Author: fiona.bartl

I already played with the thought of including a statue or something “live” in the exhibition before, but I never knew what exactly. I kept thinking about my celery experiment. I could place one right in front of the entrance, or hide it somewhere in the space like a tiny secret for the people who actually pay attention.

But this week I got inspired again by the KING Paulus Goerden. He had the brilliant idea to capture his everyday installations but not through a photograph. He actually REBUILT THEM IN MINIATURE VERSIONS.

And I have to say: this is genius.

Because it adds a whole new layer to the act of documenting. A photograph is still a translation, but it’s a very common one. Everyone takes photos. Everyone documents. Especially in the age of Instagram, photographing something “interesting” is almost the default reaction. It’s quick, it’s effortless, and it often stays on the surface.

Rebuilding an installation is different. It’s slower. It forces you to make decisions. You suddenly have to look at the scene like a designer, not just like a photographer. What exactly makes the arrangement work? Is it the proportions? The materials? The awkward tension between objects? The exact angle of something leaning? The fact that it looks accidental but somehow perfectly balanced?

I immediately noticed things I would normally overlook. For example: it’s not just “two palettes leaning somewhere.” It’s the surface underneath, the texture of the street, the way the metal barrier frames it, the little gap between the objects, and the fact that the whole thing looks like it could collapse at any second.

A reconstruction turns the installation into something you can’t just consume visually. You have to understand it structurally.

And it also shifts the question of authorship in a really interesting way. When I photograph an everyday installation, I’m still only the observer. I didn’t create it, I “just” framed it. But when I rebuild it, I’m suddenly much closer to becoming part of it. I’m recreating something that originally had no artist. I’m taking a random street moment and turning it into an object with intention.

Which feels slightly illegal. Oopsie

I also like the idea because it makes the exhibition more physical. Photography exhibitions can sometimes feel distant. But if there are small reconstructed installations in the space, the whole thing becomes more immersive. It could make people slow down. It could make them compare. It could make them question what’s “real” and what’s “recreated.”

So right now I’m seriously considering building a mini version myself. Like: the photograph shows the found moment, and the miniature shows the act of re-seeing it.

Because in the end, this thesis isn’t only about what is out there in the city. It’s also about what happens when I decide that something is worth noticing.

Paulus Goerden. “Ein Versuch es einzufangen” Instagram video, January 11, 2026. Screenshot. Accessed January 13, 2026. https://www.instagram.com/paulusgoerdon/

Let me know in the comments what you think of his interpretation of this everyday installation.

Now that I have a few possible exhibition spaces in mind, I started thinking more seriously about what it would actually mean to present my photographs in a room. The more I read and plan, the more I realize how many decisions are involved and how strongly these decisions influence the meaning of the work.

Right now, I’m thinking more consciously about the curatorial idea behind the show. I don’t want it to become a random wall of images. If I exhibit my everyday installation photographs, I need to decide what story I’m actually telling: Is it about urban loneliness? About consumption? About visual coincidence? And I also need to think about the relationship between text and image. Do I want short captions? Longer explanations? Or no text at all, to keep the “found” feeling intact? Setting a clear theme and a guiding idea seems like the first real step into exhibition design.

Wissenschaftliche Sammlungen. Handreichung: Ausstellungen in der Lehre. Accessed December 10th, 2026. https://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.de/files/3814/0023/0529/Handreichung_Ausstellungen_in_der_Lehre.pdf.

Another thing one shouldn’t underestimated is how much the room itself influences the reading. Visitors should be guided intuitively through the exhibition, even if there are no arrows. That includes the architecture of the space, the entry point, where people naturally pause, how light falls through windows, and what the room “suggests” as a path. With our Overlays exhibition I already got a bit of a feeling what is important while doing the floorplan.

Kemsies, Martina. Ausstellungen barrierefrei planen und gestalten. Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR). Accessed December 19th, 2026. https://www.lvr.de/media/wwwlvrde/kultur/berdasdezernat_1/publizieren_und_informieren/dokumente_44/15_1332_barrierefreiePDF_Kemsies_3.pdf.

When it comes to the hanging itself, I’m trying to stay practical. I like the idea of grouping photographs either thematically or through visual connections, because everyday installations work a lot through rhythm: similar shapes, similar object types, similar absurdity levels. I also researched that there are basic standards for hanging height (around eye level, roughly 155 cm). That sounds obvious, but I for example did not know the exact number. The more you know, right?

