Medium Specificity

 

            I chose to focus on the way words are displayed on a page for my medium specificity.  I am not fantastic at prose and that was part of the reason I chose this medium.  This is the most personal piece of any type of art I have ever made.  It allowed me to really focus on something I have a passion for.  One outside piece of work that impacted me was the book “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer.  In the novel Foer uses the printed word as art as well as the choice of his words.  Some chapters there are edits in red pen over his writing and in other chapters the words will bleed together.  He would also put just one word on a page to make sure that the tone of the book was exactly how he wanted it. 

            The reason I chose the topic of depression is because it is something very close to me.  In our culture today people want to be continuously happy.  While we all know that being happy all the time isn’t something possible people with depression can go through long periods of time thinking that they will be never happy again.  Even though several people want to help someone who has depression, the person with depression may not want to talk about it.  I wanted to show this through the piece by obscuring some words.  I also wanted to show the anger I have towards depression.  It can become an obstacle within everyday life.  Keeping every negative word and the word depression in red emphasizes the intensity of the language and creates a link between the two.

            Another part of the page that I wanted to change was the background.  Through out the piece it is starting to become more and more positive.  Having the background change from black to white also helps that change be more prevalent.  At first the words are very stark against a black background, but as the vocabulary becomes more positive the words start to work with the background instead of fighting it.

            The choice of keeping one font was also an artistic choice.  I thought about changing the font for emphasis, but decided to keep the same font throughout the piece.  I did this because I didn’t want any one word to draw away from the message that was being written.  Every word holds the same amount of weight.  The reader may see some words pop out due to the color, but it is easy for the reader to start at the beginning and never miss a word because a word later on the page is so much bigger than the rest.