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Meaning Maker

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Social practice art project

Meaning Maker is a conceptual, social practice art project by Kent Manske and Nanette Wylde. The project consists of ten questionnaires on a range of topics. It was initiated in 2006 by PreNeo Press. Meaning Maker has been exhibited in galleries, published in journals, is included in the RISD artists' book collection, and has been unofficially distributed and placed at numerous art events.

Description

Meaning Maker takes form as a series of fill-out-form pamphlets. Each pamphlet is an "edition" which focuses on a single subject. The Meaning Makers are: Academic Conference, American Citizenship, Art Viewing Experience, Control, Family Gathering, Food, Higher Education, Periodic Personal Evaluation, Relationship to Nature, and U.S. Presidential Elections. This project exists in the physical world and on the Internet. The pamphlets are distributed in public places, most often art galleries and museums, and at art or academic conferences. They are also distributed online as pdfs. The project appears to be open ended, with the most recent edition being published in 2015.

It is expansive and precise, as claims curator Jan Rindfleisch, who writes about Meaning Maker, “For viewing art and the art world, try Meaning Maker, a guided interactive tool to foster understanding and evaluation of specific experiences."

Reception

Jason Urban describes the project, "Physically, Meaning Maker is modest: a multi-colored series of letter-sized tri-folds. It would look at home in any Kinko’s or a Human Resources office but it is only a spoof of corporate aesthetics. A closer look would reveal Meaning Maker to be a subversive tool for conceptual intervention.”

Discussing Meaning Maker, Carolyn Guertin writes, "The point of such a conceptual art project is that since it is infinitely renewable, it functions as a social critique of the expected norms of particular kinds of experiences.”

Aimee Le Duc claims, "Participants were encouraged to download copies, reuse the questionnaires and become the type of person most palatable in each of the pamphlets. The language is innocuous and satirical, but unsettling in the striking ease in which we all employ these assimilating tactics in our daily lives."

Stephanie Ellis reviews Meaning Maker for Stretcher, "Meaning Maker offered free low-tech transparent envelopes stuffed with a set of questionnaires, a nifty blue pencil, and a small pin with a plump “!” shadowed by a “?.” (Packets were discreetly labeled “this is art.”) The questionnaires (sans agenda) cover a series of occasions that often trigger zombie behavior such as an academic conference or a family reunion. In the latter, under “how I fit in?” you may choose among: the clown, the boss, at odds, the peacekeeper and so on. There was also a chance to check off the TV show that best represented your family. Hooked? The sweetly sincere self-reflective tools can be downloaded from their Web site. You might be inspired to write your own."

Publications

Meaning Maker has been included in the follow print publications, FLAT (published by Karol Shumaker, Chicago ) and Visual Communication Quarterly (CSU Fullerton), and Join + Cast Guide to Contemporary Art (Phoenix, Arizona, 2011).

Exhibitions

Meaning Maker has officially exhibited at the following art venues: The Euphrat Museum of Art in Cupertino, California; The Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, Oregon; The Lab in San Francisco, California, among others.

References

  1. Wylde, Nanette; Manske, Kent (2009-09-11). "Meaning Maker". Visual Communication Quarterly. 16 (3): 186–188. doi:10.1080/15551390903097182. ISSN 1555-1393.
  2. "PreNeo Press". preneo.org. Retrieved 2024-03-28.
  3. "2007-2008 · FHDA Archives Main Site · FHDA Historic Archives". distarch.fhda.edu. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  4. ^ "De Anza College Euphrat Museum Of Art - Past Highlights". staging.deanza.edu. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  5. ^ "2010 Mythical State of Jefferson". Schneider Museum of Art. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  6. ^ Wylde, Nanette; Manske of PreNeo Press, Kent (2009-09-11). "Meaning Maker". Visual Communication Quarterly. 16 (3): 186–188. doi:10.1080/15551390903097182. ISSN 1555-1393.
  7. Manske, Kent; Wilde, Nanette; Press, PreNeo. Meaning Maker.
  8. "Meaning Maker Press Pack by PreNeo Press". meaningmaker.org. Retrieved 2024-03-28.
  9. Koppman, Debra (December 2007). "'Moving Cultures' at the Euphrat Museum of Art". Artweek. 38 (10): 15.
  10. "Meaning Maker: This is Art!". meaningmaker.org. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  11. Rindfleisch, Jan (2017). Roots and Offshoots: Silicon Valley's Arts Community. Santa Clara, CA: Ginger Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-9983084-0-1.
  12. "PRINTERESTING · The thinking person's favorite online resource for interesting printmaking miscellany". 2009-08-15. Archived from the original on 2009-08-15. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  13. Guertin, Carolyn (2012). Digital Prohibition: Piracy and Authorship in New Media Art (1st ed.). New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing. p. 8. ISBN 9781441106100. "Witness Nanette Wylde's work or Ian Hatcher's 'open source' texts, which allow for play, experimentation, and communal authorship via its multiple users. Or think of viral media which spawn multiple new versions – like the Hitler rant meme with more than a thousand variants on a single scene of Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall (der Untergang; 2004) uploaded to YouTube. And a Web 2.0 text does not have to be high-tech for the user either. Nanette Wylde's Meaning Maker consists of personalizable downloadable documents. There are six different forms, including American Citizenship, Art Viewing Experience, and The Family Gathering. She advocates that you use these forms to enhance your experience of live events and to lend a tongue- in-cheek evaluative structure to your undertakings. The Academic Conference Edition allows you to rate speakers, your own performance, your dress, your inadequacies, your state of mind, and the quality of your experience. The point of such a conceptual art project is that since it is infinitely renewable, it functions as a social critique of the expected norms of particular kinds of experiences. But as conceptual art, it also does not fit the finite, quantifiable 'property' model that copyright assumes."
  14. Le Duc, Aimee (June 2007). "Corporate Art Expo '07 at The Lab". Art Week. 5 (37): 14.
  15. ^ "Stretcher | Features | Corporate Art Expo '07". www.stretcher.org. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  16. Shewmaker, Karol (2009). "Self Diagnosis". FLAT. 1 (1). Chicago, Illinois: 19–22.
  17. Democrat, Woodland Daily (2008-03-13). "Art Feature: "Meaning Matters" in playful university art exhibit". Daily Democrat. Retrieved 2024-03-28.

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