This book started out as an exploration of perception, and surprisingly stayed on topic throughout the project. Personally I feel as though my projects tend to stray quite a bit from their original idea, but I guess things were different for this project. Which makes me wonder if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Is straying from the original idea making more progress or less? I liked, however, that I felt very organized while making this book. There was a lot of information to sift through, so staying organized really helped me see the bigger picture. I think.

I have learned a lot about process, doing this project; my process/how I organize information. Apparently I like to put things in grids, and see everything laid out, all at once. I am visual, so most all of my explorations made use of some sort of visual element. So, while I did ask people questions and make word connections, in the end the visual content I gathered from people seemed to be my most valuable.

The topic of my book perception turned out to be even more intricate and intriguing than I thought. I found that:
› people never did what I expected them to (when given a task)
› people are very conscious and concerned about being wrong/incorrect
› it is extremely difficult to control how people respond to questions/tasks (with the exception of yes or no questions and multiple choice…)

These things made my explorations frustrating at times because I had to create the explorations taking these things into account. I also had to find people who be open and receptive to these silly tasks. But though parts of it were challenging, I feel like the beauty of the explorations is found in the random and candid responses I received. I mean this is why people watch reality tv shows, and gossip… people are complex, and unpredictable, and very interesting. So as different as peoples personalities are, I feel like I have learned that peoples perceptions are even more incalculable.

Book Highlights

per·cep·tion

1.  the act or faculty of apprehending by means of the senses or of the mind 

2.  immediate/intuitive recognition or appreciation, as of moral, psychological, or aesthetic qualities; insight; intuition

3.  the result or product of perceiving, as distinguished from the act of perceiving; percept.

4.  a single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while a stimulus is present.

free association   

1. A spontaneous, logically unconstrained and undirected association of ideas, emotions, and feelings.

Link to Left Field Translation

Left Field Translation

Connections…

When asked a 22 year old the objects were: a blob, and egg, squares, squares with lines, a grill, kind of looks like a microphone, circles, and sperm.

I think i am surprised that my two subjects did not make more sense out of the nonsense…

Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses (the word Gestalt in German literally means "shape" or "figure"), particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves. In psychology, gestaltism is often opposed to behaviourism.

Experience: The Mind of a 3 Year Old

For this experience i wanted to see a bit of how children think… so i drew some nonsense doodles on paper and asked a three year old what they were… I was surprised to find that he wasn't as imaginative as i would have though… he seemed to think about it pretty logically, and have some hesitation to answer my questions incorrectly. I assured him there were no wrong answers, but he didn't seem to think so…

Exploration No. 49 Connections

“Symphony, as i call this aptitude, is the ability to put together the pieces. It is the capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze; to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields; to detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers; and to invent something new by combining elements nobody thought to pair.” - A Whole New Mind

It seems as though all forms of creation are their own symphony…

Book Proposal

In the broadest sense my book is about how everyone perceives things differently. Whether it it answering a question or performing a task, people just do things differently. So based on this idea that we are all different, no matter how much people fight it or conform to it, how does this influence our artwork? How is our artwork unique? How does art transform and evolve when individuals come together to create make it? In my book i plan to answer these questions through my experiments…

More studies…

Exploration No. 49 Found Words

Found words i kind of translated into heard words… I listened to things people said and wrote down as much of the sentence as i could and then continued writing the current sentence. so the final writing is a compilation of different conversations.

lost car… before i left the people… probably not, they haven't contacted me again… sweet conversation… personally they might show up later… found all my stuff that day… all crazy, i don't know why… twenty more… one, two, three… she must be proud of you i'd say, but weather… about appearance…i heard a five… so caught, she explained the basement, the farmhouse… once more can't go on… but what i have to do yeah ok and so like you can at least hate them…in the … but yeah… running over it, she will take her time… i really do… you have milk… we have no money… i'm all confused here, to go to the end… left you more at home, you know, now i can't see those… i didn't see…

Experience No. 4 + Connections

Combining characters… for this experience i combined the 'ninjas' from the previous experience to make multiple personality 'ninjas'.

El Diablo + Evel Kinevil - evil needs some kind of enabler… in this case a motorcycle.

