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STEPHEN CARPENTER: I have two
activities that I've prepared.

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So interpretation, this idea
of constructing meanings

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or developing meanings
about works of art,

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or we can think
of interpretation

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as someone is
speaking one language

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and then we take that
language and we are able to--

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not only do we speak and
understand this language,

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then we can take those
ideas and those words

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and turn them into
a different language

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that someone else speaks.

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We can have interpretation
function in that way as well.

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So it's about taking
ideas from one context

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into another or one mode of
representation in communication

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into another.

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But in terms of art
and art practice,

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art criticism and
interpretation work together.

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So this image I think is
useful for our purposes here.

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Imagine that this
image was the poster

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for a movie, full length,
feature length movie.

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And imagine you were responsible
for writing the copy--

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for writing the text for the
voiceover of the movie trailer,

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but all you had was
this image to go by.

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You probably heard
movie trailers,

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those little
commercials for movies.

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And usually my
experience, they start off

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with one of two phrases or a
version of one of two phrases.

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One of the phrases
is usually something

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like this, "Imagine a
place--" And you can imagine--

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you've heard this phrase
before from movie trailers.

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"Imagine a place" and the
music is start doing [HUMMING]..

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You see the scenery.

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Another phrase that is often
used is "In a world where--"

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You've--

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I see nodding going on,
so that means, oh, I've--

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you could probably
name several films

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that have movie trailers
that start that way.

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So take one of those phrases--

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"imagine a place," or
"in a world--" and--

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I don't know if you have
something to write with

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or if you want to
keep it in your head.

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And if you come up a sentence
or two, that would be great.

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But the sentence or two that
starts with one of those two

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prompts would function as
the beginning voiceover copy

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for the movie from
which this still comes.

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We got it?

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All right.

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Here's the movie trailer.

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[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

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- What would you do in
a world without justice?

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In 2017, humankind's
most precious resource

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is used as a weapon of control.

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Will you punch up against power?

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[END PLAYBACK]

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STEPHEN CARPENTER: I'm
going to that movie.

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[LAUGHS] Wow, all right.

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So part of what I'm hearing--

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like I heard swimming upstream,
adversity, these water hoses,

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I heard--

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there was an issue of
control, resistance.

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This border wall
suggests there's

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something about being
in and out and not

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being able to attain something.

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And then the X Games--

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what'd you call it?

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Cheerleading?

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Extreme-- ultimate cheerleading.

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Extreme cheerleading.

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So there's an activity,
but then there's

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something else that
pushes it or ramps it up.

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Add some context here.

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This is a still image from
a performance by performance

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artist Dread Scott.

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The title of the work is
called, On the Impossibility

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of Freedom in a Country Founded
on Slavery and Genocide.

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And he's referencing
a range of events,

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but specifically
a particular event

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in the '60s where
there was a protest

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against racial injustice.

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Where the authorities
used water hoses,

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high-powered water hoses to
push back African Americans.

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This was not a single
event, these kinds of things

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happen all the time in the '60s.

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So this is part of Dread
Scott's performance,

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this is a still from
his performance.

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I find it remarkable listening
to even the comedy trailer,

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that you were picking
up on elements of what

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his performance--

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what he intended his performance
to be about, but also what

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other people have interpreted
his performance to be about.

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Charles Garoian is a performance
artist an art educator

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who also taught high school in
the Bay Area in San Francisco.

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And he taught his students
in late '60s and the '70s--

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into the '80s
actually I believe--

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about performance
art and happenings,

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and the ways in which our
bodies can perform symbolically

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to construct works
of art that relate

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to social issues
and cultural issues.

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So his work is documented
in several of his books,

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one of which is called
Performing Pedagogy where

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he interprets several works
of art and performance art

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and then provides
a set of activities

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that teachers and their
students can perform

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to learn some of
the basic structures

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or some elements
of performance art

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using one's body as
an artistic medium,

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but also a way in which to
comment on social issues.

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But it's the idea of using our
bodies as symbolic vehicles

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that become powerful.

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And also the ways that
our bodies can move

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and the ways in which
our bodies interact

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with other objects
or other ideas,

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the way in which we might
maybe think of taking our body,

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doing something to it,
doing something else to it.

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So there's an activity that
I often do with my students--

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undergrad, graduate
students, students

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who are learning to
be teachers that I

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borrowed from Charles Garoian.

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Here's a still image of
one student doing this.

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And what I'd like you to do
is to identify a statement.

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Could be an excerpt, it
could be song lyrics,

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it could be a poem, but it needs
to be a set of words that--

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ideally it's a text or a
sentence or several phrases--

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that you could or
someone else could say

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within a 30-second time period.

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So borrowing from Charles
Garoian's approach,

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one of the activities is
to take an image and--

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a body, and the body engages
in a repetitive motion,

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a repetitive activity.