Museum Victoria. “Exhibition Basics.” Accessed December 16th, 2026. https://museumsvictoria.com.au/education/small-object-big-story/5-exhibition-basics/.

Text is another sensitive point. I know from my interviews and from my own experience that text can completely dominate the reading of an image. I don’t want the exhibition to become a lecture. So I’m currently leaning toward short, accessible texts that support the photographs without explaining them to death.

Museumskulturen. “10 Tipps für publikumsorientierte Ausstellungstexte.” October 15, 2022. https://www.museumskulturen.de/blog/2022/10/15/10-tipps-fr-publikumsorientierte-ausstellungstexte.

Lighting is also something I can’t ignore. Light changes everything. It can make photographs feel expensive, intimate, cold or dramatic. How I want to proceed with this I am not sure. Will find out during the process.

Kemsies, Martina. Ausstellungen barrierefrei planen und gestalten. Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR). Accessed December 19th, 2026. https://www.lvr.de/media/wwwlvrde/kultur/berdasdezernat_1/publizieren_und_informieren/dokumente_44/15_1332_barrierefreiePDF_Kemsies_3.pdf.

Finally, I keep coming back to the question of audience. One of the main themes of my thesis is how different people interpret everyday installations differently (insiders vs outsiders, design students vs random passersby). So it would be a missed opportunity if I designed an exhibition that only works for people who already speak “art language.” I want the texts to be understandable, and I want the exhibition to feel welcoming to everyone

Museumskulturen. “10 Tipps für publikumsorientierte Ausstellungstexte.” October 15, 2022. https://www.museumskulturen.de/blog/2022/10/15/10-tipps-fr-publikumsorientierte-ausstellungstexte.

Right now I’m still at the beginning of this process. But I already see how much exhibition planning connects back to my thesis topic. Because an exhibition is not just a place where photos hang. It becomes part of the work. It becomes the frame.

Lately I’ve been thinking about where I could actually show it. Because as exciting as the idea of an exhibition sounds in theory, the reality is: space is not neutral. Space is a decision. It changes how photographs are read, how serious the work feels, and who even considers walking in. So this week I started researching possible exhibition spaces and what it would realistically cost budget-wise.

Rotor

The first space I contacted was Rotor (Volksgartenstraße 6a, 8020 Graz). I contacted them, but so far I haven’t received an answer. Still, Rotor feels like a very interesting option in Graz for my topic, because it sits right between art, city and public discourse. Even just reaching out already feels like a small step from “student project” into something more real.

ESC Medien Kunst Labor

A much more concrete option is the ESC Medien Kunst Labor (Bürgergasse 5, 8010 Graz). I already spoke with Reni there. The best part: she offered to give me the space for two days for free, which honestly feels like winning the lottery in exhibition terms. It’s a space that makes sense for my work because it is not overly polished, but still has a lot of character.

Galerie GRILL 

In the same street there is also Galerie GRILL (Bürgergasse 5, 8010 Graz). This one is still a question mark. From what I’ve seen, it looks very high-end and curated in a way that probably makes it completely unaffordable for a student project. But I still want to go there privately and ask, because even if the chance is small, I think it’s important to understand what different “levels” of exhibition spaces exist and how strongly the atmosphere of a space can already frame the work before anyone even sees a single photo.

Freiraum Ausstellungsraum

As i will move to Vienna in June 2026 I also considered doing my exhibition there. Of course I also take into account that I don’t have any contact there, which already brought me a save option in Graz (Esc with Reni).I found a space called Freiraum Ausstellungsraum (Gumpendorferstraße 23, 1060 Wien). Their pricing is actually very transparent: Monday to Wednesday, three days cost 450€. I like that because it makes the whole exhibition location very measurable. It’s not cheap, but it’s also not impossible. And having clear numbers helps a lot when I try to plan realistically, instead of just fantasizing about a perfect white cube.

vinzenzwien

Another Vienna option I recently found is vinzenzwien (Vinzenzgasse 24, 1180 Vienna). On Instagram they describe themselves as a “NEW ART AND CULTURE SPACE for exhibitions, workshops and readings.” I didn’t contact them yet, but I actually got this recommendation through a friend. It’s basically a “friends of friends of friends” situation. You never know when Vitamin B will help you hehe. I will give it a try!

If you have any other recommendations for exhibition spaces and also know someone who knows someone bla bla you know the game -> pleeeease hit me up

Dankii

In the last blogpost I collected a list of AI tools that can support thesis research. But even the best tools are useless if the input is unclear. The quality of literature research depends heavily on the search terms you use. And because my topic sits between several disciplines, I can’t rely on one single keyword to find relevant sources.

