WEBVTT 00:00:01.100 --> 00:00:06.650 STEPHEN CARPENTER: I have two activities that I've prepared. 00:00:06.650 --> 00:00:10.280 So interpretation, this idea of constructing meanings 00:00:10.280 --> 00:00:15.080 or developing meanings about works of art, 00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:16.550 or we can think of interpretation 00:00:16.550 --> 00:00:19.760 as someone is speaking one language 00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:22.880 and then we take that language and we are able to-- 00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:25.230 not only do we speak and understand this language, 00:00:25.230 --> 00:00:31.260 then we can take those ideas and those words 00:00:31.260 --> 00:00:33.510 and turn them into a different language 00:00:33.510 --> 00:00:35.290 that someone else speaks. 00:00:35.290 --> 00:00:38.020 We can have interpretation function in that way as well. 00:00:38.020 --> 00:00:40.650 So it's about taking ideas from one context 00:00:40.650 --> 00:00:44.580 into another or one mode of representation in communication 00:00:44.580 --> 00:00:45.550 into another. 00:00:45.550 --> 00:00:48.690 But in terms of art and art practice, 00:00:48.690 --> 00:00:54.740 art criticism and interpretation work together. 00:00:54.740 --> 00:01:03.070 So this image I think is useful for our purposes here. 00:01:03.070 --> 00:01:10.630 Imagine that this image was the poster 00:01:10.630 --> 00:01:17.530 for a movie, full length, feature length movie. 00:01:17.530 --> 00:01:21.790 And imagine you were responsible for writing the copy-- 00:01:21.790 --> 00:01:28.890 for writing the text for the voiceover of the movie trailer, 00:01:28.890 --> 00:01:32.820 but all you had was this image to go by. 00:01:32.820 --> 00:01:35.400 You probably heard movie trailers, 00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:38.220 those little commercials for movies. 00:01:38.220 --> 00:01:41.130 And usually my experience, they start off 00:01:41.130 --> 00:01:44.670 with one of two phrases or a version of one of two phrases. 00:01:44.670 --> 00:01:47.340 One of the phrases is usually something 00:01:47.340 --> 00:01:53.260 like this, "Imagine a place--" And you can imagine-- 00:01:53.260 --> 00:01:55.584 you've heard this phrase before from movie trailers. 00:01:55.584 --> 00:01:58.000 "Imagine a place" and the music is start doing [HUMMING].. 00:01:58.000 --> 00:01:59.480 You see the scenery. 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:05.636 Another phrase that is often used is "In a world where--" 00:02:05.636 --> 00:02:06.135 You've-- 00:02:06.135 --> 00:02:08.938 I see nodding going on, so that means, oh, I've-- 00:02:08.938 --> 00:02:10.479 you could probably name several films 00:02:10.479 --> 00:02:12.680 that have movie trailers that start that way. 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:14.350 So take one of those phrases-- 00:02:14.350 --> 00:02:20.111 "imagine a place," or "in a world--" and-- 00:02:20.111 --> 00:02:22.110 I don't know if you have something to write with 00:02:22.110 --> 00:02:24.580 or if you want to keep it in your head. 00:02:24.580 --> 00:02:28.020 And if you come up a sentence or two, that would be great. 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:31.320 But the sentence or two that starts with one of those two 00:02:31.320 --> 00:02:36.510 prompts would function as the beginning voiceover copy 00:02:36.510 --> 00:02:39.570 for the movie from which this still comes. 00:02:39.570 --> 00:02:40.170 We got it? 00:02:40.170 --> 00:02:40.680 All right. 00:02:40.680 --> 00:02:41.721 Here's the movie trailer. 00:02:41.721 --> 00:02:43.380 [VIDEO PLAYBACK] 00:02:43.380 --> 00:02:46.890 - What would you do in a world without justice? 