Medium Specificity

This week in class we've been working on medium specificity. This concept in creation and art is frequently used in relation to modern art, but isn't exclusive to it. In my understanding, this idea is challenging the boundaries of any specific medium, like that of John Cage and music, or Andy Warhol and prints. We used many different examples in class, showing some modern art pieces, and cartoons breaking the fourth wall, but I admit I still found myself frustrated to break the boundaries of any mediums that at best I was adequate at within it's normal constraints. 

So as I began thinking of this, I decided it would be interesting to break down something that is already considered conventional and beautiful, well beloved by many and widely acknowledged as art. After thinking of many different things, and partaking in many interesting class discussions throughout the week, I began to think about letters and words, and how one lends itself to another, but apart they aren't necessarily valuable. Composition is what gives power to letters and then words, though each word has its own connotation and definition and each letter has its own value. But it is the way in which we arrange these that gives them power.

In order to portray this, I picked a poem I felt almost everyone knew- Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." From there, I began distorting the poem by giving it certain limitations, starting with removing all repeated words. Though I probably should not have been, I was surprised by how few words really needed to be removed, and how the poem's message was still largely recognizable without some of those key repeated areas. However, much of the compositional beauty so intrinsic to poetry was lost through this method. Each word by itself didn't necessarily change the poems basic meaning, but it did add to the overall rhythm and cadence.

Next, I decided only allow each letter to appear once in the poem. As soon as it came up, I deleted the rest of that letter. I was actually surprised how quickly each letter was eliminated so early in the poem, and that only x and z remained by the time the poem was complete. These letters cumulated to create this fantastic poem that so many have memorized and loved, but without being put carefully into the words they can create, these letters mean nothing. The poem is completely worthless. The whole is completely dependent on the parts, while the parts are worthless if not composed into the whole.

I also decided to delete everything but the punctuation in it's place within the poem. As I completed the steps to these other processes, I found myself really liking the way these remaining letters and punctuations appeared by themselves. Though they don't mean anything, they hold their own sort of beauty and artfulness in the way they remain on the page. These random markings are the remainders of a great work of art and are often overlooked, but alone they create their own sort of art form.

Finally, I decided to just look at single words from the poem. One of my mother's most endearing and yet usually frustrating traits is her inability to spell words, largely due to her own doubt. She writes out a word correctly, and then stares at it, and slowly starts to think the word can't be spelled right because it looks so wrong. When you take one word and repeat it over and over in your head, and read it on a page, it starts to feel so warped from what you originally thought of. Similarly, when you look at many modern paintings, like that of Jackson Pollock, originally you may just see random splatterings and think nothing more of it. But as you look deeper and feel more, you start to recognize something in it that wasn't there before. Though letters and words have been formed culturally to represent some thing or meaning, in their most basic form they're nothing more than scribbles that are useless unless composed properly.