This document summarizes key points from a workshop on using text in art: 1. The first section discusses Pluto's demotion from a planet to a member of the Kuiper Belt, a distant ring of icy debris containing thousands of small bodies. It notes how little was known about this region until recent discoveries. 2. The second section describes how early observations found that many Kuiper Belt objects are binaries - pairs of bodies of similar size and mass orbiting each other. It raises questions about how such small bodies could have become paired. 3. The third section discusses how Dr. Jewitt and Jane Luu began searching the outer solar system after noticing clues that something may be out there, beyond

1. TEXT IN
CONTEXT
Alex J. Tunney
Workshop:

2. THE PAGE
AS CANVAS
Day 1:

3. David Wojnarowicz

4. May Swenson

5. e.e. cummings

7. 1. New to the Neighborhood
Pluto looked like the oddball
different from the rest.
thousands of icy bodies
in the outer reaches
Pluto’s demotion last month
reflects the view of many
that it is best seen as
a member of this new neighborhood
2. Classical
a distant ring of icy debris.
that ring of icy debris
has become an exciting spot
“It’s a lot bigger now,” said Marc
“The more we learn, the weirder it looks”
“This is really a very exotic zoo out there,”
A frozen record
objects do fit that profile
and those are called classical
3. Objects
objects are binaries –
pairs of bodies
of similar size and mass
cannot distinguish two
separate objects if they are
too close to each other
how such small bodies
could have been paired up so often.
as two objects flew past each other
objects slowed them enough
to capture each other
and the half million other objects,
even those not yet seen,
4. Search
a few clues that something
was out there
One was Pluto, an oddball.
It did not fit in.
Dr. Jewitt, then
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and his graduate student
Jane X. Luu,
had already started looking
“Our search was simply motivated by the
surprising emptiness
We would have been happy with either answer:
empty because it was empty,
or empty because no one looked.”
For years they found nothing.
5. Harbinger
“It’s like, ‘Oh my god,
Pluto finally makes sense,’”
He said.
It’s no longer an oddball
at the edge
Pluto was instead the harbinger of many
“Sometimes how the blood is
splattered on the wall
tells you more about what happened
than the body.”
Dr. Levinson said
“the blood splattering on the wall,”
Pluto’s
Exotic
Playmates

8. ASSIGNMENT 1
Create a found / blackout / whiteout poem from or
recontextualize one of the 3 texts provided.
For either choice, be prepared to discuss and justify your choices: Why that font? Why blackout instead
of found? Why this aesthetic?

9. ASSIGNMENT 2
Create a found / blackout / whiteout poem from or
recontextualize a text you have chosen.
For either choice, be prepared to discuss and justify your choices: Why that font? Why blackout instead
of found? Why this aesthetic?

10. Day 2:
WORDS IN
THE WORLD

11. David Wojnarowicz

12. Barbara Kruger

15. Jenny Holzer

19. Viktor & Rolf

20. ASSIGNMENT 3
WRITE BIG or WRITE SMALL or Writealot,likealotalot,likesomuchitbarelyfitsonthepage.
Create a ‘large-scale’ piece of art that uses text as the primary form of communication.
Again, be prepared to discuss and justify your choices: Why that font? Why this aesthetic? Do your choices
highlight a synthesis or a contrast between the written word and visuals?