(Dis)Order
Do you ever try to organize your life, yet no matter how hard you try, everything seems to fall into disorder? Do you have a messy room? Do you break a lot of rules? Have you ever feared the ultimate disorder–a world-shattering apocalypse? Perhaps disorder in one’s life is something one can never escape, so if you can’t beat it, join in.
The mission of the (Dis)Order group was to engage students in exploring the many forms of disorder one will encounter in this world. How do our notions of what is acceptable order and acceptable disorder shape our lives? Students analyzed disorder in art, politics, society, and personal experience. Subjects ranged from something as mundane as getting in trouble with one’s parents to considering how our world might end.
Faculty: Troy Diedrich, Tracy Juarez, Emily Steffen
Spiral Director for (Dis)Order group: Olivia Gude
Characters from Chaos:
Surrealist "Seeing Into
The first day of every Spiral Workshop is devoted to Surrealist play because we believe that every artist can benefit from a return to unconscious sources of creative activity.
Download pdf presentation with project description of Surrealist "Seeing Into" projects
Unfolding Complexity Books
Some typical events mark the life history of individuals—birthdays, starting school, graduations, weddings. However, if you read a biography or watch a movie about a person’s life, often the significant moments are not these official events, but deeply personal turning points. It is these events that mark and mold each person—making us different from each other. This book project, combining hand drawn and digital manipulation, explores the unfolding of life events.
Download pdf presentation with project description of Surrealist "Seeing Into" projects
Complexity Disorder for distribution OMG.pdf
ODD Zines
Oppostional Defiant Disorder Punishment Zines
2008 Spiral ODD Punishment Zines
Download pdf presentation with project description and full content of many individual zines.
ODD Zines (Dis)Order Spiral Workshop zines.pdf
2008 Spiral ODD Collaborative Punishment Zines
Download pdf presentation with project description and full content of collaborative zines.
Collaborative ODD Zines (Dis)Order Spiral Workshop.pdf
Spiral Workshop ODD Punishment Worksheet
Punishment Worksheet 1 Spiral Workshop.pdf
Punishment Worksheet-chart 1 X OMG.pdf
It’s The End of the World as We Know It
The concept of the apocalypse, the end of world as we know it, seems to go back as far as human society. The Mayan calendar ends in 2012, the Christian Bible has a Book of Revelations that tells of “end times,” and the Hindus have Parlay, the complete inhalation. The knowledge that dinosaurs were destroyed by an apocalyptic event suggest that humanity may just as frail and vulnerable to anhilation. In popular films, we see many outlandish versions of a coming apocalypse—including alien invasions, giant bugs, and irradiated zombies.
Wow! It’s pretty shocking that a group of average American teenagers can easily list more than a dozen ways in which the world as we know it might really come to an end! The list was long—hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, meteor strikes, biological experiments gone wrong, wars of mass destruction, global warming.
After being shown clips from the film Atomic Café, a documentary made up of nuclear war public information films from the 1940s and 1950s (remember Duck and Cover?), students discussed how close humanity came to bringing about its own end during the Atomic Age. Are we still close?
Past societies may have speculated about the possibility of apocalyptic events, but it is only in the past few decades that human beings have actually developed the power to actually cause the end of the world as we know it. No wonder a famous punk rock group sang the words “No future” over and over again.
Apocalypse Life Style Magazine Covers
Since today’s media seems to produce a magazine for every lifestyle, the (Dis)Order artists decided to create a series of comics featuring the most significant contemporary life style—the result of living in a way that may create a life-threatening apocalypse. Each student “ripped” pictures from the internet, layering and combining images, to bravely think about and represent the unthinkable.
Some people may think that it is creepy for teens to picture a coming apocalypse, but isn’t it even creepier to look the other way while the end of the world creeps up on us? If youth can’t face the possibility of ultimate destruction, how can they ultimately prevent it?
Apocalypse Spiral Workshop Worksheet
Click here to download fabulous Apocalypse Worksheet.
Apocalypse Worksheet front-back-1.pdf
Apocalypse Worksheet inside chart-1.pdf
Print out at 11 by 17, double-sided, fold in half.
Apocalypse Life Style Magazine Covers
Click here to download presentation with apocalyptic culture examples, project description, samples of student art and statements.
Apocalypse Magazine Covers Spiral Workshop.pdf.