I requested feedback on my MFA thesis paper draft which is different than anything I have written previously. I wanted to know impact of the format on comprehension/readability.
Lindey read it twice because she enjoyed reading it; it kept her engaged. At times the colors and fonts were confusing, and she wasn’t always sure of the meaning, but assumed there was some. She found the text follows through with what I’ve been doing the past two years.
Omayra enjoyed it and was surprised because it is stylistically similar to what she is envisioning for the catalogue of the exhibition she is curating as her MFA project. Omayra recommended the book Artful by Ali Smith. At first the colors were difficult, but she soon found them helpful in leading her as a non-native English speaker through the text. She commended my approach to Duchamp and self portraiture, and that I was able to bring my own voice to both well covered areas. She missed seeing my work, the paper stayed too much theory; suggesting I add more about my work to the paper. The detail of following through with the color/font in contractions was appreciated. Omayra recommended adding a preface about the colors/fonts choices, and taking the visuals even further to match the impactfulness of the writing. She like the conclusion was that there is no conclusion.
Deborah agreed with much of what Omayra and Lindey said, particularly how I was able to get the three voices working together, as well as my examination of Duchamp and alternate personalities, perhaps I could add a bit more. She suggested I look at the work of Suzy Lake and the self portrait/portraits over 6-8 panels she transforms through over-drawing the person to someone else. Deborah also suggested looking more at how in writing a transformation of the self via perception of others is expressed; she suggested an essay by James Elkins, title unknown.
Stephanie enjoyed the playfulness of the format despite its clunkiness and awkwardness at times. She questioned my choice of use of the Comic Sans font for ‘me’, finding it a turn off. I did explain my process for choosing the fonts, and the annoyance factor of that particular font was an intentional choice to reflect the ‘me’ as being more abrasive, crass and annoying than the other two. Stephanie also pointed out a couple of areas where there might be grammatical or typographical errors. She also recommended The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram in relation to the limitations of language.
The conversation turned to the final format of the paper. Lindey and Deborah both mentioned that the text needs to become an artist book; which after writing the text had also popped into my head. Lindey suggested a drop-down accordion style to the pages. This was also along my line of thought; after printing out the first four pages of the text I longed for the days of my dot-matrix printer paper! Deborah suggested I look at the work of the poets Christian Bök and Gregory Betts because the visual presentation of my text reminded her of their work.
Post-crit I looked up more on the suggested books. A few items have been added to my reading list, and I will take a closer look at the work of Suzy Lake as I continue my work and research the next years. I have also sketched out an idea for how this might look as a book and have found a couple of local binders who do artist books to consult in the coming weeks.