Silly Imagination Piece

paper & writing tool

Instructions

(grab a piece of paper and a writing tool → can be a pen, pencil, or designated coloured marker)

  1. Draw a horizontal line somewhere in the middle of your page.
  2. At the top right corner, draw either a sun (if you major in fine arts) or a moon (if you minor in fine arts) (10 sec).
  3. Next to that, draw two clouds if you think you are a more left-brained/logical person or draw two birds if you think you are more right-brained/creative (10s).
  4. On the horizontal line, draw a house near the left side of your page (10s).
  5. Beside the house, draw your favorite animal with a smile on its face (45s).
  6. Beside the animal, draw either 1, 2, 3, or 4 stick figures (10s).
  7. Switch your page with someone near you and let them draw whatever they want to (10s) and then switch papers back.
  8. Somewhere below the line at the middle of your page, draw some flowers (15s).
  9. In the sky below your clouds/ birds, draw a circle.
  10. Either: a) draw 3 squiggly lines coming out of that circle if you prefer hotter climates or b) draw 3 straight lines if you prefer colder temperatures (10s).
  11. Within the top half of your paper, either draw stars if you prefer chill, soothing music or draw hearts if you like more upbeat, eccentric music (10s).
  12. Take a minute to reflect on your piece, as well as look at other

Artist Statement

My body of work explores themes of time, chance, and the everyday through a combination of original creative writing and drawing. Taking inspiration from Yoko Ono, I wanted to create a similar instruction-based poem (but not poem) approach to this first project. In accordance to chance, I incorporated a more controlled Relational strategy by allowing the audience to follow my set instructions whilst also giving them a slim chance at freedom depending on the instruction (Apostolou et. al, 2022). In combination with the interactive strategy I have a component of the External strategy as a means of using an outside source to have influence on one’s piece as in instruction 7 i have the viewers switch papers and temporarily take control of another person’s piece before switching pages back to the original owner. In addition, there is a component of randomness as each question I randomly devised in my head within the last few days. This project was designed to be performed in a group setting. To touch on the time aspect, I have set timed instructions depending on the question so the audience would have to fulfill the requirements within measure. This touches on the idea of “narrative” where I have set the tone of the piece to be in a second-person narrative as a means to produce an art inspired by duration (Bal). Viewers can see the development of their “silly imagination piece”, altering their perception of whatever they perceive the narrative of the piece to be (ex: their opinion of the piece before performing instructions 9 & 10 vs. aerwards). As well, I wanted to explore the theme of ‘everyday aesthetics’ in a variety of ways. First the questions are related to some of the everyday aspects of life (for instance, instruction 11 deals with the type of music one prefers, this is essential as everyone has a preference of the type of music they listen to per day). Secondly, I wanted to tackle the idea of utilitarian purposes for everyday objects/activities (Saito, 2001). Although a pen and paper has been created for certain purposes, I wanted the audience to have a sense of nostalgia when performing this piece, similar to when we were all children and had not a care in the world whilst drawing on a piece of paper using our silly imagination.