00:02:46.890 --> 00:02:50.820 In 2017, humankind's most precious resource 00:02:50.820 --> 00:02:54.000 is used as a weapon of control. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:57.631 Will you punch up against power? 00:02:57.631 --> 00:02:59.404 [END PLAYBACK] 00:02:59.404 --> 00:03:01.195 STEPHEN CARPENTER: I'm going to that movie. 00:03:01.195 --> 00:03:03.682 [LAUGHS] Wow, all right. 00:03:03.682 --> 00:03:04.890 So part of what I'm hearing-- 00:03:04.890 --> 00:03:10.590 like I heard swimming upstream, adversity, these water hoses, 00:03:10.590 --> 00:03:11.280 I heard-- 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:14.430 there was an issue of control, resistance. 00:03:14.430 --> 00:03:16.860 This border wall suggests there's 00:03:16.860 --> 00:03:18.660 something about being in and out and not 00:03:18.660 --> 00:03:21.090 being able to attain something. 00:03:21.090 --> 00:03:24.290 And then the X Games-- 00:03:24.290 --> 00:03:25.620 what'd you call it? 00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:26.250 Cheerleading? 00:03:26.250 --> 00:03:27.745 Extreme-- ultimate cheerleading. 00:03:27.745 --> 00:03:28.620 Extreme cheerleading. 00:03:28.620 --> 00:03:30.286 So there's an activity, but then there's 00:03:30.286 --> 00:03:34.680 something else that pushes it or ramps it up. 00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:37.060 Add some context here. 00:03:37.060 --> 00:03:40.170 This is a still image from a performance by performance 00:03:40.170 --> 00:03:41.710 artist Dread Scott. 00:03:41.710 --> 00:03:44.400 The title of the work is called, On the Impossibility 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:48.900 of Freedom in a Country Founded on Slavery and Genocide. 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:51.300 And he's referencing a range of events, 00:03:51.300 --> 00:03:53.340 but specifically a particular event 00:03:53.340 --> 00:03:56.730 in the '60s where there was a protest 00:03:56.730 --> 00:04:00.040 against racial injustice. 00:04:00.040 --> 00:04:04.620 Where the authorities used water hoses, 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:08.730 high-powered water hoses to push back African Americans. 00:04:08.730 --> 00:04:11.160 This was not a single event, these kinds of things 00:04:11.160 --> 00:04:12.600 happen all the time in the '60s. 00:04:12.600 --> 00:04:14.725 So this is part of Dread Scott's performance, 00:04:14.725 --> 00:04:16.320 this is a still from his performance. 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:20.940 I find it remarkable listening to even the comedy trailer, 00:04:20.940 --> 00:04:24.090 that you were picking up on elements of what 00:04:24.090 --> 00:04:25.712 his performance-- 00:04:25.712 --> 00:04:28.170 what he intended his performance to be about, but also what 00:04:28.170 --> 00:04:31.650 other people have interpreted his performance to be about. 00:04:31.650 --> 00:04:35.100 Charles Garoian is a performance artist an art educator 00:04:35.100 --> 00:04:39.720 who also taught high school in the Bay Area in San Francisco. 00:04:39.720 --> 00:04:44.040 And he taught his students in late '60s and the '70s-- 00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:45.780 into the '80s actually I believe-- 00:04:45.780 --> 00:04:47.570 about performance art and happenings, 00:04:47.570 --> 00:04:51.420 and the ways in which our bodies can perform symbolically 00:04:51.420 --> 00:04:53.700 to construct works of art that relate 00:04:53.700 --> 00:04:57.300 to social issues and cultural issues. 