I can’t say I’ve ever thought of a class as a performance, but after Thursday’s class, I now see how that is so. Whenever anyone is speaking, the rest of the classroom becomes an audience. The teacher must prepare what they are going to do for the day and the students must be willing to obtain the information and focus. When someone wants the floor, the star of the show changes. When you take away the voices in a class, there is no real leader or person in control. Everyone is left to figure out for themselves what is going on. There is still a message being portrayed, but its up to you to find out what it is. When we had our silent class I was clueless as to what was going on, so I had to make the class what I wanted to make it. This can all be related to analyzing sculptures.
Sculptures are like a silent classroom or performance. They are giving off a message that the audience members usually have to figure out on their own. Without knowing anything about the sculpture, we have to make up a story about it for ourselves. As in the classroom situation, there can’t really be a right and wrong when this is the case. We take a chance to examine the sculpture, consider its surroundings, look at it from different aspects and ultimately come up with an argument or purpose for the sculpture. It might be what the sculptor intended the audience on getting from it or it might be some different variation.
With my particular sculpture, it is crucial that it is located outside being that it is a waterfall. If it were to be located inside of Sheldon Art Gallery I would still give off the vibe of a waterfall, but it seems more realistic when it is outside in a natural environment. I would assume as a sculptor, they would want their piece of art to be as realistic as possible having that it is a sculpture.
When we think of “what something is not” in terms of a sculpture, we think about how they are not alive or real. They do not literally consist of streaming water but when we try to look at the sculpture with a realistic sense, it becomes more real.
We are given a lot of freedom with letting our minds form opinions and formatting reasons for things. When we are sitting in a silent classroom we make the class what we want to. When we are looking at silent, non moving sculptures we get to make a story up for them, but the context they are placed in and the ideas of “what they are not” are helpful to us when forming these opinions or stories.
