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Jaye Cho

Topic 1 (Puppets): Form Analysis

 

Qiu Zhijie, Map of “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World” (2017),
94 1/2 × 283 1/2 in (240 × 720 cm)

 

  • Why this form? What are its features (stylistic, experiential)

I first saw Qiu Zhijie’s work in the “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World” exhibition at Guggenheim in 2017, it was a gigantic wall-size, ceiling-tall 6 panels Ink on paper. It doesn’t really obey aesthetic rules, and it seems like an overwhelming amount of information trying to be delivered at first glance. Honestly, in a group show of 71 artists, it wasn’t the most eye-catching. In fact, I remember seeing a lot of people skipping this one and going on the other more visually pleasing works. However, if you get closer to the map, and try to read and understand it, you will soon be shocked by the cleverness of it. The artist has a strong understanding of art history, politics, and colonial history, and somehow combines all of that into a readable map of a non-existing world. While serious, it was also mixed with some sense of humor and subtle mockery.

  • How is this form typically used, and what do you plan to subvert/imitate/utilize?

A map is typically used to deliver geographic information and ideally be as neutral as possible. For example, disputed territories should be labeled as disputed instead of being labeled as whatever country the map maker is in favor of. However, in Qiu Zhijie’s version of map making, maps become a place where concepts formed into geographic territories, and where the artist is able to share all the information he had digested. I plan to learn from Qiu, and utilize the concept of a map, yet subvert it by utilizing my ugly handwriting and sincere outsider drawing skills to create a map that aims to compile everything that is meaningful to me and related to puppets.

  • What would change if you tried a different form? What critical lens does the form you’re applying emphasize? 

If I adopt a different form, I’ll narrow the topic a little bit more, which I understand can be desirable for a research project. By choosing to make a complicated map, I will be facing the risk of having things too vague, with no focus for the viewer. However, I find it to be an interesting challenge, as I’m often too afraid to go big in a project, so this can be a good exercise for me. A lot of emphases will be on how I construct the information. Instead of being neutral, what I learned from Qiu, as well as standup comedy, is to treat everyone equally bad. This means it’s okay to poke fun, just make sure all the stakeholders in the system are being equally offended.

  • Is there a metaphor well-suited to your form (i.e. cooking with code)? Or, are there other metaphors you might employ?

I’m not sure how to answer this question, I guess Qiu Zhijie’s unique mapping technique is what I’m trying to employ and learn from.

Metaphors We Live By Responses

  • by

I understood everything discussed in the Lakoff + Johnson reading. However, since English is not my native language, while I understood all the examples given, I’m not sophisticated enough to come up with examples in English myself. The examples I’ll be given are all going to be in Mandarin or Japanese. I will try to do my best with translation but do take it with a grain of salt that it might not make perfect sense.

  • Lakoff + Johnson give several examples throughout the text of linguistic metaphorical systems. Are there any you found odd, outdated, or different from metaphorical systems that you use, either personally or in your language, culture, or social sphere? 

 

In Japanese, “空気を読む” (Kuuki wo yomu),  literal meaning “reading air,” is an important phrase to understand if one wants to truly understand the cultural trait of Japan. The phrase is taught to little kids as early as they can understand basic concepts, it is the expectation of one understanding all the societal rules without people telling you what to do. To give a basic example, in a Level-1 Japanese grammar book, one is usually going to practice a conversation like this to practice how to say “no” in Japan:

George: Would you like to go to the movie theater with me?

Mary: I would love to! When do you plan to go?

George: Awesome, how about this Saturday?

Mary: Ah, this Saturday? I got something important that day, unfortunately.

George: I see, what about Sunday?

Mary: Sunday is a little bit…

George: I see. No worries, we can always make a movie plan sometime in the future.

The important lesson from this conversation is:

  1. While Mary probably did not want to go to a movie with George in the first place, she is expected to act excited about the invitation still.
  2. When Mary said “Sunday is a little bit…” without giving an actual reason, George is expected to instantly understand Mary’s true feeling is to not go to the movie theater with him, and so he should stop asking, and make a vague promise about the future instead, so both can walk away politely.
  3. It is important to never say a direct “no” to an invitation or agreement of any sort, as it’s considered extremely rude. Sometimes it can lead to serious miscommunication in international business as one party thought they got an agreement while the Japan-side thought they refused “clearly.”

Keep in mind this is something taught in many grammar textbooks, not from an etiquette book. Rules like this are considered grammar that you should follow in society rather than just a kind of personality.