00:04:57.300 --> 00:05:01.000 So his work is documented in several of his books, 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:03.000 one of which is called Performing Pedagogy where 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:06.840 he interprets several works of art and performance art 00:05:06.840 --> 00:05:09.270 and then provides a set of activities 00:05:09.270 --> 00:05:12.810 that teachers and their students can perform 00:05:12.810 --> 00:05:15.360 to learn some of the basic structures 00:05:15.360 --> 00:05:17.250 or some elements of performance art 00:05:17.250 --> 00:05:21.270 using one's body as an artistic medium, 00:05:21.270 --> 00:05:24.390 but also a way in which to comment on social issues. 00:05:24.390 --> 00:05:28.260 But it's the idea of using our bodies as symbolic vehicles 00:05:28.260 --> 00:05:29.430 that become powerful. 00:05:29.430 --> 00:05:31.260 And also the ways that our bodies can move 00:05:31.260 --> 00:05:33.000 and the ways in which our bodies interact 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:35.090 with other objects or other ideas, 00:05:35.090 --> 00:05:39.060 the way in which we might maybe think of taking our body, 00:05:39.060 --> 00:05:42.070 doing something to it, doing something else to it. 00:05:42.070 --> 00:05:48.120 So there's an activity that I often do with my students-- 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:50.160 undergrad, graduate students, students 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:53.230 who are learning to be teachers that I 00:05:53.230 --> 00:05:54.480 borrowed from Charles Garoian. 00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:58.780 Here's a still image of one student doing this. 00:05:58.780 --> 00:06:04.520 And what I'd like you to do is to identify a statement. 00:06:04.520 --> 00:06:08.730 Could be an excerpt, it could be song lyrics, 00:06:08.730 --> 00:06:15.420 it could be a poem, but it needs to be a set of words that-- 00:06:15.420 --> 00:06:18.360 ideally it's a text or a sentence or several phrases-- 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:23.390 that you could or someone else could say 00:06:23.390 --> 00:06:26.526 within a 30-second time period. 00:06:26.526 --> 00:06:28.400 So borrowing from Charles Garoian's approach, 00:06:28.400 --> 00:06:32.350 one of the activities is to take an image and-- 00:06:32.350 --> 00:06:38.060 a body, and the body engages in a repetitive motion, 00:06:38.060 --> 00:06:39.970 a repetitive activity. 00:06:39.970 --> 00:06:43.990 And the ideas that that body in motion in relationship 00:06:43.990 --> 00:06:46.990 to or in juxtaposition with or in critique or conversation 00:06:46.990 --> 00:06:51.940 with that image will inherently start to construct or suggest 00:06:51.940 --> 00:06:53.747 different interpretations, just like what 00:06:53.747 --> 00:06:55.330 you did when you saw the image and you 00:06:55.330 --> 00:06:57.200 added some text to that. 00:06:57.200 --> 00:06:59.920 But there's a third element, and that's the text 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:01.180 that you've come up with. 00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:03.360 So what is going to happen-- 00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:06.080 so here's another student doing something similar. 00:07:06.080 --> 00:07:09.424 So what's going to happen is, I'm going to hit this button, 00:07:09.424 --> 00:07:10.840 and then I'm going to go over here 00:07:10.840 --> 00:07:12.256 and I'm going to start performing. 00:07:12.256 --> 00:07:15.100 I'm going to do a repetitive motion for 30 seconds. 