Welcome to "Image/Text: The Performing Page," a workshop by SALYER + SCHAAG

We're leading this two-day workshop as part of Dr. Kristin Hunt's Summer 2013 course, "Art and Political Activism" at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (Integrated Liberal Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison), and we're excited to create with you!

A major part of this course is your sketchbook - as Dr. Hunt explains in her syllabus,

Intellectual sketchbook: More than just a journal, this book should include not just notes or paragraphs on each reading, but questions, challenges, ideas for further reading, sketches, charts, or “idea-maps,” collaged-in tidbits from relevant newspaper or internet- based current events, etc. You should use it to both ask and answer relevant questions about the work we’re studying.

Your journal/sketchbook is a space for you to wrestle with issues and concepts.  It's a space for you to brainstorm, map ideas, make plans, and ask questions.

The purpose of this workshop is to jumpstart your creativity for your class journal.  With a series of guided exercises, we'll think about the link between personal expression and social/political expression, while emphasizing experimentation and play.

We've collected a few ideas on the Aesthetics +/= Politics section of this blog - please review them before class, and think about how you might define the relationship between aesthetics and politics, or art and activism, or the personal and the political.

What counts as activism? As art?  

Is every artistic gesture political?  How about a single line?

What politics are embedded in the gesture of mapping?  Making space for creative energies? Territorializing/colonizing?  Closing down, or expanding?

What are the politics of closed, tightly structured, or rigid forms?  Of open, loosely structured, or fluid forms?  

What issues and ideas do you care about?

What do you have a passionate desire to communicate? 

TUESDAY, July 16:  Writing / Drawing / Idea-Mapping

To prepare for Tuesday's class, please scroll through the images and texts posted on the Tuesday - Writing, Drawing, Mapping section of this blog, and spend some time reading and viewing them. Which pieces are you drawn to?  Why?  Do they inspire you to try out different forms of writing, drawing, mapping?

Make sure to bring a journal/sketchbook to class - this will be the sketchbook you'll use throughout the whole course!

We'll provide some black and blue ball point pens, but if you have other writing/drawing utensils you'd like to use (colored pencils, etc.), bring those as well!

Part 1:  Text/writing/language

Part 2:  Image/drawing/doodling

Part 3:  Idea-mapping

THURSDAY, July 18:  Collage / Sound

To prepare for Thursday's class, please scroll through the images and sounds posted on the Thursday - Collage, Sound section of this blog, and spend some time reading, viewing, and listening to them. 

Which images are you drawn to?  Why?  Do they inspire you to combine your drawings, writings, and idea-maps into collages, and/or include images and texts from other sources?   

What sounds are you drawn to?  Why?

What if your sketchbook had a soundtrack?  What would a multi-media sketchbook look like?  

If the performing page has a voice, what does it sound like?

Make sure to bring your sketchbook + also bring scissors and glue sticks if you have them

We'll provide some materials for collage, but we encourage you to bring materials (magazines, newspapers, notes, textures, objects) you'd like to collage with!

We'll also be working with digital audio recording and old-school cassette tape recorders!  

Part 1:  Collage

Part 2:  Sound

Part 3:  Combining elements