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And the ideas that that body
in motion in relationship

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to or in juxtaposition with
or in critique or conversation

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with that image will inherently
start to construct or suggest

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different interpretations,
just like what

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you did when you saw
the image and you

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added some text to that.

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But there's a third
element, and that's the text

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that you've come up with.

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So what is going to happen--

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so here's another student
doing something similar.

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So what's going to happen is,
I'm going to hit this button,

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and then I'm going
to go over here

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and I'm going to
start performing.

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I'm going to do a repetitive
motion for 30 seconds.

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When I get over there, you're
going to speak your text.

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AUDIENCE: Oh, my text?

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STEPHEN CARPENTER: Yes.

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AUDIENCE: Oh, I thought
I was reading your text.

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STEPHEN CARPENTER: No, no.

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Oh, you would rather
not share your text?

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AUDIENCE: I mean, I don't mind,
it's just not 30 seconds long.

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I can say it over
and over again.

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STEPHEN CARPENTER:
That would be fine.

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All right, we'll do that.

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Then I have two
other images so we'll

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be able to get to
two other people.

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But you'll see how this works.

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You ready?

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Go.

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AUDIENCE: OK.

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Sometimes you gotta post
bad pictures of yourself

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online so that
people are impressed

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when they see you in person.

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Sometimes you gotta post
bad pictures of yourself

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online so that
people are impressed

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when they see you in person.

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Sometimes you gotta post bad
pictures of yourself online

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so now people are impressed
when they see you in person.

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Sometimes you gotta post
bad pictures of yourself

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online so that
people are impressed

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when they see you in person.

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LARRY SUSSKIND: Time.

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STEPHEN CARPENTER: All
right, thank you, Larry.

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AUDIENCE: [LAUGHS]

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STEPHEN CARPENTER: See, I had
to trust him because, you know,

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three minutes could
have been 30 seconds.

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You see what happened?

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We have a repetitive
motion, which

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might suggest certain ideas
and concepts, meanings.

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We had this text.

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Be where-- say it again?

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AUDIENCE: Oh, sometimes
you have to post

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bad pictures of yourself online
so that people are impressed

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when they see you in person.

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STEPHEN CARPENTER: So
not only do we have text,

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we gotta put in relationship
to this movement.

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But this image,
what does this image

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have to do with this movement?

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I mean, it's interesting, you
can put two ideas together

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or put these two things together
or these two things together,

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but all three of them?

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Anybody want to attempt to
weave these three together?

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Go ahead.

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AUDIENCE: Since the
theme of repetition,

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I didn't catch it at first,
but the fact that you

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kept repeating it
and then your hop

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kind of synced in
with that, and then

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looking at this
image, just the fact

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that there's all these windows
and all the pieces of the image

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deconstructed-- sort
of fell into this cycle

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of posting pictures online and
seeing people multiple times

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and it did sort of in
time come together for me.

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STEPHEN CARPENTER: OK, nice.

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So why would I do
something like that?

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Well, at the end of the
semester, the students in one

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of my graduate classes
I teach at Penn State

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and also at Vermont
College of Fine Arts,

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after going through that process
of the randomness of making

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those connections,
they then have

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to go through the process of
intentionally combining image,

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text, and body movement
for a public performance

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that lasts at
least five minutes.

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So these are-- the top row
are stills from one video,

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the bottom row are
stills from another one,

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and the one at the top,
the student was interested

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in the idea that someone told
her at one point something

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like, there have
never been any wars--

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international wars on US soil.

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And she thought, this
doesn't make any sense,

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and a history teacher
told her that.

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So the idea was that this
performance speaks back

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to that, and this was
performed in Philadelphia.

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And so you can see in these
three different images,

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she's using her body
in different ways.

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She's holding a photo of--

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a satellite photo
of a plane bombing.

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She created almost a little
memorial and burial for this

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and has watered it generously
and then puts her own body down

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in this bench.

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That it's essentially a
whispering bench where she

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she's sitting at one end and
can whisper into the corner,

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and the person sitting
at the other end

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can hear what she's saying.

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And the one at the
bottom is a student

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who performed outside
of Karachi-- that's

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at Carnegie Hall, in
front of Carnegie Hall.

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And symbolically speaking
to a death in her family,

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but also her own musical
aspirations and the way

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in which they relate
to her own life,

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but also she was equating
it to gun violence.

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And so she was
cleaning the clarinet

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and puts it in this
case in various ways

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that make you suggest--

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they suggest, is this a
musical instrument or is it

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an implement for an
instrument of killing?

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So these are some outgrowths
from that quick assignment

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that we did.

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So in summary, you
could engage learners

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like we've done today
in any of these ways,

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00:11:26,410 --> 00:11:28,960
or you could do boring stuff.

250
00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:31,140
It's really up to you.

251
00:11:31,140 --> 00:11:46,907