The Broken Telephone Project

Another amazing day at Synergy yesterday. My brain is so full, details are falling out and left scattered behind me, as I amble from one session to another, from one spontaneous and passionate conversation to the next. I’ve been trying to stop to make notes throughout the day, but even going from my head to the computer, some information is incomplete or probably a tad skewed from how it was presented.

We each filter information differently due to our own personal preferences, emotional reactions and connection to the world, so the ideas and facts we relay are not always precisely what we were told. A fantastic example of how information is filtered and changed was illustrated yesterday through the “Broken Telephone Project”, an experiment in inspiration and reinterpretation that Dan Cormier put together for Synergy.  If you ever played the ‘telephone game’ as a kid, you might remember how a simple phrase whispered into the ear of the first person in line would become something completely different (and often quite hilarious) after being passed down the line, changed and reinterpreted by each person as it went.

In Dan’s version, the ‘message’ was sent via art work through a line of eight artists. Each artist was asked to reinterpret a brooch made by the artist that came before them in line, into a brooch of their own. Dan started it off by creating a piece inspired by imagery in the Mexican town he is presently living in, and then he sent it to the first artist on his list. This is Dan’s piece that started things off …

The ‘message’  was sent down the line, each artist making a new brooch based on a prior artist’s brooch. The end result was a series of eight completely different, but also amazingly connected pieces of art. Unfortunately, I can’t say too much more, as the whole project was done beneath a cloak of secrecy (the artists only knew of the one artist that came before them in line, but were unaware of who participated in the project after them.) And Dan still has to reveal the line-up to the artists who weren’t present here at Synergy. But several things could be taken away from the project, including the value of working with or allowing other artists to influence one’s work as a challenge, which can push an artist in an unexpected direction. There was also some iconography that disappeared in some reinterpretations but then reappeared in later brooches, making us all wonder what kind of creative or cosmic connection there might be in the art work that we can’t see.

The presentation of the project this week at Synergy is not the end of this experiment. Dan will be finding a place to share this with all of you soon. The project also spurred a number of conversations about variations and similar projects that could be instigated – not only because they are fun and fascinating – but the collaborative work is another way to get the polymer community working together, with the possibility of more exposure at a high level within the global art world.

If you aren’t familiar with Dan and his partner Tracy Holmes, they work together to not only bring Dan’s incredible art to us all but they also design and sell unique polymer tools along with Dan’s intense master class book, Relief Beyond Belief.