Young Writers Society

Hi Brig! Love that you are always pushing the bounds of art / literature so lets get into it!

A piece of punctuation can certainly pack a lot of meaning - the literary piece that comes to my mind is the play "w;t" which sort of rests on the idea of a semi-colon and is really beautiful if you're looking for more work in this genre. Or just the idea of semi-colons in general being claimed by communities of having a symbolic and identity-maker value rather than merely being punctuation (while at the same time not ceasing to be punctuation).

One of my first thoughts when checking out this piece was that I'm going to have to add it to the Big Book of Records next time I update it for shortest lit piece.

Now as far as interpretation - I really like the idea that literature and art are not firm binaries and I like that this piece absolutely pushes that. A period as a piece of art - may be interpreted from a literary standpoint like a poem (& still be art) or from an aesthetic standpoint as a black circle, or from a symbolic standpoint, and effectively because you've posted it through the lit-work section, labeled as art on yws rather than in the art forums this piece is able to slide through all three back and forth without being in one specific box. The ease that it occupies different genres of mediums at the same time I think opens up conversation for a reader/viewer of how they might view other pieces of conventional art as poetry and conventional poems as art because there is flexibility at even the minute level of grammatical marks.

Interpretively I'd say that this piece has the most value symbolically - I would interpret it's meaning to be that absence isn't silence - but even a full-stop is symbolic and meaningful, artful etc. I think the piece is also purposely supposed to make the person wonder "am I seeing something intentional here, or what" the reader/viewer is forced to give the artist the benefit of the doubt in order to receive and interpret it, and that moment of question is an interactive and exciting moment as a reader/viewer. It reminds me of when people in that one art gallery gathered around like a fire-extinguisher unsure if it'd been left intentionally as art, or if it was part of the infrastructure. Here your piece weeds out who the people who are willing to see art in everything, and those who are suspicious / skeptical of all and can't enjoy or consume art that is unconventional.

Critiques? No, not really. I think it would have been maybe humorous to have set the genre as something other than "general" like maybe "narrative" but at the same time I think leaving this very plain without extra commentary or author's notes allowed the full range of opportunity for interpretation.

Thanks for always posting interesting things. Would love to hear any of your own intentions / interpretations too.

Keep creating (always!)

alliyah

Hello there, Brigadier

Lehmanf here with a short review. I hope it finds you well.

Well, honestly this is probably going to be quite short as there isn't much to talk about.

Looking at your poetry even though as you suggested to Icy even though it has words has boggled my brain. Do you portray this as a full stop or a point, because each has an individual meaning?

Full Stop: The end of something. The end of a sentence. That is a very interesting thought to think over. The end of a sentence can be interpreted in two ways as well.

* End of a sentence: As in a literal sentence, for example, the one I am writing. It can mean the end of something that took thought to create.

* End of a sentence: To make this more figurative it could be about the end of something harsh, almost like breaking out of a cage, "prison sentence" finally over. Free to smell flowers and be who you want, go wherever you want.

Dot: If this is a dot it could either be talking about impurity or nothingness.

* Impurity: This dot can mean you feel as you are flawed in some way because you have a blemish across this white expanse.

* Nothingness: Because a dot is so small it is barely anything in a sea of nothing that it could be considered nothing within itself. It could be about the author feeling they are not worth something or are nothing.

Point: When concerning geometry a line is infinite and a point is just a place along that infinite plane. This could symbolize the writer has encountered a stumbling block of life, which in this case is just an empty expanse that carries on forever and never ends till you cannot go on any longer.

Last interpretation: I am being laughed at right now for providing 20 wrong interpretations and this is all an inside joke I am still very unclear of.

Have a fantastic
Lehmanf

Hi Brigadier!

Wow, this is a tricky one to review. I think Mailice has summed it up very well; it's hard to tell if this is intentional or a mistake. That, in itself creates a level of interest which could prompt discussion. The definition of art is so broad, that we've heard stories of things like water fountains in an art museum being mistaken for actual displayed art. It's something that if you believe it is art, it's worth a lot, but when you see it as simply a functional item it's suddenly not.

If this was intentional, I'd love to hear your thinking around it, and what you interpret it to be. It's such an interesting blend of simple and complicated!

Icy

Hi Brigadier,

Mailice here with a short review!

I don't know if this work is somehow a satire or just a glitch, so I'm trying to take this seriously and add my opinion.

Since you put it in the Art category, I see it as an attempt to look at art as something critical. Maybe you want to express with the simplicity that we don't always need everything modern and we should just focus on what is in front of our real eyes and renounce the virtual. Or maybe you're trying to take a general position where you want to show that the art world is run by rich people and that art has a meaning and value for everyone individually that can't be enhanced with money but still is in our world.

I see with this full stop, or is it just a point, (?) a kind of rebellion. You show an attitude by resisting the simple text, by demanding critical thinking from the reader (or viewer in this case). There are some thoughts I have here about what you want to express with this, and one thing is also that this has no meaning. Just like some artworks are considered so high and mighty, are just a simple drawings. Or you show that this point could be worth millions if you were famous but since you are unknown (?) it is just nonsense. Is it a sign of how corrupted and surrounded by money this world is? How capitalistic every kind of artistic expression has become, where art has lost everything except art itself?

In summary, I'm surprised that no one has written a review on this yet, and at the same time a little confused at how simple and yet complex you've created something here.

Have fun writing creating!

Mailice