Try combinatory play with books. | Pablo Helguera | The Art Assignment

This week we meet Pablo Helguera, an artist, museum educator, and writer, at the Indianapolis stop of his Spanish language bookstore Librería Donceles. His assignment challenges you to give old books new lives through combinatory play.

INSTRUCTIONS - Combinatory Play
1. Bring together a small group of collaborators
2. Each collaborator will pick a play
3. Read the plays together, exchanging lines
4. Upload it using #theartassignment

[Tmanstext]

this whole method reminds me a lot of sample-based music. taking bits and pieces from many existing works and re-contextualizing them so they have an entirely different meaning/intention than the original parts.

[idiotsloveboxes]

If you want a visual version of this assignment:

1. Gather 2 or 3 friends.
2. Have each person pick a work of art, and print out a copy.
3. Pass the copy of that work to someone else, who will cut it into pieces.
4. Paste the various pieces together.

It's a lot like the Exquisite Corpse project a few assignments ago.

[fallingsilver]

I really enjoyed this video, especially the emphasis on combinatory play. I believe that art and science are two halves to a whole: that you shouldn't have to pick just one in your life. There's so much pressure to be either an "art" person or a "science" person, but both actually complement each other.

[paulocone]

This might be the perfect Art Assignment for my friends and I! I'm a (student) actor, and many of my friends are as well. I just had an idea of how to do this as a collaborative improvisation piece: have everybody select a larger selection of lines (keeping them secret), and then do the reading as improv, with the participants selecting the best lines that respond to the developing story and jumping in when they feel the need to. I really excited now!

Also, John was really off-topic...

[zioscozio]

This immediately made me think of the combinatorial approaches to literature that were explored in the 1960s by writers such as Queneau, Calvino and Perec. Calvino wrote a whole book from tarot cards laid on a table then read in various direction, each of which represented one character's story. He also rewrote the Count of Montecristo as a short story in which Dumas himself was one of the characters!

[almssalinaspoesiadivina]

Fenomenal!!
Libros y poemas mi pasión!!

[jessicap]

The part about Leibniz and the universal set of symbols made me think about the board game Concept. The board has a set of various symbols and you place markers on them to describe some concept (an object, a movie, a phrase, etc.). What's funny about it is that the game originated in France, and the directions and cards are translated from the French version, so there are often people and phrases that are unfamiliar to us. Also, in the directions, a country + red, white, and blue is described as signifying France, and the United States (in another example) is represented by a country + red, white, and blue + stars. So even with a universal symbol set, the interpretations are going to be influenced by culture and expectations.

[Xenolilly]

This is soooo cool. I can't wait to move back to where I have friends and do all of the Art Assignments.

[AmbroseReed]

There's a super interesting book called Head in Flames that braids together three different narratives about Vincent Van Gogh, and it's really fascinating. Hard to get into, but then you find a rhythm and it starts to really open up.

[TeachingGrammar]

The Combinatory Play they performed is so suggestive. It's so funny how it begins to suggest some significance:

-Actor 1: "Come here, Valerio. We've chosen you to decide who's right: my daughter or me?"
-Actor 2: "Nah, I'd rather not get involved. I'm out of here."
-Actor 3: "But why? Are you, like, old or something?"
-Actor 1: that's something I'd rather not...
-Actor 3: "It's all the same to me."
-Actor 1: "Well, yeah, of course. Of course it's the same."

[sylviamorris]

oh wow, i found it so hard to concentrate on what the actual assignment was. as an ex--maths student who loves combinatorics i was sidetracked from the moment i read the title and then john started talking about einstein and sarah started talking about liebniz and merging disciplines... now i wanna do some mash up of language + maths + visual art.

[KannikCat]

Haha, I do that "phonetic translation" thing _all the time_. :P Hmmm, I wonder what it would be like to combine the assignment with his translation art project... find three plays in languages you don't understand, and phonetically translate lines and put them together. If you do it with care it might still end up with something good and not totally nonsensical (if funny for the absurdity of it) :)

[vwren]

I don't know much about plays, does anyone have any recommendations of play anthologies/plays or resources to start out on to do this?

[choodledoodlers]

I've just finished writing a play! It would be really cool to combine it with ones by writers that I aspire to. My characters talking to theirs... how strange.

[lesliefoundhergrail]

thinking about doing this at NerdCon: Stories...

[ThisIsFiftyWithLil]

A mash-up of sorts, yes?
Must watch vid, me.

[ChinmayaNagpal]

Unrelated:
Hi Sarah,
Do mind if I marry John's new hair? I really like it.
Love,
Chinmaya