Joyce Philippe ENG4815

NOTES: My Thought Process While Reading

Artwork and text do not always relate. Pg. 33, As years went on, you began to fail better (Illustration of black hole?) Play on words feel better... talking about a relationship/himself? I like this one. Pages are shufflable. App allows for shuffling/ random selection of pages, almost like a button bag. The fortune of the day. Pg. 263, sadness about fate of man. People part, people part. A lot of these pages are dreary. Pages in later editions with pasted images offer a new element of authorship. Where are these pastings coming from, Philips himself or external sources? The hand-drawn images offer sense of originality, ironically since this is art over an existing book. How does this change things? Images add life to a black and white text.

A HUMUMENT: DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Each page has its own illustrations in addition to manipulation the text, which can be interpreted in different ways. Do you think that as a whole, the book has one deliberate message? 2. Which page spoke to you the most and why? 3. How do you feel about the later revisions of A Humument that include pastings in addition to the original hand-drawn images? Do you feel as if they are more effective or does the text become cheesy/literal? 4. Do you feel as if the book works better categorized as a novel or artwork? What is the degree of its poetic value? - All poetry is fragment: it is shaped by its breakages, at every turn. It is the very art of turnings, toward the white frame of the page, toward the unsung, toward the vacancy made visible, the wordlessness in which our words are couched. Heather McHugh 5. As a seminal classic of postmodern art, what impact do you think that A Humument had on the way we look at texts & images? 6. If there is one thing I learned from A Humument, it was how to un-read. Did you find it easy to step back from the traditional linear fashion of readings and try to create your own interpretations of what Philips is trying to say?

7. How would/did you go about recreating your own version of A Humument? How was the process, where were your ideas coming from? Pre-existing thoughts or spur of the moment? 8. How would this book function in everyday life? (Table piece, framed art, doorstop?) 9. A Humument, while nonlinear in fashion seems to give a bit of commentary in regards to social events. Do you think there was a political motif to his work? (Sept. 11, Hiroshima against peace sign, swastika and nuclear bomb explosions) 10. What sets A Humument apart (or not) from other texts that you have read in this class? What makes it similar?