Materials:
- A deck of cards
- A ruler
- A large amount of string, you can use multiple colors if you wish.
- A large sheet of paper
- Some type of adhesive: hot glue or tape.
Rules:
- Place the paper on the floor or a hard surface, whichever you prefer.
- Attach one end of the string to any point on the piece of paper with your adhesive. This is your first point.
- Shuffle your deck of cards and deal out two piles.
- Flip the first card of each pile.
- Determine the larger card and take that number and double it. (2 will be 4, 5 will be 10, and so on).
- This number will tell you how many centimeters from the first point will be your second point.
- You may decide to go in any direction from the first point. Attach string here with hot glue or tape.
- Flip another card from each pile and repeat process.
- If your string is too short, feel free to start a new piece of string by attaching to a point of your own choosing.
- Continue until satisfied or out of room.
- Admire your work.
Questions:
- Does the string have to be straight? : No the string can be hung however you’d like, as long as the points (the adhesive areas) are the correct distance between.
- You can go in any direction from your point?: Yes. you can go in any direction you’d like.
- What numbers are associated with the Jack, Queen, King, and Ace?: 11,12,13,15 respectively.
Artist’s Statement:
With this piece I hoped to establish a conversation between two seemingly opposite topics. I wanted to show that sometimes, things that are disharmonious can still produce harmony. I decided to work with a meticulous method because art and war is just that. Bits and pieces that work together to form a strategy. I have worked with systems within my previous pieces and I found this idea useful.
My inspiration for this piece came from the artists in the Dada movement that we are currently exploring. They were so anti-art that they redefined art. Art wasn’t necessarily about technique, it was about expression and redefinition.
From the common themes in their pieces came mine, but in a more literal form. They talked about themes pertaining to WWI to create art and in my piece I used the literal game card game of War.