Move - Four-letter Word Project

Blog post 12 of 12

My main advice would be to expect the unexpected.  Do not try to predict what is going to happen next, it won't do you any good.  Also, try to always keep an open mind.  Explore the new media you get to work with, you might discover you actually like them and might even decide to use them outside WSC 001.  

And just like Koertge advices, leave all your preconceptions about writing and language behind.  Sometimes, what we think we know does not allow us to learn something new.

Blog post 11 of 12

I see the four-letter word projects more as multimedia compositions than strictly as writing.  It might just be because of what I, or my generation, has been used to, but I will always associate the word writing with actual, written words. From cuneiform to alphabetical, these are the kind of organized symbols that are the base of what writing means for me.

Nevertheless, the four-letter projects have a validity of their own.  Most of them, if not all, manage to send a message.  Whether us, as an audience, are able to correctly identify what this message means depends on the accurate use of visual imagery.  I think this is the main reason why I don't immediately consider our four-letter word projects writing.  Because, even in the most basic level of comprehension, our understanding of them is highly personal and subjective.  I am not arguing that written words cannot be subjected to multiple interpretations, but there is at least one superficial level in which we can all pretty much agree: the meaning of every single word.  In our projects, even a single frame of video or still can be interpreted multiple ways, none of which are either right or wrong.

Blog post 10 of 12

I believe Rodney Jones is arguing the impossibility of language to truly explain reality.  He first states this by saying that there is "no image like the image of language".  Language is indeed a human construction, a convention a number of people agreed on to make communication easier or even possible.  This verse makes me think of Magritte's The Treachery of Images.  In this painting, he draws a pipe and underneath it he writes "Ceci n'est pas une pipe", "This is not a pipe".

Indeed, that is not a pipe. It is the image of a pipe, a mere visual representation of a real, physical object.  This concept can also be applied to words: they are not the object they are naming, but just a written (or oral) representation.

Following this reasoning, another point Jones makes about language is evidencing its limitations.  The last three verses are a clear reference to the difficulty of successfully translating our thoughts into language.  No matter how quick we try to be, some of our ideas will get lost between the moment we think them up in our brain and the moment we write them down. But what else can we do? Jones does not see an alternative, as he admits that everything we can hope is that, by the time we "reach down" once again, our idea will come back to us.

Blog post 9 of 12

Personally, I think it varies depending on what kind of text I am wearing.  I feel like we, as users, have gotten so used to wearing text on ourselves that sometimes we do so subconsciously.  Therefore, in these cases, an audience is not really expected.  If we do get readers, they are not really anticipated.

But sometimes I do wear certain texts and expect (or maybe more like hope) someone will read them, specially in the case of something I feel more of a personal connection with.  For example, if I wear a t-shirt of one of my favorite musicals, I have this underlying desire that someone will recognize it and maybe begin a conversation about it.  I think the main difference between the first and the second case is that in the second one we are conscious of the fact that we are trying to send a message, while in the first one the message is not really our main purpose.

Blog post 8 of 12

Blog post 7 of 12

The writer is most definitely influenced by the nature of the writing implement.  He did not use words in his composition.  Instead, there is just one green check sign on the top part of the page.  Unless this composition has some metaphorical hidden meaning that I am not getting, I think that the use of crayon makes it less expressive than a regular written text could have been.

I am not sure I would call this writing, only because I don't think it has a clear message to convey.  If the question had been a yes or no answer, then this check would have worked perfectly.  But given the fact that it was much more of a complex question, I don't really feel like this composition worked very well.  A+ for creativity, though.