Visual band sweet killer Calisthenics
Visual Calisthenics
Exercise One: Take a random card and look at it as if it were a foreign
object you have never seen before. Look at all of its visual elements. What
are they? What do they look like?
Exercise 2: Take 3 random cards study them and then describe what each
card does. Next put the cards next to one another and see how what each
one does or does not fit.
Exercise 3: Select any random Major Arcana cards, study them, and notice
their actions. Notice how their respective action relates to one another.
Name elements and actions but extend their sound or image name
meaning.
Exercise 4: Now notice how parts or sections on a card relates to the same
sections in the other cards.
Exercise 5: Try these two rules to the cards you have been working with.
All elements showing similar shapes refer to the same idea.
Elements from different cards that occupy the same position within
the surface of the card (i.e. “center”, “upper left corner”, etc) are
related.
Exercise 6: What visual elements stand out in your cards? What elements
have receded and remain unnamed?
Exercise 7: Try this exercise with your named card images and notice the
rhythm of the words.
_card one________ TURNS INTO __card 3______
_________ TURNS INTO __________ : 1 card name 2 card name 3
card name
Exercise 8: Return to your random three cards and let the images suggest
new sentences to you. Substitute aspects of the image for the whole image
in names. Extend the implied substitutions with wild comparisons
(metaphors) in the names of the cards.
Exercise 9: Make up any number and style of grunts, yelps, clucks, pops,
and squeals for the images and vocalize them. How does this open the
image to new possibilities? (See Reflection Question 5 below)
Exercise 10: Selecting any 3 cards at random study the images, name what
they do, and see how the images change or become more flexible as you
pun with their names.
Reflection Question 1: How is this attempt to read from the images and
their named elements different from your reading style? How does it
incorporate with your style? Where do you see the critical junctions?
Reflective Question 2: What is your relationship with actually drawing
images and reading images? Have you ever redrawn your deck as a way to
learn it? Have you drawn it from memory and also drawn it as copying?
What do the differences tell you?
Reflection Question 3: Considering the pervious exercises, do you see the
value in experimenting with constraints drawn from the decks style itself or
inspired by poetic exercises?
Reflection Question 4: What do you receive for yourself when you do a
tarot reading for someone? Do you agree with Enrique that pleasure has
been eradicated from Tarot readings? If not or so, how is it for you?
Reflection Question 5: How does this extra-lingual element (Exercise 9)
open up your interpretations of your card images? How do you feel about
this?
Reflection Question 6: How could you use tarot cards in a way that
subverts yours and others expectations?
Reflection Question 7: Knowing the structure and stock images of the tarot
what constraints might you isolate to try as rules for making the images
talk?
Reflection Question 8: Playing with English language puns or puns from
any and all languages you know, how can this enrich the images you see
from your deck?
Reflection Question 9: What elements of art or poetry would you use to
enhance your tarot readings? Do you think formal application of elements
as rules or constraints helps make a reading beautiful or should these
ideas just fall into place without the constraints, making a spontaneous
serendipity? Or in other words, in your tarot reading how do you relate to
the weave or rhythm of order and process in discovery of the stories you
tell?
Exercise One: Take a random card and look at it as if it were a foreign
object you have never seen before. Look at all of its visual elements. What
are they? What do they look like?
Exercise 2: Take 3 random cards study them and then describe what each
card does. Next put the cards next to one another and see how what each
one does or does not fit.
Exercise 3: Select any random Major Arcana cards, study them, and notice
their actions. Notice how their respective action relates to one another.
Name elements and actions but extend their sound or image name
meaning.
Exercise 4: Now notice how parts or sections on a card relates to the same
sections in the other cards.
Exercise 5: Try these two rules to the cards you have been working with.
All elements showing similar shapes refer to the same idea.
Elements from different cards that occupy the same position within
the surface of the card (i.e. “center”, “upper left corner”, etc) are
related.
Exercise 6: What visual elements stand out in your cards? What elements
have receded and remain unnamed?
Exercise 7: Try this exercise with your named card images and notice the
rhythm of the words.
_card one________ TURNS INTO __card 3______
_________ TURNS INTO __________ : 1 card name 2 card name 3
card name
Exercise 8: Return to your random three cards and let the images suggest
new sentences to you. Substitute aspects of the image for the whole image
in names. Extend the implied substitutions with wild comparisons
(metaphors) in the names of the cards.
Exercise 9: Make up any number and style of grunts, yelps, clucks, pops,
and squeals for the images and vocalize them. How does this open the
image to new possibilities? (See Reflection Question 5 below)
Exercise 10: Selecting any 3 cards at random study the images, name what
they do, and see how the images change or become more flexible as you
pun with their names.
Reflection Question 1: How is this attempt to read from the images and
their named elements different from your reading style? How does it
incorporate with your style? Where do you see the critical junctions?
Reflective Question 2: What is your relationship with actually drawing
images and reading images? Have you ever redrawn your deck as a way to
learn it? Have you drawn it from memory and also drawn it as copying?
What do the differences tell you?
Reflection Question 3: Considering the pervious exercises, do you see the
value in experimenting with constraints drawn from the decks style itself or
inspired by poetic exercises?
Reflection Question 4: What do you receive for yourself when you do a
tarot reading for someone? Do you agree with Enrique that pleasure has
been eradicated from Tarot readings? If not or so, how is it for you?
Reflection Question 5: How does this extra-lingual element (Exercise 9)
open up your interpretations of your card images? How do you feel about
this?
Reflection Question 6: How could you use tarot cards in a way that
subverts yours and others expectations?
Reflection Question 7: Knowing the structure and stock images of the tarot
what constraints might you isolate to try as rules for making the images
talk?
Reflection Question 8: Playing with English language puns or puns from
any and all languages you know, how can this enrich the images you see
from your deck?
Reflection Question 9: What elements of art or poetry would you use to
enhance your tarot readings? Do you think formal application of elements
as rules or constraints helps make a reading beautiful or should these
ideas just fall into place without the constraints, making a spontaneous
serendipity? Or in other words, in your tarot reading how do you relate to
the weave or rhythm of order and process in discovery of the stories you
tell?