The H Line

Kelly Dobson

As an ITP student, it was nice to hear the perspective of a female technologist represented on stage — however quietly it may have been conveyed. For you see, Kelly Dobson is a very meek, but very endearing, person. Giggles and downright whispers were ubiquitous throughout her presentation, which, let’s admit it, is pretty cute.

But this bothered me. And let’s just get straight to why…

When you are the only female participating in a public event, you, in some ways, become a stand-in for all women. Kelly was qualified to be there and was likely not as shy as she appeared. (After all, you can’t talk about communicating with machines without cojones.) But because her mode of expression was, shall we say, “delicate,” I am sure there was at least one male brain in the room thinking, “Oh those women. They’re so adorable when they try to communicate!” And that’s just… sad.

So it would have been nice if the token female chosen for this event (or maybe even a second woman) was a stronger public speaker. Maybe then we could get closer to a place where the men in the room just think, “That was a very interesting presentation,” without recognition of gender-based levels of attraction or intelligence.

But on to the content of her presentation…

Of all of the speakers, her work was the least-intentionally funny. In fact, according to Kelly, her pieces didn’t start off as purposefully funny at all, and it’s only recently that she’s begun to recognize and play up their comedic value.

This was maybe the most sincere statement of the evening.

Her presence there was valuable because she recognized and brought up the fact that reaction often doesn’t follow intention. And also that, as she put it, humor is often an invitation to something serious.

In the case of her work, the humor that exists is largely the humor that we, the viewers, superimpose on it. And it’s not just any humor, but a nervous, defensive kind of humor, because we aren’t quite sure what to make of it. If it looks kind of funny and acts kind of funny, well… it must be funny! Just like if it says it’s Tobias Wong and acts like it’s Tobias Wong, it must be Tobias Wong!

Paul Budnitz

Moderator excluded, Paul was my favorite of the bunch. He shared his art-making process with us in the distanced tone of a veteran and recognized the the money-making aspect of his work. In fact, he stated outright that he’s more like a curator at this point than an artist.

As I mentioned in my first post, there was one kind of frustrating aspect to his presentation. And that is that Paul’s approach to answering the subject of humor in his work was to plea ignorance. “I make objects that I delight in” was the default answer to most questions about how his work becomes imbued with humor both dark and light.

OK, but what informs your sense of joy? What life experiences and artistic influences came together to form your aesthetic? If he had answered those questions, we might have been able to get to the bigger question, “Where does wit come from and why?” Unfortunately, Ze was never quite able to pull it out of him.

But, again, he was a great asset to the panel on the whole. Most of all, I enjoyed getting a peek into his creative process, and will try to employ some of this “rules” for collaborative art-making in my group projects at ITP. Choice quotes:

• “The generative part of the creative process needs to be as distinct as possible from the process of deciding what’s good and what’s bad”
• “Bringing the conscious mind into the creative process kills it”

To deal with these issues, he and his collaborators perform rapid prototyping without any critique at all. Ideas are thrown out, and then they’re executed. If you say something negative about what’s going on, you have to leave the room. So great.