Overwhelming personality…

Scuba + Nervous - I thought this one was really interesting after looking back at it because i remembered the nervous 'ninja' was standing in his own urine. and he randomly got paired with scuba gear…



One Badass Mother Fucker + Polaroid-ist - Retro. Old School. Classic.

Unicorn + Italian Stallion - Again this was a random pairing… but the phallic references seem to have gotten paired. However the Unicorn kind of re contextualizes the whole idea…

Italian Stallion + 'swirlies' - maybe he is a lover not a fighter…

Transition visually from one to another…

I think thins combination looks like a literal personality and an aura…


When it comes down to it, these 'ninjas' are stereotypes… and breaking up their personalities and mixing them together creates a more rounded character.

More little guys…

The Big Bang… of experiences…

It is hard to say where exactly my project is going… Out of all my experiences so far the one that interests me the most is Experience No. 3. For Experience No. 3 I have given out little ambiguous characters to decorate and define. So to really show the development of this idea… well, this is what happened…

A friend of mine, in the spirit of craft and lack of funds made me this little ninja, based off a plush doll she saw online, or in a magazine… i don't know.


See more Shawnimals

This is the Ninja my friend made me…


…and really i was thinking how he is a very ambiguous and adorable little character, so what else could he be… and i think stemming from my first experience of surveying people, i was really interested in how other people perceive things.

the main part of the experience was to see what people would draw on their 'ninja'. however, i think it was equally important to see the paper/color choice that the people made.

so, i am still unsure of what my book is going to be specifically about… so my plan is to continue the exploration of handing out 'ninjas' as well as making things out the 'ninjas' i already have. for example taking pieces of them and mixing them up. i think i would also like to compare the defined 'ninjas' to other objects or people that have the same definition…

so my plan is to explore some more, but i feel like my ultimate goal for my book will showcase the 'ninjas' as if they were human personalities. for example, started with the individual and evolving to a 'one of many' perspective…

Ninja Connections

Here are the names of some of the ninjas paired randomly with words from the reading Spine:

Evel Knievel Cooldown
El Diablo Underpinnings
Candice Secret
Gingerbread Gypped
Nervous Universal
Futbol Impulses
Royal Mechanism
Aqua Spine
Burnt Nuclear Bubble
Crappy Yellow Chore
Angel Job
Girl Friend
Jet Sonata
Shark Magic

Classic Movie Ninjas…

By Sam Antha

Some Ninja Findings

Here are some of the ninjas people have created…

Experience No. 3

Ninja Exploration

I really like to see how different people interpret and appreciate things. Like the saying “one man's junk is another man's treasure”…

So I made a little linoleum cut stamp on this little stuffed ninja i have… kind of a really random idea… but i wanted to see how other people would decorate him. I mean it doesn't really look like a ninja…

Some Connections for Experience No. 2…

While this is a collection of random little things, i can't help but think it is a sample representation of a life's worth [my life's worth] of collecting. There are different pieces being represented… paper, plastic, things that are useful, things that are purely decoration… which also leads to the idea that the reason i collect the things that i collect is because i feel like an object is worth how much you appreciate it. and some thing i feel i have to keep because nobody else in the world can appreciate it quite like i can, and will.

The little tin box is like my life. quiet, mundane, easily looked over, not fancy, but not entirely boring… but interesting to those who need it, or know whats inside it.

it makes perfect sense that we buy, collect, and use things that are descriptive of out personality. some would argue these things make up our personality.

this is the little mini museum of random objects i collected. i collected them from my room, basically digging through boxes and bags and drawers and where ever… i kind of had this realization that i have no idea why i have any of these things. at one point in time i made the executive decision to toss these things in a box, or leave them in a bag… but these things become like fixtures in your life and like i know at some point in time i considered what to do with each of these items, and eventually the consideration was just that i had saved it for one reason or another, so why throw it away or give it a more permanent home now?

Experience No. 2

Exploration No. 9 Case of the Curiosities

i combined collecting miscellaneous object and making a miniature museum. so i collected objects that I do not understand or have meaning for that are really tiny.

Found Magazines by Gena Morgese

My friend Gena Morgese (senior photo major) found these magazine and photographed them… her own little experience. I thought they were really interesting.

Found Magazines…