So today I’m building a keyword landscape. The goal is simple: create a vocabulary for my thesis topic that works across different research databases and fields. Instead of searching only for “everyday installations,” I’m collecting neighboring terms that describe the same phenomena from different perspectives.

Here’s my growing keyword map:

Core topic words

• everyday installations
• accidental compositions
• unintentional art / unintentional aesthetics
• found arrangements
• urban still life
• mundane objects / everyday objects as art

Communication design / perception / meaning

• visual communication
• meaning-making / construction of meaning
• semiotics (sign, signifier, signified)
• visual literacy
• attention / salience / noticing
• framing / context effects
• interpretation / audience reception

Space / public environment

• public space
• urban intervention
• spatial storytelling
• informal design
• street culture / everyday urbanism
• place-making

Photography / documentation

• documentary photography
• typology photography
• photographic framing
• archive / visual archive
• cataloguing / classification systems

Institution / legitimacy

• artworld theory
• institutional critique
• museum framing
• authority signals / credibility cues
• curation vs. discovery

Just building these clusters already helps to structure the topic more clearly. It also makes it easier to connect practical work (photography and observation) with theory (semiotics, perception, institutional framing).

The next step is combining these keywords into stronger search phrases, depending on what I need: theory, methodology, or case studies. 

Examples:

• “semiotics everyday objects public space”
• “context effects perception contemporary art”
• “visual framing photography meaning-making”
• “institutional critique Duchamp everyday object”

This keyword map is not a final list. It will grow over time as I read more and discover new terms. But it already functions as a working system. It gives my research a structure and makes literature search more targeted, instead of random.

Now that we have cleared all doubts, we can start. But where?

The setup phase is the phase where we are all feeling the most lost during the whole process. We know kind of the topic we want to write about, but we don’t know where the f we should start looking for information.

Looking at my topic, I have been stuck for a long time in this space between art, design, urban studies, photography, sociology and “I swear this matters, please trust me.”

Before I start going deep into keywords and literature, I wanted to get an overview of something else first: 

AI tools.Because I knew ChatGPT exists, but I did not realize how many other tools are out there that can actually help during thesis research.

(BIG SHORT DISCLAIMER)
I’m very aware AI can make people lazy. So my rule is:
AI can help me find, compare and brainstorm, but it shall not do my thinking for me. If it gives me a claim, I verify it. If it summarizes a paper, I still read the paper.

Okay, let’s start.

I think the easiest way to think about AI tools is in categories: 

• search
• map
• read
• write
• cite
• analyze
• create

This is the toolbox I’m building right now:

A) Literature discovery (search & find papers)

Elicit
Good for: jumping into a topic and quickly finding relevant papers, plus helping with screening/extraction.
How I’d use it: Start with queries like “context effects perception art public space” and let it propose other related papers.

Consensus
Good for: getting a research-backed overview quickly, with citations tied to papers (so you can trace everything).
How I’d use it: When I need a fast sense-check like: “Is there literature on how labels change perception?” Then I click through to the actual papers.

scite
Good for: checking how a paper is cited (supportive vs contrasting vs neutral).
How I’d use it: When I find a “key theory” paper, I can quickly see whether later work supports it or fights it.

B) Literature mapping

Connected Papers
Good for: visual graphs of related papers starting from one seed paper. Great when you have one perfect source.

ResearchRabbit
Good for: interactive maps + recommendations + tracking authors over time. It learns what you’re collecting and helps you expand it.

Litmaps
Good for: building and monitoring a literature map so you can see how research clusters connect and keep getting updates as new papers appear.

How I’d use these: Pick 2–3 “seed papers” (Duchamp/context theory, public space perception, photography framing), then map outward until patterns emerge. Once I see the clusters, I know what my literature chapter needs to cover.

C) Reference management + annotation

Zotero (+ plugins)
This was an obvious one, right?
Zotero is the base layer. Plugins can extend it (better workflows, translating, export setups, etc.).

How I’d use it:

• store everything
• tag papers by theme cluster
• export citations cleanly when writing

D) Reading support (summaries)

This is where general AI chat tools can help carefully.

ChatGPT (file upload + analysis features depending on plan)
Helpful for: summarizing a paper you upload, extracting key arguments, turning messy notes into structure, generating keyword variations, comparing two theories.