00:07:15.100 --> 00:07:18.494 When I get over there, you're going to speak your text. 00:07:18.494 --> 00:07:19.410 AUDIENCE: Oh, my text? 00:07:19.410 --> 00:07:19.880 STEPHEN CARPENTER: Yes. 00:07:19.880 --> 00:07:21.170 AUDIENCE: Oh, I thought I was reading your text. 00:07:21.170 --> 00:07:22.390 STEPHEN CARPENTER: No, no. 00:07:22.390 --> 00:07:24.280 Oh, you would rather not share your text? 00:07:24.280 --> 00:07:25.830 AUDIENCE: I mean, I don't mind, it's just not 30 seconds long. 00:07:25.830 --> 00:07:27.250 I can say it over and over again. 00:07:27.250 --> 00:07:28.360 STEPHEN CARPENTER: That would be fine. 00:07:28.360 --> 00:07:29.260 All right, we'll do that. 00:07:29.260 --> 00:07:30.801 Then I have two other images so we'll 00:07:30.801 --> 00:07:32.961 be able to get to two other people. 00:07:32.961 --> 00:07:34.210 But you'll see how this works. 00:07:34.210 --> 00:07:36.610 You ready? 00:07:36.610 --> 00:07:38.860 Go. 00:07:38.860 --> 00:07:39.550 AUDIENCE: OK. 00:07:39.550 --> 00:07:41.860 Sometimes you gotta post bad pictures of yourself 00:07:41.860 --> 00:07:43.840 online so that people are impressed 00:07:43.840 --> 00:07:45.700 when they see you in person. 00:07:45.700 --> 00:07:48.020 Sometimes you gotta post bad pictures of yourself 00:07:48.020 --> 00:07:49.990 online so that people are impressed 00:07:49.990 --> 00:07:52.090 when they see you in person. 00:07:52.090 --> 00:07:55.610 Sometimes you gotta post bad pictures of yourself online 00:07:55.610 --> 00:07:58.750 so now people are impressed when they see you in person. 00:07:58.750 --> 00:08:00.910 Sometimes you gotta post bad pictures of yourself 00:08:00.910 --> 00:08:02.594 online so that people are impressed 00:08:02.594 --> 00:08:03.760 when they see you in person. 00:08:03.760 --> 00:08:05.990 LARRY SUSSKIND: Time. 00:08:05.990 --> 00:08:08.080 STEPHEN CARPENTER: All right, thank you, Larry. 00:08:08.080 --> 00:08:08.380 AUDIENCE: [LAUGHS] 00:08:08.380 --> 00:08:10.921 STEPHEN CARPENTER: See, I had to trust him because, you know, 00:08:10.921 --> 00:08:13.940 three minutes could have been 30 seconds. 00:08:13.940 --> 00:08:15.700 You see what happened? 00:08:15.700 --> 00:08:18.340 We have a repetitive motion, which 00:08:18.340 --> 00:08:22.990 might suggest certain ideas and concepts, meanings. 00:08:22.990 --> 00:08:24.690 We had this text. 00:08:24.690 --> 00:08:26.024 Be where-- say it again? 00:08:26.024 --> 00:08:27.690 AUDIENCE: Oh, sometimes you have to post 00:08:27.690 --> 00:08:30.490 bad pictures of yourself online so that people are impressed 00:08:30.490 --> 00:08:31.780 when they see you in person. 00:08:31.780 --> 00:08:32.530 STEPHEN CARPENTER: So not only do we have text, 00:08:32.530 --> 00:08:34.990 we gotta put in relationship to this movement. 00:08:34.990 --> 00:08:38.180 But this image, what does this image 00:08:38.180 --> 00:08:39.429 have to do with this movement? 00:08:39.429 --> 00:08:43.450 I mean, it's interesting, you can put two ideas together 00:08:43.450 --> 00:08:47.210 or put these two things together or these two things together, 00:08:47.210 --> 00:08:49.480 but all three of them? 00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:52.290 Anybody want to attempt to weave these three together? 00:08:52.290 --> 00:08:53.770 Go ahead. 00:08:53.770 --> 00:08:55.870 AUDIENCE: Since the theme of repetition, 00:08:55.870 --> 00:08:58.480 I didn't catch it at first, but the fact that you 00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:00.670 kept repeating it and then your hop 00:09:00.670 --> 00:09:02.680 kind of synced in with that, and then 00:09:02.680 --> 00:09:06.760 looking at this image, just the fact 00:09:06.760 --> 00:09:09.580 that there's all these windows and all the pieces of the image 00:09:09.580 --> 00:09:13.870 deconstructed-- sort of fell into this cycle 00:09:13.870 --> 00:09:16.780 of posting pictures online and seeing people multiple times 