Blog Post #3 – Word and Image Dynamics
As mentioned in my previous blog post the word and image dynamics are the main reason I chose this book for my pet book project. I’m intrigued by the idea of a visual artist giving conceptual prompts accompanied by illustrations.
In Yoko Ono’s introduction she states “I’m adding the dot drawings to give you further brainwork.” And I think that is just what these images do, give you further brain work. As I discussed previously in the text, the instructions for these conceptual instructions are neither simple nor straightforward. For this blog post I’ve chosen to focus on one entry.
Ono is often giving the reader conceptual prompts such as:
“Sound Piece X
Fly out into space.
Listen to the music
The earth is making.
Fly out into space
a)Listen to the music
The planets are making
a)Listen the the music
b)Universes are making”
These instructions are not literally possible. The average person is not able to go into space and listen to the music the earth is making. And I don’t think Ono is expecting the reader to take it literally. Instead, I think she’s asking you to imagine what that would be like, if you were mentally able to go out into space, close your eyes and imagine it. What would that look like? Sound like?
The illustrations in this book are as airy and ethereal as the text itself. The image that accompanies this above text is a full page of Ono’s dot drawings. The dots form a gradient background of textural mark-making on top of which is a series of circular shapes. In the center is a large circle that is overlapped by rings of dots and smaller spheres. The larger ringers continually become smaller until it is one circle of negative space or white space with a gray dot circle and dense black dot. The overlapping of the spheres on top of a series of larger rings becoming smaller unto themselves, recalls something of a solar system. This lends itself to the idea of the accompanying text, imagine what it would be like to listen in space to the music the earth or planets is making. The center of the piece, the white circle, gray ring and black dot, recalls something like an eye. Again this makes me think Ono is alluding to this eye of seeing or imagining what she is asking you to do. Not in the literal sense of seeing into space, but imagining in your mind’s eye what that would look like.
Each of these shapes or lines is made up of Ono’s dots.The illustrations are made through mark-making techniques using that repetitive movement of stippling and hatching. You can see the movement and/or gesture in the stroke of each mark. The marks vary in size, weight, length. The marks appear hand drawn and then put through the modern printing process. I mentioned last week that there is something that is lost when the image is taken from something hand drawn to something printed. You somewhat loose some of the texture that may have been present in its original format.
My guess is that they were made on paper, using graphite. They don’t necessarily have the deepness or richness of ink. Instead they look somewhat gray which I think actually allows for slightly more range in the value of the marks.
Reading through the book I find the prompts very meditative to read and digest. I also discussed last week how there’s a lot of room on the page to digest what is going on. I think the goal of the artist is to invite the reader to think and reflect, something that we don’t often do. I like to think of these illustrations as meditations. Imagine the artist at work creating the illustrations one dot at a time. The repetitive motion of mark-making can often be very meditative. Making a mark over and over to form a larger illustration. Looking at the illustration itself can be thought of as a meditative experience. In one way, there’s a lot to digest and see, all of those dots forming to make this larger work. However, they are placed in such a neat and intentional way that it becomes more of a pleasant journey to wind your way through the many marks.
Blog Post #3 – Word and Image Dynamics
As mentioned in my previous blog post the word and image dynamics are the main reason I chose this book for my pet book project. I’m intrigued by the idea of a visual artist giving conceptual prompts accompanied by illustrations.
In Yoko Ono’s introduction she states “I’m adding the dot drawings to give you further brainwork.” And I think that is just what these images do, give you further brain work. As I discussed previously in the text, the instructions for these conceptual instructions are neither simple nor straightforward. For this blog post I’ve chosen to focus on one entry.
Ono is often giving the reader conceptual prompts such as:
“Sound Piece X
Fly out into space.
Listen to the music
The earth is making.
Fly out into space
a)Listen to the music
The planets are making
a)Listen the the music
b)Universes are making”
These instructions are not literally possible. The average person is not able to go into space and listen to the music the earth is making. And I don’t think Ono is expecting the reader to take it literally. Instead, I think she’s asking you to imagine what that would be like, if you were mentally able to go out into space, close your eyes and imagine it. What would that look like? Sound like?
The illustrations in this book are as airy and ethereal as the text itself. The image that accompanies this above text is a full page of Ono’s dot drawings. The dots form a gradient background of textural mark-making on top of which is a series of circular shapes. In the center is a large circle that is overlapped by rings of dots and smaller spheres. The larger rings continually become smaller until it is one circle of white space with a gray dot circle and dense black dot. The overlapping of the spheres on top of a series of larger rings becoming smaller unto themselves, recalls something of a solar system. This lends itself to the idea of the accompanying text, imagine what it would be like to listen in space to the music the earth or planets is making. The center of the piece, the white circle, gray ring and black dot, recalls something like an eye. Again this makes me think Ono is alluding to this eye of seeing or imagining what she is asking you to do. Not in the literal sense of seeing into space, but imagining in your mind’s eye.
Each of these shapes or lines is made up of Ono’s dots.The illustrations are made through mark-making techniques using a repetitive movement of stippling and hatching. You can see the movement and/or gesture in the stroke of each mark. The marks vary in size, weight, length. They also vary in density and overlapping. Sometime the marks are close together to create a darker value, or spread out to create a lighter value.
The marks appear hand drawn and then put through the modern printing process. I mentioned last week that there is something that is lost when the image is taken from something hand drawn to something printed. You somewhat loose some of the texture that may have been present in its original format.
My guess is that they were made on paper, using graphite. They don’t necessarily have the deepness or richness of ink. Instead they look somewhat gray which I think actually allows for slightly more range in the value of the marks.
Reading through the book I find the prompts very meditative to read and digest. I also discussed last week how there’s a lot of room on the page to digest what is going on. I think the goal of the artist is to invite the reader to think and reflect, something that we don’t often do. I like to think of these illustrations as meditations. I imagine the artist at work creating the illustrations one dot at a time. The repetitive motion of mark-making can often be a very meditative process. Making a mark over and over to form a larger illustration. Looking at the illustration itself can be thought of as a meditative experience. In one way, there’s a lot to digest and see, all of those dots forming to make this larger work. However, they are placed in such a neat and intentional way that it becomes more of a pleasant journey to wind your way through the many marks.