I saw this guy's art a few weeks ago. It consisted of words written (drawn?) on blackboard paint on canvas in pastels. I have just started uni and was wanting someone to put some input into these works if I can describe them well enough. I may need it for a future subject assignment etc.
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I am from Australia so is the artist. One of the paintings (drawings) had a word that is really two words written over the top of each other: nice & nigger. It was undecipherable/unreadable and looked as if it was another language. The others I saw were: cute/abo, mum/gin and poor/boong. Abo, gin and boong are derogatory terms for indigenous Australians. They seemed to be confronting what is reading and what is seeing. What do you think? Also the fact that they are written on a blackboard surface seems to suggest the school environment.
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Another lot of work I saw: Russian words written on black card. One was the Russian word for God written in Cyrillic script and underneath was the transliteration in English: Bog. And beside this is a picture of God. I found this interesting in that a Russian and English reader would respond differently to their on language signs. For the Russian it simply reads as God for an English bog means "#####" or "mud" or "stuck in mud" etc. The others were Russian for "fight" transliterated as "boy" and a picture of a boy and girl fighting. Another: Russian "yolk" transliterated as "ego" and a picture of an egg. What does everone think of these? Can you elaborate on these readings? I would like to hear from some semioticians if there are any!
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Any response would be greatly appreciated and will help with my education. I haven't started the semiotics subject at uni yet but am looking forward to it!
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Thank you,
Kanoods.