My rule: I still read the original PDF, make my own notes and then compare with what it summarized. AI can be confidently wrong in a very convincing voice lol.

E) Transcription + interview workflow

Since I’m planning interviews, I need tools for:

• recording
• transcribing
• coding themes

Even if I don’t choose a specific transcription tool yet, I know the pipeline:
audio → transcript → coding → quotes in thesis

AI becomes useful when it speeds up transcription and helps me find repeated themes but I still decide what counts as meaningful.

F) Writing + language polish

For writing support, I want tools that help with:

• clarity
• grammar

In case anyone of my student colleagues has another amazing AI tool please help a girl out and comment under my blogpost.

Lots of love and bussis
-Fiona

Entering the third semester things are getting real. I am scared of the fact that I have to start writing the thesis soon. This will be a big project that will accompany me for several months. But the biggest question I asked myself was if my topic can actually fulfil all the requirements to be passed as a master thesis of communication design. Of course the thesis should be a topic that one is very passionate about (this is the case for me yay). But is it too artsy?

I had several talks with people across different disciplines, different age groups and different experiences about this question and came to the following conclusion:

YES, IT IS COMMUNICATION DESIGN.

Heres why:

The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes. My topic is not “just art”. It’s about how people read objects, about attention and their interpretation. And also about the thin line between something being seen as random trash or as something meaningful.

Not just posters

I know I know it’s a shocker but communication design is not just posters. (Gasp :O)

Its also logos and packaging 😛
No just kidding, communication design is about how meaning is created and understood in the world around us. How we    c o m m u n i c a t e through   d e s i g n. 

Reading the object

Everyday installations are basically unplanned visual messages. They appear in public spaces without someonces permission, without an explanation tag next to it and (very important) without an author. And still, people react to them. Or they don’t. Both is very interesting (to me).

Photography

A big part of my research is also photography. I do not only want to capture the moment, I also have to put thoughts into it and use it as my design tool. What do I want the viewer to see, what do I want them to see first? The moment I take a photo of an everyday installation, I am already framing it. I decide what is visible, what is cropped out, what is centered and what becomes the focus. It’s a form of communication. I am translating something temporary into an image that can be shared, archived and interpreted by other people.

Framing it

Another reason why this topic belongs in communication design is the way context works. In my experiments last semester, the same object was treated completely differently depending on where it was placed. In some spaces it was removed immediately, in others it stayed untouched. Sometimes it was invisible. Sometimes it looked suspicious. That means the object itself is not the main factor. The rules of the space are. And those rules are also a form of communication. Public space constantly tells us what belongs and what doesn’t.

So when I research everyday installations, I’m not researching “art”. I’m researching visual culture. I’m researching how people make decisions based on what they see. How they categorize things. How they judge meaning. How they react to something that breaks the normal order of a place.

In the end, my thesis connects to graphic design through:

• visual communication (in public space & between photos and everyday objects)
• Concept Development (Exhibition, Werkstück, Flyer for exhibition)
• photography (& framing)
• exhibition design (as a designed communication format)
• attention, perception and interpretation (Perception Psychology, Gestalt Psychology)
• experimental communication / experimental marketing / experimental design

So yes, I am still scared. But I am also sure that my topic fits. The challenge now is not proving that it belongs. The challenge is turning it into a structured project that I can actually write down and defend.

(Museum Visit – High-Fidelity / Interactive Learning)

If the Schlossberg Museum and Graz Museum showed me how visible framing can still communicate, then the CoSA (Center of Science Activities) showed me something completely different:
What happens when the frame doesn’t just present the content, but replaces it?

CoSA is not a museum in any traditional sense. It’s more like a playground disguised as an exhibition. A high-fidelity, immersive environment designed for kids, teens, and curious adults who want to touch, play, try, fail, experiment. Everything is screaming interaction. Lights, buttons, projections, puzzles, sounds, even the architecture itself feels like part of the performance. And somehow, in the middle of all this spectacle, I found myself thinking about my thesis again. Especially the question of whether art needs a frame to communicate or whether, in spaces like CoSA, the frame becomes so thick that the content becomes secondary.

The Superpower of High-Fidelity Framing

Everything is polished, exaggerated, designed for engagement. There’s no moment of “Is this intentional?” it obviously is. Even the walls communicate. Even the floor feels curated. In some rooms, you’re invited to look at a dead cat and a movie plays in front of it. In others, you’re challenged to be the doctor to an ill man or child, build a car yourself, drive with your very own car, force, sound, perspective. It’s all very game-like. And because it’s game-like, it also shifts how people behave. At Schlossberg Museum, people slowed down, read text, observed.
At CoSA, people jump in. There’s no hesitation, because the space gives permission. It guides you. It demands participation. And that’s exactly where it becomes relevant for my research:

High-fidelity framing dictates behaviour.

