When I read Zong! by M. NourbSePhilip, I did not really get what the author was
trying to do at first. All I could get was that their thoughts seemed
disorganized and scattered to the wind, like they were focusing on certain
words in the piece that were rattling around in their head. It eventually hit
me that what the author was doing was cutting up the text and playing with them
by drawing associations between different words (ex. Zong #18) and dissecting
the meaning of the piece (ex. Zong #16) in a totally unique way. Basically, she
was using the text’s own words to respond and attack the case and the racism associated.
I was inspired to look through the Daily Targum to find something I could
respond to in a similar way when I found the Horoscope section. In a way, it
drew me in. I read through two issues worth of horoscopes that seemed to relate
personally to the person reading the horoscope, like they were messages meant
for specific people. However, even just reading two editions I could tell that
certain themes were just being cut up and moved around, and that the same
messages, whether helpful or not, were actually really vague, and were being
repeated over and over again. It was kind of laughable how obvious the
connections were, yet that doesn’t stop horoscopes from being read and absorbed.
I decided to play with this idea by literally cutting up several copies of
these issues and arranging the pieces, which ended up becoming a flowing list
of phrases of advice that could have come from any section of the horoscopes from
either issue. I also cut up and arranged some of the titles of the different zodiac
sections as well as the Happy Birthday and lucky numbers section.
Like I said, I used several copies
of the Daily Targum horoscope section from September 15th and 16th, and
used scissors to cut them up and arrange them on a table to take pictures. I
used newspaper because I initially wanted to use something like a firsthand
document about a specific event, like the case document shown at the beginning
of the book. I also wanted to take what she did and use the words of a piece
against it, but with the physical words in my hands. I ended up not gluing down
the pieces because I wanted the freedom to arrange and take pictures as I went,
which allowed for a good amount of spontaneous moments when constructing the collage.
I decided that taking pictures instead of
scanning would be for the best. I didn’t want to deal with the process of
scanning and trying to fight the technology to make it come out clearly when I
could just take a picture when the timing felt right (Also, scanning would have
only been possible if I glued down the pieces to a backing of some kind, like a
piece of paper). However, I did not realize that many of the pictures came out
crooked themselves until after I had cleaned up. Many came out upside-down or
sideways, which was not my intention, though a part of me sort of likes it.
I arranged the pieces on a section
of a large table so that I could have a decent amount of room to move around and
arrange the pieces before taking a picture. I still left the actual space for
the piece pretty small, leading to the actual line up of phrases to be a bit
crooked. I kept this in the end, because I liked how messy it looked, and well
as how it fit into a full picture with the other smaller parts of the piece.
When limiting yourself to the words
or phrases given, you have to be really creative in how you assemble them to
make a point. It took a lot of consideration, rereading, cutting, and positioning
before I decided on the format I was comfortable with. Also, the process of actually cutting the
pieces out of the newspaper, while not as time consuming as I thought it would
be, was really tedious and nerve wracking, due to the process and the limited amount
of materials, respectively. Despite the difficulties, I really liked the way
this made me think and the creative leaps and decisions I had to take in order
to make the materials I used work.
I learned that a response can come
from an unusual place and source, even the thing that you are using. By using
the actual words and phrases from the text in a unique way, you can draw new
meaning from the document and realize the implications of different phrasing
and the connections between different words. I also found that, despite the
tediousness of the process involved, that I really liked constructing something
physically in front of me. I hope I feel inspired to do something like this
again, though, next time, I need to make sure to double check the pictures before I clean
up!
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