we will be talking about Fluxus next week before their project is due. The goal with this, as with watching the Holy Grail and reading “Lost in the Funhouse” prior to the master narratives project, is to give the students a bit of a background in the subject before the project is due. We are inexorably heading toward the Postdramatic Theatre project, which draws on all of the other projects – objects, movement, text, space, etc.