Sally's Automatist Excercise

Observations: Reading the four squares in from the top left clockwise around to the bottom left I do see the exercise as a narrative. First, there is simple, geometric, numbered order though with a slight disarrangement in the end between the circular patterns of numbering the shapes (5,4,7,6). The second square describes how the person felt when the fluke occurred; “dizzy head” and “blank…” Everything seemed fine but now something has disrupted the pattern. What is the cure? Medication. Medication in all forms, pill packs to pop, capsules in bottles, syringes to inject, and liquids to drink. Medicate to regulate, to get back to order, an effort to get back to how things were in the beginning. The results are upside down and catastrophic; “magnet, communism, toothbrush, top toy, jellyfish.” They have significantly diverged farther away from the first square. Reverting to the source has evolved into a new problem. Something along the way corrupted the original order and the means to restore it. Small signs are shown in the first square but the mystery lines in the line between the medication and the words. The diving lines are where the real investigation should take place.

Analysis: my observation was largely influenced by Lasn’s discussion of the media’s ability to manipulate our thoughts and large corporations to disrupt order. His discussion of the history or corporations really resonated with me: it makes sense that we were skeptical of large powerhouse companies and what happened? How could we let them take over and give corporations the rights of an individual citizen. Our government ruled and passed it! I really parallel this exercise to the historical growth in power of companies. Something small sent the shapes out of wack, like the civil war. It slowly happened before we got the chance to realize making us dizzy and leaving us blank. Consumerism threw a majority of the American population into a depression from the 1950’s on and as a result the pharmaceutical companies are legitimizing our distress with all their drugs. Associated words like “magnet, toothbrush, and top toy” all have to do with consumerism. I picked the words based on products I bought that resembled them. My associations with the forms that brought forth “Communism and jelly fish” were more freely associated. However something in the “Communist” form resembled enough iconography or symbolism to embody the political movement. Perhaps I chose this because Communism was largely effective through propaganda and media advertisements. The jellyfish I would like to think is my one response that went against the grain and still defines me as an independently thinking individual. Not a brain washed member of a cult.