Week 8: Tues. Mar. 9
Listen to the podcast and write reflection notes.
The Rise and Fall of Bread: a simple staple with a complex legacy: https://tinyurl.com/2mvjtvn3
Bread making has historical and ritualistic value, as well as diversity…
Bread.
FLoru, water, time.
Dependence on bread, relationship of bread.
Advertising, religious. Cultural.
Bread has a lot of dimensions.
Sharing bread. Companion – with bread. Break bread with.
“Symbolically, if you doing the same thing with you hands and sharing you would care about thinking with the people around with what else you have in common.”.
So these first couple minutes of the podcast talks about the linguistic roots of bread and how it is tied to communal aspects.
Food assumes a trust that the person who is offering the food won’t poison and killl us.
Social aspect. Education in civil behaviour. At a meal, people can find their political voice, if there is an interest in hearing people.
Bread teaches us civility, democracy, who we are.
There are different histories of bread, different types.
Bread is life, and alive. ( yeast)
What is my life without bread?
Bread has a presence, a materiality. There is a traditional value to bread making. Demands labour.
People baking in their homes…
Bread is also power.
Agriculture.
Growth of of agriculture and the growth of inequality.
Bread is not sustainable.
The deceases of civilization. Not just the planet, our bodies, but also our relationships that bread has changed. (Wealth.)
Agriculture made poverty possible.
It is not an object of indifference. ( bad bread, bad government.)
Bread = sustenance.
Bread reflection:
Bread is really good, it is never really a meal but you like to have it anyway. For me, my father would occasionally preparing olive oil to be dipped with bread. My other would always have garlic bread with pasta. Pizza was a huge staple in my family for Friday movie nights. Although bread was never centre the main course it has always been a kind of common denominator. It was a companion in most meals..
When we were short for time, bread was always the most convenient to eat. Some how, it fills you up in all the right ways. Need a quick snack? Slap peanut butter or plain butter on a slice and your good for a couple ours.
During the pandemic people had a lot of time on their hands, and bread is also a kind of food that requires more time to prepare. It is also a comfort food of sorts, and has a skill value to it – if you can make bread, you can make food. There is the added bonus that you can save it for later or show it off.
In the podcast, they discuss the material significance of bread. How the material is tied to how ritual values and gestures shape us. It was this aspect that made me think of how art functions too, and were the both food and art find similar grounds. Through food making, we can trace a history, in which can be a part of many different histories. It has a manual process that is practice to transform materials. Additionally,. It can also be shaped too. Like art, these histories can bring out a lot of baggage that can displace peoples
Hi Justin!
Week 1:
Katchadourian notes complete and lots of reflection and engagement, 3 Book stack images complete and more – I find them a bit puzzling (you seem to use a very personal, idiosyncratic symbology) but I see lots of thinking and processing, and a genuine investment in the materials and compositions.
Week 2:
Notes on two text works complete and epic! Sometimes you are joking I think? Is it all absurd? But shows general level of understanding of critical ideas at play.
Week 3:
Text banner exercise and description – so much process and thinking, and close consideration of the article. Great choice of found words – but your materials/colours/and context are puzzling – again – sort of a very personal symbology that isn’t available to viewers. Oh man, imagine the possibilities with “looping”! You could hang it in a circle, where it loops, or other choices that really relate to the meaning of the words. Think more about how material, form, and context all expand meaning for a wider audience – and not just a personal story.
Week 4:
Nature video- I’m wondering if this is also a bit irreverent? Or earnest? Either way is fine – but I’d love to feel one or the other more strongly, as your explicit intention. I laughed watching it – and wondered if you might stand there and be a tree as long as you can? Or showing somehow the absurdity, futility, and gap between the human and the arboreal – in some new and affecting way…and why a cellphone video in the vertical frame? No tripod/fixing of camera? Think about all these choices, especially in a subtle work like this – they all matter.
Notes – did you really dig into these pieces? A bit thin!
I know the works we look at together are surprising, and sometimes even absurd. But trust these references and give them serious attention. Art is a conversation, and you have to listen to other practitioners from the past, and now, in order to participate.
In your own work, think about experimentation (not knowing what will happen) and risk – push yourself but while being safe to make something with more complexity and seriousness.
Thank you for your attendance and engagement in class discussions and activities. We’d like to see and hear more from you!
If you would like to talk with me about your work in progress, readings, exercises, one-on-one comments on your work, and grades – send me an email in the morning to book a 15 minute appointment during the optional in person hours: Thursdays 2:30 – 4:30
And you can show up to a zoom meeting with Nathan anytime during these hours to ask your questions, and get tech support for using software and finishing your projects:
Mondays and Thursdays 1-4pm
Hi Justin,
Thanks so much for the dedicated work looking and reflecting on the readings and lecture materials, and the Yes No video worked out so well, I think you should all show it next year for Zavitz or in JAS. Thanks for your participation in class too – and contributions to all the exercises, baking, discussions etc. it’s wonderful to have you in the class and I hope we’ll see you again in Experimental 3!
Diane