When people know the rules, they relax. When people know they are supposed to interact, they interact. When people know the space will guide them, they let go. This is almost the opposite of my everyday installations, where uncertainty is the whole point.

The Contrast: What My Research Isn’t About (but Helps Clarify)

One thing I noticed at CoSa: nothing here could ever be mistaken for an everyday installation. The framing is too strong, too theatrical. There’s no ambiguity. The frame is not just present  it’s hyper-present. And that helps me understand my thesis by contrast. If I want to explore how art communicates without a frame – then CoSA shows me the extremity of what happens with a frame. Here the meaning comes from the design, not from the object. The space tells you what to do, how to behave, and how to interpret what you see.

My photos of accidental compositions function in the opposite way. They rely on your curiosity, your willingness to look, your active interpretation. CoSA relies on instructions. So a strange question formed in my head:

Can art without a frame only function if people are trained by spaces like CoSA to trust their instincts or does it make them too dependent on explanation?

I don’t know the answer yet.
But I love that this place forces me to ask the question.

How Children React vs. Adults

Children don’t need frames the way adults do. Kids immediately start touching, playing, pushing, exploring. They don’t care what things “mean,” only what they “do.” They don’t ask for permission they assume everything is meant to be interacted with. Adults, however, hesitate. They wait for someone else to engage first. They need the frame to feel safe. This ties directly back to my earlier experiments with staging reactions to the celery stalk. Maybe adults look for social proof because they learned it in high-fidelity contexts like CoSA, museums, galleries, spaces that tell them what is allowed. Kids, meanwhile, operate naturally in low-fidelity environments. They accept randomness without fear. Maybe art without a frame communicates more easily with children than with adults. Maybe adults have to unlearn framing before they can perceive openly again.

What CoSA Taught Me About My MA Question

My thesis question still feels fresh, shifting, not quite ready. But this visit helped me refine something important:

For art to communicate without a frame, the viewer must bring their own interpretive tools. High-fidelity spaces, like CoSA, give you the tools but they also take away the freedom.

CoSA is wonderful. It’s smart, engaging, well-designed. But it also shows what happens when context becomes so strong that the content becomes inseparable from it. If everyday installations are the whisper, CoSA is the megaphone. And somewhere between whisper and megaphone lies the answer to my thesis.

Links

https://www.museum-joanneum.at/cosa-graz/unser-programm/ausstellungen/event/flip-im-cosa
https://www.museum-joanneum.at/cosa-graz/unser-programm/ausstellungen/event/der-schein-truegt
https://www.museum-joanneum.at/cosa-graz

AI Disclaimer

This blog post was written with the assistance of AI.

When I walked into the Schlossberg Museum, I wasn’t expecting anything. It´s just a part of a course. I assumed it would be a classic museum visit: walking through rooms, reading plaques, observing objects arranged in rehearsed formations. But the longer I stayed, the more I realized that this museum, in its own quiet way, is a fascinating study of how staged environments communicate and how they sometimes don’t.
My master thesis still circles around the question:
“What does it take for art to communicate without a frame?”
And oddly enough, this museum (a highly framed environment) helped me understand the opposite: What happens when the frame is visibly present, and how that visible framing sometimes works, sometimes fails, and sometimes becomes the entire message.

Staged Installations Without Pretending Not to Be Staged
What I realized was how intentionally “set up” everything looked. The Schlossberg Museum uses low-fidelity installations, meaning the staging is visible, almost transparent. You’re never tricked into believing that you entered an immersive world. You know that things are placed here for you.
And yet, people interact with these low-fidelity setups in surprisingly attentive ways.
Why?
Because the museum doesn’t try to hide its own construction. There’s a kind of honesty in that. It reminded me of my celery experiments, the difference between placing something deliberately yet pretending it’s accidental versus owning the arrangement. The Schlossberg Museum doesn’t pretend. The frame is obvious. The stage is visible. And weirdly enough, that visibility communicates.

How People Behave Around Framed Meaning
One of the most interesting things during my visit wasn’t the exhibition itself but the people inside it. I observed how visitors (including my friends being visitors as well) behaved:
• They slowed down near installations that had lighting around them.
• They spent more time near objects that had a certain spatial importance (center of the room, elevated platform, glass vitrtrine).
• They trusted anything behind a glass box more than anything placed openly.
• And they ignored objects that lacked a clear contextual cue, even when those objects were historically interesting.

