Reading Response: Transparency

I feel like the inclusion of text in the book really helps the dot compositions speak more clearly to the viewer-it basically eliminates the possibility of personal interpretation. While the compositions are intended to be coherent on their own, the text functions as both a communication safety net and an aesthetic component that actually becomes part of the composition, since we're using transparency film. It was sort of difficult to compose the text to match and/or compliment the dot compositions due to the fact that the separate assignments called for somewhat different things. Ultimately, the interaction of my text and my dots is fairly serendipitous. I tried to let the text represent the concept in its own way, while controlling it just enough to respect the layout of the dots. My text compositions don't mirror the forms of my dot compositions, but are often quite oppositional. I think what I tried to do, perhaps somewhat accidentally, was figure out how to express the same idea in two different ways at the same time. My dots and my text are separate voices that are conversing-not arguing-about each topic. So in the end, the interplay of the layers brings a great deal of interest to the piece that would be absent had we not used multiple simultaneous elements.