Assignment 4: Yael and Elise

The Idea:

In this project, we took turns instructing the other through simple drawing commands and pen stroke in order to achieve a drawing of a specific item in our rooms. These commands were as specific as, “draw a circle, the size of your palm with a small extruded lip at the bottom” and as vague as “draw an oval.” The goal was to see how specific we needed to be in order for the other person to achieve the desired image. This proved to vary.

Examples of instructions:

“Draw a very squished oval slightly to the top left of the larger oval with a slight upwards tilt and shade in the smaller oval.”

“From one half of the oval to the other half, draw a wavy line.”

“Draw two elongated C’s that stick out and away from the large oval on the bottom”

“Draw a rounded downward facing triangle in the center of the lowest circle”

“Draw a circle within that circle and fill it in”

“Draw 5 dots randomly scattered to the left and right of the line you just drew”

In the beginning, it was very necessary to be as specific as possible. As the drawings progressed, they became more and more predictable by the blind party and observer, and even if an instruction wasn’t specific enough, the blind party was able to make enough of an educated guess for the mark and shape to land properly. However in the beginning, a mistake is easy to make and easy to cause the rest of the piece to change its original shape to something else entirely. There were some instructions that were clearly not specific enough from both members of the group. Yael did not specify the direction of the strips on the overalls and Elise did not specify the size of the snout on the dog. While it was satisfying that we were both able to give and follow directions rather accurately, it would have been amusing for a drawing to end up dramatically different from the object.

The Experience:

Drawing in front of an audience was interesting as both the drawer and the audience member had no idea what was going to be outcome of the session. For example, when Yael was drawing, her roommate was commenting on how part of the drawing looking like genitalia. Although it was puppy dog face, there was a different interpretation with the drawing compared to what Yael saw. The point where Yael figured out the drawing was when the line was drawn under the nose, identifying it as either a dog or a cat. Her roommate also identified the subject of the drawing. For Elise, she noticed that a face was formed early on, and identified the subject as something like an egg. The fun part was the ending of showing what the object was and comparing the outcomes. That’s where commentary came in from the audience members about how cute or how similar the dog’s nose looked to a vagina. Interesting interpretations but an overall fun experience. The hardest part being how we had to describe the parts of the drawing.