Crystal Kan- Whitney Reaction

From what I have experienced, I realized that I enjoy and appreciate witty and humorous works of art more than other types. For example, Bruce Nauman's “Eating My Words” where the artist is literally eating doughnuts that spell out “words” employs a clever use of visual puns. Another would be Mel Bochner's “Misunderstandings (A Theory on Photography)” in which he uses famous and fake quotes about photography, but does not tell the audience which ones are fake. These both cause the viewer to look and think carefully in order to understand the humor behind the piece.

I also had a lot of fun interacting with most of Dan Graham's installations as they involved the audience in larger numbers. A lot of them played with visual illusions and reflections in materials, invoking the audience's sense of curiosity. My favorite piece overall was Dan Graham's “Opposing Mirrors and Video Monitors on Time Delay”. I enjoyed how simple it was to allow interaction with the audience in large groups. I think a lot of what made the piece for me was that a decently large portion of our class were moving in front of both monitors and that the time delay allowed us to see what we did after the fact.

As for the video pieces, “Rock My Religion” and “Play Pause”, I think they both used sound, video, and timing effectively to convey their messages. “Rock My Religion” used clips from the evolution of music in the 60's and 70's to connect religious beliefs and rock together. “Play Pause” had minimal animation, drawings and colors, but they were simple enough to express a day in a person's life. I think the most that I gained from seeing these two pieces is the importance of timing with visuals and sound because if they are off by a little bit, the audience could be sent into confusion.