*/*/* APD 3rd Week: Play & Tinkering "Exquisite Cadaver"

Theme: Tinkering

Method: Relational Art. Live Drawing. Photographic record.

Context: Imaginary/Spontaneous Drawing. Relational Aesthetics by Nicolas Bourriaud. There are those who postulate that the history of literature is nothing more than a continuous reworking of two or three fundamental themes. For Nicolas Bourriaud, these themes were love, life and death. The different literary creations would be, according to this thesis, nothing more than small fragments of a great work, a single collective work, which unconsciously we are plunged into the illusion of individuality.

Response:

When we are kids we can do everything with practically anything but why when we are adults is so scary when we heard "do whatever you want". For children "Tinkering" as an exploratory method is present on their everyday life and when you work with children you need to become one of them to completely understand it and them. Drawing is one of the things that children love to do most. As sometimes is difficult for them to express their ideas completely, instinctively they decide to use one of the most ancient and primitive communication tools; Image. And all of this while playing, there are no limitations for a child when is drawing, they just abstract themselves through that action.

In my search to capture the essence on Tinkering as a production method along with spontaneity I decided to do something similar to a previous exercise I developed called "Let's Draw Something". It was a relational art exercise that consisted on pose human and social relationships as a medium to create an image, instead of producing it on a private artistic place. To do it, I approached to a random person or group of people and ask them simply with a funny voice to: "Select your weapon and Draw something within 20 seconds". 27 of 30 people participated on the exercise and the whole piece was completed in 5 minutes as there were moments where up to 4 people drew at once.

For this opportunity all the contestants had to create an image at the same time, trying to make it look as 1 solid piece done by the same artist. Both results were hilarious and both groups of people had a really good time. The exercise was done right in front of the Shrine of Remembrance. 

As for my own interpretation of this whole exercise I wrote to all my students (children) back in colombia, to say hi and ask them for a feature, they had to describe something in 3 words or less. The first 10 answers were taken to create my responce, an exquisite cadaver structured by 10 different concepts represented through 1 single image.

The whole concept/exercise was designed to be perceived as a Game, nothing serious, just 20 seconds out of this world to do what ever they wanted, where nothing was planned or expected. Lots of smiles and laughs were collected as well.