notes and recollections 5 : 8 + 9

here I will reconstruct some of the discussions of week 5, meetings 8 and 9 (and perhaps some fragments from week 4, so far neglected).
 

---

the face, portraits, identity

We talked about the face and how it might relate to identity, and self-identity. Our lines of thought included mirrors (and reflections in water); instagram and social media generally; the blind (and indicators of someone’s identity other than the visual, including voice); ideas of the self (and self-knowledge, which included a glance at the index to William James his Principles of Psychology (1890); physiognomy (”the practice of assessing a person’s character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face,” wikipedia); prosopagnosia (“from Greek prósōpon, meaning "face", and agnōsía, meaning "non-knowledge", also called face blindness,” wikipedia).

adoption, adoption in literary fiction

The top ten books about adopted children
by Kate Hamer, The Guardian (1 March 2017)
includes Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) !

And then questions arise, such as : Can we ever really know another? Can we ever know ourselves, other than as fragments of awareness, memory, ideas, allegiances, failures, successes...

The Foundling Museum (in London; opens to about page); instagram

here, and elsewhere during the morning, we saw how an idea or some background motivation (e.g., adoption, or a beloved grandmother’s dementia) can provide the overall “design” or framework in which experimentation and work can proceed.
 

---

maps and purpose

what can our map tell us? what do maps discover, uncover, cover up?
why map? how does a map relate to a list? a diagram, an index?

Henry showed a much-cleaned up map, combining several data sets. Two of the defined areas had a blob-like appearance, leading to speculation about how such blobs might move around, shape-shift, perhaps take on a life of their own, untethered to data, or even generating (false?) data to support their mutations. A kind of gerrymandering. Meltable moments came to (this) mind —

“The current climate caught in an Emoji
A melting face: for when a smiley just doesn’t capture a collective malaise or anxiety.”
Anna P. Kambhampaty, The New York Times (September 30, 2021) : D3

here (paywall)
pdf at seminar drive.

---

retro-futurism, images/fantasies of happy futures, and the costs/aftermaths of those futures

We looked at four or five of Melissa’s collages closely. A model's face, frame/held by two hands (one evidently male)... suggesting control even violence... a phrase about making more money (by whom, whose labor, for whom), and at lower left, fragments of a crossword puzzle (leading to the idea that one might create a word-portrait in the form of a crossword puzzle, each clue something from the subject's life, each answer a keyword)...

Another image, a woman's bare back (part of her face visible too), flayed by collagist addition of a barely legible train.

We talked about how a group of such collages (perhaps but not necessarily uniformly sized, cropped etc) might operate as a kind of sequence, whose elements relate to each other, counter each other, add nuances or facets to the puzzle. Crossword puzzle as a mirror.

Melissa’s project is evolving, now taking on more of a critical, reflective cast. A look at the dystopian dimension of future visions.
 

---

the house in Vermont

Will shared some text about Obadiah Nourse and Mads (Madhouse)[ didn't catch the surname ], their investigation of the attic of the house encountered in the wild, its walls turned to flesh, etc.
A shape for the project came into view: something in the form of a prospectus (for a film or other work, to be presented to potential backers, investors), involving (1) overview; (2) one detailed narrative (e.g., a chapter, perhaps of the aforenamed protagists their journal); (3) supporting 2- and 3-D visuals.