in short: color + library + word(s)
default: write a poem
assignment 1 a question of color
due week 3 (3/7 + 3/9)
The Library is a defined and constrained space yet it provides limitless possibilities for thinking about color. How many kinds of brown in this brown study? What is the palette of the library? What is the function of the mighty chandeliers? How do natural and electric light relate? Now that the shelves are empty can the books of our imagination take their place? This passage from Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, quoted in David Batchelor's Chromophobia summons up the magical presence of books for me:
Like the flowers ... [the books] glowed, when I looked at them, with brighter colors, a profounder
significance. Red books, like rubies; emerald books; books bound in white jade; books of agate, of
aquamarine, of yellow topaz; lapis lazuli books whose color was so intense, so intrinsically
meaningful, that they seemed to be on the point of leaving the shelves to thrust themselves more
insistently on my attention. (33)
I can see these sparkling insistent books but what you make may not be books. There are other pertinent questions. Does color have an expressive role in printed literary art? Or does our imagination conjure color from black font? Libraries are sophisticated users of digital systems, and public libraries are also crucial points of access for community members without computers. Has our Library been abandoned by digital media--and their load of color--as well as by books?
Thinking of whatever approach to color is most interesting and apt, write an assignment which can be completed in one week (for presentation on Wed 3/7 and Fri 3/9), focusing on color and our Library.
does my assignment approach color (and writing?) in a provocative / interesting way?
does my assignment relate interestingly to our developing definition of material poetics?
does my assignment relate intelligently to the library?
can it be done in a week? what happens then?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCzGurszC4I&feature=youtu.be
ReplyDeleteseemed to acting strange with blogger, so its on youtube in varying quality now.
thanks,
Josh
The Old Library is not occupied, and therefore it is open and avilable for a dialogue with its visitors. Libraries in active use may not necessarily do so. One quality that I find very admirable in this place is a sense of humility. It will listen, accept and allow changes with a quiet approval. The problem left for me, as a student and a visitor who wants to redefine it, has to find my own shape, how I fit into the space so that I complete a mutual dialogue.
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