00:09:16.780 --> 00:09:21.080 and it did sort of in time come together for me. 00:09:21.080 --> 00:09:22.300 STEPHEN CARPENTER: OK, nice. 00:09:22.300 --> 00:09:23.920 So why would I do something like that? 00:09:23.920 --> 00:09:27.557 Well, at the end of the semester, the students in one 00:09:27.557 --> 00:09:29.390 of my graduate classes I teach at Penn State 00:09:29.390 --> 00:09:31.360 and also at Vermont College of Fine Arts, 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:35.686 after going through that process of the randomness of making 00:09:35.686 --> 00:09:37.060 those connections, they then have 00:09:37.060 --> 00:09:40.540 to go through the process of intentionally combining image, 00:09:40.540 --> 00:09:43.760 text, and body movement for a public performance 00:09:43.760 --> 00:09:45.560 that lasts at least five minutes. 00:09:45.560 --> 00:09:49.579 So these are-- the top row are stills from one video, 00:09:49.579 --> 00:09:51.370 the bottom row are stills from another one, 00:09:51.370 --> 00:09:54.400 and the one at the top, the student was interested 00:09:54.400 --> 00:09:58.060 in the idea that someone told her at one point something 00:09:58.060 --> 00:10:02.980 like, there have never been any wars-- 00:10:02.980 --> 00:10:04.906 international wars on US soil. 00:10:04.906 --> 00:10:06.780 And she thought, this doesn't make any sense, 00:10:06.780 --> 00:10:08.280 and a history teacher told her that. 00:10:08.280 --> 00:10:10.630 So the idea was that this performance speaks back 00:10:10.630 --> 00:10:12.676 to that, and this was performed in Philadelphia. 00:10:12.676 --> 00:10:14.800 And so you can see in these three different images, 00:10:14.800 --> 00:10:16.425 she's using her body in different ways. 00:10:16.425 --> 00:10:17.710 She's holding a photo of-- 00:10:17.710 --> 00:10:21.200 a satellite photo of a plane bombing. 00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:24.720 She created almost a little memorial and burial for this 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:27.580 and has watered it generously and then puts her own body down 00:10:27.580 --> 00:10:28.510 in this bench. 00:10:28.510 --> 00:10:31.390 That it's essentially a whispering bench where she 00:10:31.390 --> 00:10:34.326 she's sitting at one end and can whisper into the corner, 00:10:34.326 --> 00:10:35.950 and the person sitting at the other end 00:10:35.950 --> 00:10:37.660 can hear what she's saying. 00:10:37.660 --> 00:10:39.250 And the one at the bottom is a student 00:10:39.250 --> 00:10:42.940 who performed outside of Karachi-- that's 00:10:42.940 --> 00:10:46.400 at Carnegie Hall, in front of Carnegie Hall. 00:10:46.400 --> 00:10:50.420 And symbolically speaking to a death in her family, 00:10:50.420 --> 00:10:54.650 but also her own musical aspirations and the way 00:10:54.650 --> 00:10:57.690 in which they relate to her own life, 00:10:57.690 --> 00:11:01.860 but also she was equating it to gun violence. 00:11:01.860 --> 00:11:03.890 And so she was cleaning the clarinet 00:11:03.890 --> 00:11:06.140 and puts it in this case in various ways 00:11:06.140 --> 00:11:07.270 that make you suggest-- 00:11:07.270 --> 00:11:09.980 they suggest, is this a musical instrument or is it 00:11:09.980 --> 00:11:13.760 an implement for an instrument of killing? 00:11:13.760 --> 00:11:17.960 So these are some outgrowths from that quick assignment 00:11:17.960 --> 00:11:19.910 that we did. 00:11:19.910 --> 00:11:22.670 So in summary, you could engage learners 00:11:22.670 --> 00:11:26.410 like we've done today in any of these ways, 00:11:26.410 --> 00:11:28.960 or you could do boring stuff. 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:31.140 It's really up to you.