Hopefully. When they do, it’s actually really good food. That’s like the only plus, though.
Sometimes I have being part of the “ART” department. Like, no, I’m not really at all interested in analyzing the deep emotional turmoil of an artist who hangs a vacuum cleaner from a ceiling (which is not an exaggeration, btw; this was an actual exhibit at the MOMA one year we were forced to go). I’m personally interested in art for the purpose of entertainment; that’s why I’M here. I don’t give a rat’s ass about a professor’s definition of what constitutes “self expression.”
You can probably tell I’m very bitter about this. :V
I feel ya so hard on this.
When I was still in college I was one of the top students so i had the ‘honor’ of having to get dragged to all the art show, and flat out running set up and stuff for the shows sometimes.
My professors art fell into the ‘vacuum from ceiling’ type of art. And being that she was my professor I had to act like her exhibits were the greatest thing. Including the one that had the performance art of : a man covered in a felt blanket crawling very slowly around a room >>
Let me guess. It was a symbol of how humankind is really just groping around in this life, moving along the ground like the beasts we are, never truly able to see where we are going or what our purpose is or why we are here, but stumbling ever onwards in an unsteady path to nowhere.
How close was that?
Yeah, this is pretty much par for the course with my professor too. Did I ever tell you about THE FISH?
I think thats about right cause there was some other things that represented human icons and what we as humans ‘worship’. one of the things being a replica of Marilyn Monroe dress made of felt and suspended from the ceiling (why is suspended from the ceiling a thing with this type of art)
…I dont think ive heard about the fish, but now im curious
okay SO I’m actually about to head out to this event so I’ll make it brief
In one of the earlier semesters in this art scholarship program, we did this activity thing where it was supposed to be an improv session where we’d act out the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
Still dunno why that was the topic, but ANYHOOT, the idea was (apparently) that we coul jump in at any time and play any multiples of any character we wanted. Me, I saw it as ripe opportunity to make folks laugh, because this sounds kinda like a standup comedy routine, so I get all excited and start cracking jokes
and it goes DEAD SILENT.
Literally everybody aside from me in that class was taking the activity utterly seriously. I was floored.
So after this activity, the associated assignment was to make a piece of some kind that related to the activity; it didn’t have to have anything to do with the TOPIC. “I want you to express how you FELT, your IMPRESSIONS of our collaborative art piece from today,” the professor said.
So I’m like, “okay, I felt like an absolute fish out of water.” Coincidentally, at that time, I was also making this costume. (link included)
So my plan, simultaneously meeting all the requirements for the project and giving the professor a subtle middle finger, I guess, was to take this WIP costume, wear it around campus, and record people’s live reactions.
Here’s a video recording of it:
My theory was that if I presented myself and what I’m doing as a good-natured joke in a real-life context as opposed to a context surrounded by people who are looking for their own particular tastes to be satisfied, folks would get that it’s a joke and wind up laughing. SURPRISE. THEY DID. PEOPLE LOVED IT.
My professor did not. He was that kind of livid where you KNEW just how angry he was that I turned it into something of my own tastes, but he couldn’t give me a bad grade, because technically I met all of the requirements of the project and did a good job with it by his set standards.
He still docked me a letter grade. “I don’t think you understood the point of the assignment.” Nah, I understood it perfectly, I think.