 

Another classic example would be: if someone told you “your perfume smells so nice” in an elevator, in most western countries, it is probably safe to assume that it is a sincere compliment. However, in Japan, it is possible the true meaning of the phrase means “you should tone down the amount of your perfume usage, it is way too strong, I can smell you too clearly.”

 

  • Can you identify a metaphorical system that you commonly use? What do you think is the motivating rationale (“experiential basis”) behind that system – or is there one? Have you ever intentionally (or unintentionally) changed the metaphorical system that you use to speak about a certain subject, to reflect a different experience or worldview?

Having a partner from a different culture, I do find us having a different understanding of the same situation sometimes. The “arguing as war” example in the reading is a good example. The terms used to describe “disagreement,” “quarrel,” “dispute”, “debate”, “argue,” and “fight” in my native language can often be used interchangeably. Sometimes when my partner thinks we are just having a “peaceful conversation on things we have different opinions of,” I would already think we were in a “serious heated debate.” A more specific difference can be seen with the term “critical thinking.” While it’s a western term that is now being used frequently in university-level learning worldwide, the translation of the term in my native language, “批判性思維,” sounds very judgmental and negative by nature. It gives people who are not familiar with critical thinking a sense that it’s very “elitist,” and “rude,” as the term emphasizes more “criticism” instead of the term “critical.” Started as a translation issue, the idea of having “critical thinking” skills unfortunately became an unwelcome personality trait for many. Whenever I say the term “critical thinking” in my native language, I either try to explain the origin and the issue with translation first, or I chose to use other unofficial terms to replace it instead, hoping to avoid the negative connotation the official term brings to people.

 

  • What metaphors/systems of metaphor are commonly used when discussing your topic? If “the essence of a metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (5), what other kinds of metaphors might be useful for discussing your topic, or an aspect of your topic?

My topic, “puppets” itself is a metaphor for a specific political issue, some other metaphors I think of might be “棋盤上的棋子” (just a piece on the chessboard), proxy wars, etc.

Puppets – Systems Mapping

Concept Map

Reinforcing Feedback Loop:

Through concept mapping, I realize there is a lot more I can talk about than I original thought. The connection between life is like a play, the play becomes the life – puppets reinforced how we see soulless humans and how we think of humans without souls when seeing a puppet, the two create an interesting feedback loop.

Response to System Thinking & GMOs

Which system (type of stakeholder) that Easterbrook identified did you find your own understanding of GMOs most aligned with? Why? What are some of the stakes of these stakeholders?

 

I find myself aligned with the third system, “A system of ecosystems and contaminants that weaken them” the most. The biggest stake in this system is the irreversible future. Ecosystems are complex systems, and in the past, we had already cost a lot of mistakes (non-native species, culls of species regarded as pests, the DDT that killed bald eagles through an unexpected chain of food cycle….etc). I find anyone who feels confident in denying risk like this extremely arrogant and overly-confident, even if it’s coming from a scientist.

 

Using your own topic for research, can you Identify 3 stakeholders (groups or phenomenon) with different perspectives, and then describe the system (the stakes) from which they are operating? 

 

Puppets:

  1. Animists – This group of people operates in a system of ethics around the treatment of puppets, as in this belief system, all things have spirit and souls.
  2. Puppeteers – This group of people operates in a system to advocate the preservation of tradition and business of Puppetry. There might be a lot more different systems within this system as there are a wide range of culturally different practices of puppetry throughout the world
  3. Parents and Educators – This group of people is the audience of the puppetry, or more the people who decided whether the children should be exposed to puppetry and learn things through puppetry (e.g. Sesame Street and other storytelling performances using puppets). There might be studies and research done on the use of puppetry and its impact on children’s development, which parents and educators might take into consideration when exposing children to puppetry.

 

Initial Research & Experimental Making: Skin / Puppets

Skin / Puppets

 

To Begin:

My first thought and question when I see the assigned word “Puppets,” is whether I should go the literal route to learn about 1.) the actual puppets or 2.) the famous idiom puppet is used cross-culturally;  the installed political leaders or government with no legitimacy in itself. I thought I would give it a shot to understand the basics and origin of the art of puppetry first.

 

Basic Research:

When I first started my research in English, I was learning about how the origin of puppets goes as far as the 5th century BC in Ancient Greece. In fact, the famous philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) discusses puppets in his work On the Motion of Animals in detail.

