Category: Experiments in listing

experiment 3 – poetic list

lydiacartledgeExperiments in listing

Poetic lists are must more flexible than practical or personal lists in that they could convey a million different meanings depending on who was reading them and the interpretations can be vastly different from person to person based on their own lived experiences. In contrast to a practical list where I said that it wouldn’t make sense to go from apples to a horse in a shopping list, in a poetic list it could be an entirely plausible jump depending on the function this writer intended for the poetic list. Frankham (2013) argues that a poetic list can be an experience in itself and introduces relational aesthetics as a concept which is used to allow for a relationship between the audience and the art.

In my experience this week, I played around with a list of romance.
– Candles
-Red wine
-Pasta
-Rumpled sheets
-Strawberries
-Two toothbrushes

In class we discussed how aesthetics is used in poetic videos to trigger an emotion or memory for the audience or provide a glimpse into the mind of the creator so with that in mind I decided to add hints of red to most shots to hint towards romance or love. My experiment is more of a mosaic as its fragments of a whole story and I tried to play around with rhythm by repeating the candle shot in flashes that could resemble a heartbeat that got faster as the night wore on. I’m not sure if it works but it was fun to play around with.

References:

Frankham, B.L., 2013. Complexity, flux and webs of connection,’ in: A Poetic Approach to Documentary: Discomfort of Form, Rhetorical Strategies and Aesthetic Experience. University of Technology Sydney, Sydney. pp. 137-176.

experiment 2 – personal list

lydiacartledgeExperiments in listing

I found the reading for this week, Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book, really fascinating to read. A lot of the lists she write downs or the thoughts she has are still very similar to what we might write down 1000 years later. One that made my laugh was her list of infuriating things and she wrote, “a guest who arrives when you have something urgent to do and stays talking for ages”.  It reminded me a bit of the lists and feelings I would write in my notes app on my phone which are almost always just a collection of random but pretty personal thoughts or feelings. For example, I’ve got list of baby names, a list of my favourite coffee orders, a list of books I want to read and a list of groovy cafe names for my non-existent cafe. I think personal lists may come across as less functional than a practical list but perhaps for the person who wrote the list – it is entirely functional. A concept we discussed in class is that the author is integral to a personal list and will often emphasis bias towards the list writers personal beliefs/opinions.

The experiment below is a sound piece that reflect my personal list of: “Things that remind me of loneliness”.
– Coming home during a storm
– Calls that go unanswered
– A crying dog
– A mother trying to comfort a baby

I initially was going to write a list on “Things that cause me to go into sensory overdrive” which included:
– the smell of a butcher
– the smell of a seafood market
– car lights in my rear view mirror when driving
– the texture of animal fat when I chew it

However, after some peer feedback I decided that the items I had listed would be hard to represent through sound. There was constructive alternatives suggested such as using lots of sounds of lights turning on simultaneously to create a heightened  sensory effect however I felt that took away from what made it personal to me, which is the notion of car lights flickering constantly.

 

References:

Perkovic, J 2013. sei shonagon’s lists, Guerrilla Semiotics, viewed 9 Nov 2021, <https://guerrillasemiotics.com/2013/05/sei-shonagons-lists/>.

experiment 1 – practical list

lydiacartledgeExperiments in listing

I think my most frequently written practical lists are grocery shopping lists and orders for work. Both of these have function; they provide me with a straight-forward way to the finish line, in a sense.  My understanding of practical lists is that they catalogue and/or organise a set of items that have ‘obvious’ connections. Eco (2009, p. 116) argues that within a practical list you can always identify the criteria based on the assembly of items. I think that I agree with this sentiment as I think a practical list can only be practical if it is easily readable and understandable by all readers. If the jump in translation from one item to the next is too big then the practical list loses its functionality and becomes conceptual rather than realistic. However, the reading also suggests that practical lists are finite and cannot be altered (Eco, 2009) which I would have to disagree with. If I add or remove items from my grocery shopping list, that doesn’t make it less functional or understandable. Perhaps however, if I added something I cannot buy at Woolworths, such as…a horse….that would make my practical list less practical because the jump from a dozen green apples to a horse is no longer a realistic leap.

My experiment above is a practical list of stationary that I need to order for work. If someone was to see this list, I think it would be pretty understandable that this is a list of stationary or office supplies and serves its function. I could use this video as a reminder list of frequently bought products so I would never forget to order something. From peer feedback in class, if I was to re-do this experiment, I would use a different background – something more simple that doesn’t draw the eye so much.

References:

Umberto, E 2009, ‘There are lists and lists’, in The infinity of lists, Rizzoli, New York, pp. 112 – 129.