Last time we connected random objects with random words, and then other random objects with a coherent text. This was a strategy I used to get closer to Joseph Kosuth's tautologies, which, placed in this context, seem a bit easier to understand.
I brought four objects from home, as well as their black and white photographs that I had printed on paper, along with their dictionary definitions. There was also a printed definition of 'tautology', that I used to explain the meaning of the word. I then connected it to the artist's work and to the ways something can be represented.
One of the objects was a scale model of the museum we used for exhibitions. The photo of the small model was linked to the dictionary definition and to the object itself, but all of them were also representations of the larger model.
I exaggerated, by adding one more redundancy level, because I intended to illustrate as best I could the trajectory from things to signs and vice-versa.
I did not use a semiotic explanation, but mainly utilized a basic visual level of understanding, in which the representation games played by the object and by language were obvious.
The objects were not as serious as in the original works. I brought some small things, not necessarily extraordinary, which could support this type of presentation.
Maybe the letter A would have been an interesting point of discussion, as it was at the same time a sign and an object. However, I was less interested in semiotic refinements, as I was keen on introducing the pupils, in a direct manner, to the workings of the production system of Kosuth's works, in the most general sense.