However, almost every ancient civilisation have their own version of puppetry. Aside from the two simple ones: finger puppets and hand puppets, are still very popular in contemporary societies. Here’s a list of different famous puppetries from different regions:

 

Marionette (string puppet) – suspended and controlled by a number of strings
Rod Puppet (Marotte) – central rod secured to the head
Shadow puppet (Motekar) – cut-out figure held between a source of light and a translucent screen
Bunraku puppets – Japanese wood-carved puppet
ventriloquist’s dummy – a stagecraft that creates an illusion that the puppet is alive
carnival/body puppets – large puppets used in spectacle or parade
black light puppet – stage puppet using only ultraviolet lighting, influenced by Bunraku puppetry
Cantastoria – a whole stage production of storytelling using puppets, illustration, and other visuals
Human-arm puppet – similar to a hand puppet but larger
Light curtain puppet – use light to highlight a small portion so manipulators remain invisible
Tabletop puppet – operated by rod, influenced by Bunraku
Ticklebug – hand puppet with four legs, features are drawn on the actual hand
Object puppet – made using found items
Supermarionation – invented by Gerry Anderson for tv shows, marionettes with electronically moving mouths
Water puppet – Vietnamese puppet form from the 10th century. Built out of wood and performed in a pool
Rajasthani Puppet – Pained wooden puppet with huge expressive eyes in Indian culture

 

Out of all the different puppets, Shadow Puppet speaks to me the most, as it was what I grew up culturally familiar with as a Taiwanese. In fact, in Mandarin, it’s called “皮影戲”, which is directly translated into English as “Skin, Shadow, Theater.” While it varies by region, many shadow puppets are traditionally made with animal skin.

After reading about the art of puppetry, I decided to take a look at the word puppet as idioms and cultural expression. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of interesting topics that I can dive into, such as famous puppet states, and regimes throughout history (e.g. Vidkun Quisling, Zhou Yi, the Khedivate of Egypt), and the term “sock puppet” to describe fake accounts online used to spread political disinformation.

 

After the initial research, I think I don’t have to choose to go either way but include both. My topic will cover both the artistry of puppetry as well as the cultural meaning of the term in today’s society. My topic statement will likely be something like, how Puppetery went from tool humans use to tell stories of our society to an idiom that people use in life when they see a real-life representation of a puppet-like situation.

 


Digital Painting is done by DALL.E 2 AI using the prompt “Puppets became the puppeteers and taking over the stage.”

Emergent Strategy Response

Principles

Q: Do you find any of these principles more difficult to achieve than others in your own creative practice? How?

I find many of the principles difficult to achieve or maintain. For example, I don’t do very well with change, even though I agree, that change is constant, and to the extreme, Change IS god. I am not very good at adapting to a new environment, and often time, before I noticed, everyone around me had already become friends but me. Thus, when I am finally used to something, it hurts a lot to lose it. I think I’ve accepted Change is constant, but it is still difficult.

However, in terms of my own creative practice, I find “There is always enough time for the right work” to be the most challenging principle out of all. I spent the last 3 years in an MFA painting program, where you meet with two advisors bi-weekly to talk about your works. Where curators and gallerists come into studios to judge and find something that they can make use of. I always felt behind, as I was a slow painter. I learned to adapt to the speed, and told myself MFA was all for exploration, I can take as much time as I want when I’m out of the program. I graduated from the program more than a year ago now, and I’ve stopped painting completely, as I don’t remember how to get back my patience, the natural way that I used to paint. When I paint now, I always lost patience within a week, and so my work became gimmicky and fast. I feel conflicted, as they are now more contemporary, but is this really who I am, or had I become a product of an MFA factory?

 

Elements

Q: Without overthinking it: which of these elements brown describes most immediately feels evident as part of your creative work, and how? 

I found “fractal” and “interdependence and decentralization” the two elements that feel more like part of my existing creative work. In my own practice, I focus on my response to little things that happened around me. Trivial things that happen in corners of our society that I believe are foreshadowing the future of our society as a whole. As a first-generation Asian immigrant in this country, I also find the idea of “who we are and how we share” a constant question I try to answer in my own creative work. I’m well aware of my difference from the existing Asian-American community in the country, but also aware of others’ profiling and expectations of me for being an obvious female Asian. I don’t want to overwhelm people or annoy people with my work, but at the same time I want my work to influence the people who see it, so I’m constantly looking for angles in presenting things.