86 aspects of composition︎︎︎
This list is handy for writing about composition. When talking about a work, it's great to have some clear vocabulary to push off from.
- abstraction: To what extent would two people from the same community agree about the meaning?
- appropriation: How precisely and in what proportion to the whole have the ideas and constructs of others been incorporated into this creation?
- balance: How do the qualities and relative importance of the constituent aspects counteract each other, both inside and outside the system?
- breath: Where is the alternation between tension and release, inhalation and exhalation?
- center: Which areas, events, or ideas does our attention revolve around or return to?
- coherence: How well do the elements involved maintain their physical or conceptual connections to each other?
- collaboration: If there is more than one person or element involved, how are they cooperating?
- color: What shades, tones, or spectral qualities do these particular combinations of vibrations and their reflections create or evoke?
- community: Who is involved with the making and perceiving of this work?
- complexity: How many different streams of meaning, gestures, or materials are there, and do they interfere with each other?
- Context: What are the circumstances surrounding creation and perception, and what bearing do they have?
- continuity: How does this move from idea to idea, from place to place, from beginning to end?
- contrast: How different is one thing from another?
- control: How tightly is the outcome predetermined?
- conviction: To what extent is there an absence of doubt or hesitation, and how big a role does this play in the potential to inspire?
- definition: What features distinguish this from everything else and are they expressed clearly?
- density: How many elements are present simultaneously or in close proximity in a given area or at a given time?
- detail: How finely are the small qualities and features chiseled and how important are they to the functioning of the whole?
- development: What changes as time and space extend and how does this affect coherence?
- diversity: What degree of variety is present among the components and what effects does this variety produce?
- duration: How much time goes by from the beginning to the end of each event? of each subdivision? of the whole?
- emotion: Which human feelings can be found in this creation or perception and what importance are they given relative to the other ingredients?
- emphasis: Which aspects are meant to draw our attention and how is this achieved?
- exertion: How much physical and/or mental effort is involved and to what extent is it important for this to be visible?
- expectation: Do assumptions held by the creator or perceiver influence continuity or predictability?
- familiarity: How important is it to maintain or evolve recognizable situations, ideas, environments, or feelings?
- frequency: How fast and how often do the events and the materials vibrate or occur?
- function: What role does this play in the world, and what roles do each of the ingredients play relative to each other and to the whole?
- generosity: What is being given freely?
- geography: Where do things happen?
- gesture: How is movement of the materials organized, and what shapes and qualities do the trajectories of this motion create?
- hierarchy: How are importance and power organized?
- humor: How do factors such as smiling, laughter, surprise, lightheartedness, or delight contribute to the nature of this work?
- hybridization: Is there an intentional (or unconscious) blending of forms?
- imitation: How much do internal elements seek or exhibit similarity among themselves, and how much do they or the whole seek or exhibit similarity with external models?
- innovation: How great a role do new ideas play?
- inspiration: How does this work give and receive motivating energy?
- intention: What desired state or outcome is motivating the decisions that predetermine the nature of this process?
- interpretation: How do history, personal opinions, emotions, and skills affect the transmission and reception of the original message or intention?
- intuition: What percentage of creation/perception occurs spontaneously or without logical explanation, and how does this component in the composition interact with the intellectual component?
- language: What conventions, rules, methods of organization, or vocabularies distinguish this communication from others, and who understands them?
- leadership: Who makes the decisions?
- limits: What kinds of restrictions help to focus the expression?
- logic: What intellectual paradigms or conceptual maps are determining the basis for decision making?
- memory: How does the ability to store, label, and then retrieve impressions from the near and distant past impact creation and perception?
- mystery: How much reference is being made to not-knowing; how big a role does conscious (or unconscious) not-knowing play in conception and execution, and how necessary is knowing or not-knowing for appreciation?
- mythology: What roles do heroism, archetypes, folklore, and oral history play?
- organization: On what basis are the materials ordered, and what effect does this order have on the way they are perceived?
- originality: What percentage of the content is unique, and how does that affect the value of the whole?
- palette: What collection of physical and conceptual materials is being combined in this particular case?
- perception: How do the attributes and mechanisms of the human senses and mind color this process?
- perspective: From which physical or mental position was this created, and from which vantage points are the various elements and qualities best perceived?
- planning: What role does advance thinking, organizing, and deciding play?
- precision: Which ideas, gestures, or aspects must manifest in an exact way and which can be more general or approximate?
- preference: What proportion of qualities or choices is guided or determined by personal affinities or taste?
- process: What is the sequence and nature of the physical and intellectual events that determine the outcome?
- proportion: What are the relative quantities, sizes, and importance of each aspect with respect to the others and to the whole?
- proximity: What importance does the degree of nearness of players or elements have, internally and with respect to the perceiver?
- pulse: How much of the organization involves the regular marking of time or space with a steady placement of weight or events?
- punctuation: What devices help to delineate and separate units of meaning and activity?
- purity: How much allegiance or adherence to particular styles, ideas, traditions, or methods is present or necessary?
- reference: Toward which other elements, relationships, meanings, or memories is our focus directed when an element (or the whole) points outside of itself?
- relationship: How do these materials, organizers of the materials, and observers interact with each other?
- repetition: What happens again and again, how often, and with what intentions or results?
- reproduction: To what extent and how precisely are these materials or characteristics meant to resemble something from the past?
- resolution: How and when does this balance itself enough to start a new chapter or begin again?
- resonance: How do the effects of sympathetic vibrations play a role in the transmission of energy and inspiration, internally and with the environment?
- responsibility: How do social and environmental conscience influence the process of the creator, the perceiver, and other elements of the composition?
- scale: How large is this, relative to its conceptual and physical context?
- sensation: How does physical interaction with the medium, through the senses and systems of the body, affect the process and the nature of the experience?
- sequence: What events or ideas or materials follow each other, and in what order?
- shape: What are the qualities of the outline or contours created by the relative positions of materials in time and space?
- speed: How quickly do things happen?
- spirituality: What importance is given, either in the creation or in the perceiving, to contemplation, kindness, and matters of the soul?
- spontaneity: How much of the composition is determined by gestural, organizational, or conceptual decisions made in the moment?
- stability: Is there a sense of underlying predictability or steadiness, and how is this achieved?
- story: Is the series of events or the arrangement of elements such that it narrates or describes a human situation or perspective?
- symmetry: What types of correspondences exist between opposing sides or halves, either of the whole or of the individual ingredients?
- technique: What skills are necessary to clearly transmit and receive these energies or ideas, and how important is the mastery of these skills?
- Tension: Where is there a physical (or other kind of) pull or push between elements or ideas?
- Texture: What overall consistency or surface quality is created by the arrangement of material?
- Timing: When do things happen and how important is precision in this regard?
- Tradition: What lineage of creators, styles, philosophies, politics, methods, context, or other factors have influenced this composition?
- Transition: What manner of bridges or connectors serve to span the gaps between ideas, chapters or arenas?
- Variation: What proportion of this process involves change, manipulation, or evolution of material or energy?
- Vibration: When and how does cyclical alteration (of position, qualities, states, etc.) play a roll, and how do the relative speeds of these oscillations interact?
︎︎︎from 86 Aspects of Composition by Mike Vargas
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.
We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.
Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
