Because there's some construction in our building
and my office is shaking today, we're on a set to discuss some
of the responses to David Brooks' art assignment,
"Never Seen, Never Will," which is to--
Articulate something that you know
exists, but you've never seen it.
And you very likely won't see it in your lifetime.
You'll note he doesn't tell you to use a particular medium.
So that verb "articulate" becomes key here.
In a technical sense, to articulate
means to express something in words.
And this opened the door too many good written responses,
poetry, and blogs, some of which you can see on our Tumblr.
But in a broader sense, to articulate
means to express something clearly.
Instead of torturing our editor Brandon
by showing you a montage of many responses in quick succession,
this time I'm going to feature just a few responses,
so that we can talk about them in more detail.
David encouraged you to consider things not so far-reaching.
And a number of you thought about how you would never
really see yourself, or yourself as others
see you, which I thought was interesting in this, the day
of the omnipresent selfie.
Jennifer is a photographer.
And she says because of that, she never
gets her own picture taken.
So she asked 100 people to take a picture,
from photography majors to people who had never
used a real camera before.
She says she never really liked pictures of herself,
but thinks she's changed her mind.
Dafidaf works in a biochemistry lab,
and thinks about other ways of articulating himself,
like paying attention to protein p38, which
exists in most cells in the human body,
and regulates the cell's stress response.
They say, "I know the genes that encode it.
I knew the sequence of amino acids that it contains.
There are even some speculations to what
it looks like in certain cases and situations.
But I've never actually seen it."
Laufey Haraldsdottir has never seen herself on stage
from an outsider's perspective, and never will.
Her video points to the insufficiencies of camera
representation, and how inadequate it
can be as a reflection of actual physical experience.
At the moment when she turns around,
we switch from being the spectator
to being the spectacle.
And she makes the important choice
of denying the view of her fully facing the audience.
David Devine made this amusing video,
where he tries to record himself falling asleep.
I've always had a fascination with myself
falling asleep or being asleep and what it would look like.
Would I roll around, or what would I do?
In any case, I don't think I'll ever see myself--
I've always been kind of fascinated seeing myself,
seeing myself sleep.
And I've always kind of wondered how
I'd react to seeing myself seeing myself sleep.
But since I-- It's turtles all the way down.
If you don't already know the saying,
"It's turtles all the way down," there
are several stories of its origin.
But the gist is that a long time ago, someone
understood the world as being flat, and that beneath it,
it rested on a turtle, which sat atop another turtle.
And when asked what that turtle was resting on,
the response was, "It's turtles all the way down."
And when you're trying to conceive of something unknown
to you, you're always resting upon your assumptions
or the assumptions of others, going so far down
that it's unclear what the basis is,
or if there's any truth to be had at the core.
Some of you also thought about other people
as your never seen, never will, like this person,
who posted this really nice drawing of their father, who
they've never met or seen a picture of, saying, "All I know
is that he is of British descent with brown, wavy hair."
when I look at this, I like imagining how the artist chose
particular features, perhaps thinking of themselves
and deleting what they can tell came from their mother.
Nadia and S E Vidrio who've never met and probably never
will, found each other in the comments
to the assignment video on YouTube.
They decided to write descriptions of themselves.
And then each of them drew a portrait of the other
based on that description.
This is Nadia's drawing of S E based
on details such as male, almost 20
years old, taller and weightier than average, thinnish
handlebar mustache.
He usually wears a black Stetson Bozeman and plays the banjo.
This is S E's drawing of Nadia, based on details
like she's a 20-year-old woman, pear-shaped,
hair that curls out a bit at the very tips.
She's a classically trained musician, whose favorite thing
to do is curl up with a good book
with classical music in the background,
like Debussy, Ravel, and Richard Strauss.
He also talked about his sometimes frustration
of being unable to capture the images in his mind,
saying, "The assignment revealed to me
that art is a collaboration between the artist's brain
and body.
It is the imagination's creation as
interpreted by the artist's abilities.
But often, the very act of creating changes the creation."
Abby made this artwork, and said about it,
"I would probably never see the structures and places
the ocean has claimed, or the process
of those structures eroding."
For me, the painting is reminiscent of Chinese hanging
scroll paintings, which are meant
to be read or experienced in stages,
rather than taken in all at once.
Like Abby's landscape, the scrolls
often depict settings and creatures the artist may never
have seen before.
And I also appreciated how suitable this vertical format
is for viewing on the web, where you're
used to that way of viewing of, quite literally, scrolling.
This person also conjures places and situations foreign to them,
in this case, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine,
saying, "All that I have to understand it
are photographs and the news.
As an 18-year-old Utah girl, I am
surrounded by images and reports of everything
that is going on in Ukraine.
The problems are so massive an overwhelming that,
like Brooks said, it has become abstracted in my mind.
She's using the strategy of appropriation,
which is when you reuse images or objects that already exist.
Appropriation became increasingly popular
as the 20th century unfolded, and images began to circulate
and proliferate through the growing mass media.
But what I like about this work is that it demonstrates
how influenced we can be by the relatively little information
we receive about a situation.
She understands that these snippets, and headlines,
and press photos are the turtles she's resting upon, as it were.
Venture into places even farther.
Space is certainly something that
has captured the imagination of many of you,
like this representation of the universe made
from a glass box painted with watercolor images.
About it, the artist says, "The images change and vary
in contrast and color depending on where the source of light
is.
I think also the same is true of the universe.
No matter where we view it from, the view
will be unrecognized from light years away."
Leonie Connellan made this little knitted Moebius out
of typewriter ribbon.
She says, "I've never seen a black hole.
I never will.
Gravity says no.
Still, I'm fascinated with these distortions of space-time
that draw in matter and prevent any escape.
What does a black hole look like?
What does it feel like?
What does it sound like?
In each of these cases, I really enjoyed the approach
of making relatively small, discrete objects
to try to articulate the mind-blowing vastness
and incomprehensibility of space.
There's a lot we haven't seen.
There's a lot we never will.
But your articulations have helped me to think about
what matters about image, and how we can find ways to imagine
the world outside oneself.
We look forward to receiving more responses
to "Never Seen, Never Will."
And please remember that if your response isn't featured,
that doesn't mean it's not any good.
If you'd like to get a more complete picture of what has
come in, follow us on Tumblr.
Thanks for watching.
And thanks for participating in the Art Assignment.
We'll leave you with a clip from one final response by Wes!ey
Films and Projects about the gastric-brooding frog,
which I think speaks for itself.
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