Subject Media Mashup

To keep things organized and easy to navigate, I’ve added the needed links for this assignment in this space above the directions.  Please refer back to this space after you’ve read the directions for this assignment.

Links:
Lottery Assignment List
Number Generator
Subject Media Mashup Chart
Embrace the Shake:  Phil Hansen
100 Artists

About This Project
We have spent the first semester working with the foundation of drawing.  We started with figure drawing, discussing in detail the core components of design, proportion, and line quality.  We then did a thorough investigation of the Old Masters, creating images that borrowed their lines in an effort to have those marks become our marks.  After that in depth research of line, we worked tirelessly on the large-scale introspective value drawings that required the marriage of both content and technique.  Now that we have done all of this, it’s time to graduate into a new realm of art making.

This next assignment will require thinking on a whole different level than any of the prior assignments you’ve been given.  The aim of this project that I call “Subject Media Mashup” is to cause my students to open up their minds about what art can be.  There is not a singular way to approach this assignment, and each student in the class will be given a different set of variables that will dictate how the work is made.

We will begin by using Random.Org to generate a series of five lottery numbers.  These five numbers will correspond to the numbers in this chart, and will determine the creative equation you will need to solve.  How you solve that equation is completely up to you.  If done properly, you will not think in literal or linear terms, and will instead ask yourself many questions in your visual journal before you commit to your final work of art.  I ask that each of you to step outside your comfort zone, and try something you’ve never tried before.  

The first two numbers of your lottery code will indicate the Media you must use.  The second two numbers will determine the subjects you must address, and the last number will determine the artist you must study and whose ideas or images you must use in some way as inspiration in your work.  Please do not think that you must use only the media you are given, but understand that you must somehow incorporate that media into your work.  It’s your job to ask as many questions as you can about the possibilities of the media you were given at random.  Be inventive, and use the media to your advantage.  Take control of the situation, and don’t feel limited by these limitations that you’ve been given.  Instead, use the limitations as the liberation you’ve needed to unlock your creative potential.