So what does that say about meaning?
People read context faster than they read content.
They decide something is important before they understand why it is important.
This fits perfectly into my MA question.
Maybe art communicates without a frame only when people are trained to trust their own perception more than the environment around them. But museums do the opposite, they reinforce the frame as the reliable source of truth.

Low-Fidelity ≠ Low Communication
What stayed with me most were the humble, almost simple arrangements. Placed with intention, but without spectacle.
It reminded me of my everyday installations, accidental compositions I find on the street, a banana peel on a pizza carton, a toy scooter locked among adult bikes. Those moments also communicate something, despite lacking a label, despite lacking institutional permission.
At the Graz Museum, the objects have permission, yet they feel almost as unassuming as the found installations I’ve been documenting.
This made me wonder:
• Does an object need a high-fidelity frame to speak clearly?
• Or is a minimal frame enough, as long as viewers trust the context?
• And crucially: what happens when you take away the frame entirely?
The museum helped me see that “communicating without a frame” isn’t just about removing borders, it’s about cultivating perception.

Links
https://www.grazmuseum.at/graz-museum-schlossberg/
https://www.grazmuseum.at/ausstellung/demokratie-heast/
https://www.grazmuseum.at

AI Disclaimer
This blog post was polished with the assistance of AI.

Writing these blogposts this semester was unexpectedly fun.
Way more fun than last semester, if I’m honest.

I loved the freedom of it. That I could run with an idea, no matter how weird it seemed at first. All I had to do was document, observe, and reflect and that opened up a space for me to really experiment, both in content and in tone.

This time around, I let myself loosen up. I stepped out of my usual corporate-sounding language and leaned into something more poetic. (Sometimes pathetic. But you get it.)

And I honestly enjoyed it. So thank you to everyone who actually read these blogposts and didn’t cringe.

If you want to keep following along, you know where to find me:
@notsosureifart
(feeling like a real influencer hihi)

Bussi BabaFiona

After spending the semester observing, experimenting, and occasionally placing celery around cities, it’s time for the next logical step: talking to people.

I already conducted a handful of interviews last semester, conversations with outsiders, insiders, and fellow students about how they perceive art. But I want to expand that dialogue.
Over the summer and into the coming months, I plan to carry out a more extensive series of interviews: around 10 to 15 people, spanning different age groups, professions, and backgrounds. Some of them will be from creative fields, some won’t. Some will be my age, others much older. The goal is to create a broad, loosely representative set of perspectives, and see how the concept of “art” shifts across generations and cultures.

The Plan

My interviews will follow two main threads:

1. General Questions About Art

Simple, open-ended questions like:

• What is art to you?
• What makes something “worthy” of being called art?
• Have you ever been moved by something unexpected?
• Do you think art needs to be intentional?

The goal here is not to find the “right” answers, but to map different assumptions, values, and emotional reactions. I want to understand how people’s personal experiences shape their sense of what art is and isn’t.

2. Image-Based Reactions

Here’s where it gets really interesting: I plan to show each person a selection of my everyday installation photos the ones I plan to share on Instagram. I’ll ask them to interpret the image freely, without knowing anything about it.

Then, I’ll show them the explanation I wrote. And I’ll ask:

• Did your opinion change?
• Do you see something different now?
• Does a title influence your reading?
• What happens when there’s no label at all?

And finally I’ll throw in a few completely random images. Photos I took without any deeper meaning. Just banal, normal street scenes. Things I didn’t consider “artistic” at all.

I want to see if people still assign meaning to those too.
Will they interpret anything if I ask the right question?
Can we create significance just by suggesting there might be some?

The Placebo of Interpretation

This experiment touches something I’ve been circling all semester:
How much of art is about the work and how much is about the context we give it? If I tell someone, “This is art,” will they start seeing it that way even if it’s just a photo of a trash can? And if someone finds meaning in something I didn’t plan, is that less valid? Or is that the whole point? These are the questions I want to explore not just in my own reflections, but by borrowing other people’s eyes for a while.

If I’m lucky, I’ll manage to interview 1 or 2 known artists, too.
I’d especially love to speak to Paulus Goerden, whose work has inspired so much of my thinking. It honestly feels like a dream goal, but who knows? Maybe I’ll manifest it.