If Natalie Angier’s article was trying to show how animals are different from people in their attitude toward death, I think it achieved just the opposite. It showed — in a very informative and vivid way — how animals, like people, are confused beings not equipped to cope with the concept of death. The last line of the article, intended to show how perhaps elephants don’t quite get death after all, is a word for word description of what human grief is: ”They were saying goodbye, or maybe, Won’t you please come back home?” Eyal Nevo

New York

For example, what if someone republishes a passage by Susan Sontag in a post, and then tags her words with the images she contemplates in her writing?  This might be a basic function of “image-tagging,” literally illustrating Sontag’s ideas.   But we could be more indirect with this tagging, and perhaps link to images that have nothing to do with Sontag’s words. Instead, one could link to images associated with the way one feels about Sontag.  In this way, a linking would become more of a portrait, expressing the perception of the blogger and not just the words in the post.  

 One of President Bush’s speeches might make another meaningful subject matter for a linking. A blogger could publish his exact words, i.e. “Good morning. This week, millions of Americans gather with loved ones for Christmas,” and insert a tag to, oh maybe, the image of orphans.

The post could  exists as this:

“Good morning. This week, millions of Americans gather with loved ones for Christmas.”

The gesture would be about debunking the buzz words and empty language that frequent political speeches.  Not a very strong concept in this linking, but it’s something to be worked on. I’ll try another soon.

One day, I ate pudding with only one chopstick because it was all I could find. The other half is still missing. I wonder if there had ever really been another chopstick.

Look at a complex place (Long Island) through the lens of a silly object (a knish) appropriately connected to said place.

Be an adult and child at once: Play Floor-is-Lava! at the age of 21. Record the trip.  Play dress-up at the age of 22, but don’t be an actor. Just play.  Document yourself playing.

Use part of your body (a boob) to mold a functional object (a teacup).

Create work in one medium (paintings) and make it act as another medium (photos) [Make paintings that act as photos. Take pictures that act as paintings.]

Instead of eating the peanut butter at the bottom of your jar, open a new one to avoid sticky fingers.

Look for an obscure artifact (a painting made by a Thai elephant) on the web. Purchase it and present it as the work, the reason why humans are uniquely terrible.

Interview yourself.

Get the materials you work with (paint, blue foam) in your hair.

Appreciate things people forget about (pinecones, peanuts, annoyances, tree stumps, oysters, beetles).

Secretly give a small object (a walnut) to other artists, and don’t tell them why.

Because someone died, do something (photograph red cars) unrelated to the fact that you lost this person.

Depict anything besides yourself (clothes on your bedroom floor) for a self-portrait.

Make the title of your work a simile (Like an Elephant Forced to Paint Love) that can be used to remark on daily life: “A wedding for my cat? That’s……that’s so……That’s like an elephant forced to paint love!”

Secrete bodily fluids (urine) in a public space, and “pedestal” it.

Spend hours writing about something perplexing (what is art?)

White-out parts of a book you don’t like, or do it just because white-out is lovely.

Be a kind person, but involve criminal themes in your work.

Make an accident (someone cleaned up your installation) a part of your piece.

Reveal a private thing you do (pop pimples), but hold viewers at a marked distance.

Change (by sanding, by crushing) an object (a found chair, a blue vase) without reason, direction, or end.

Remember specific details of your favorite public bathroom.

Make work, but don’t tell anyone about it.

Place a material (salt) in a container that shouldn’t hold it (a well.)

Make everything yellow because you love it.

Be a short person who makes large sculptures.  Be a tall person who makes small sculptures. 

Find the material you work with (blue foam) in your food (a salad). Avoid ingesting it.

Collect everything you’ve purchased (food wrappers, music, paper, books) for a certain period of time (a month) and turn these items into a sculpture.

Write to other people (your family and distant relatives) in order to understand someone you don’t remember (your dad).

Loose sleep because you’re too excited about your ideas.

Don’t cut your hair for six years.

Freeze an object (a bouncing rubber band ball, a rocket ) in motion by building it from a heavy material (plaster, scrap metal). 

Form a crush on an artist (Dave Hardy, Beth Campbell, Sol Le Witt, Ruby Styler, David Horwitz).

Form a crush on someone’s work.

Spend more time in your studio (the Barney, your bedroom, your sketchbook) than the time you spend sleeping.    

Apologize to someone you love (a cat) through a piece.

Stage a private act (an orgasm) in a public space (a library).

Bring your disagreements from critique into a different arena (a large rave bubble scattered with wrestling mats and flour).

 Put your work in the Museum of Modern Art, but don’t tell the gallerists.

Love another artist.

Name your hard drive (Apricot).

Erase something (a sign) by creating it over, and over, and over.

Make an inanimate object (a microwave) speak (about relationships, on Love). 

 Adore someone from a painting (Hello Kitty, Mao, Olympia). 

Openly hate your professor, but get an A in his/her class.   

Get part of your body (a foot) caught in your medium (a plaster mold).

Make a piece about private issues (family tensions) through textless, un-symbolic imagery (a chalkboard drawing of flow charts).  

Make one part of the body (penis) look like a part of the body it is not (nipples, breasts, and ass).

past COMMENTS 

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Beth Campbell: I love switch blades and sockets because they’re like these little clues in every room that tell us there’s something outside of this, some life behind the wall…