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Thank you for visiting this Wikispace. This space was created for the purpose of discussing the eponymous submission in //Inklings//.
grizzly whatever energy algae – Greg Nguyen

**I think it's Nguyen's way to be silly -Ben Berman**
== **I think there is no point to what Nguyen wrote. He wants to see people try to find the meaning behind his words only to later reveal that they meant nothing and that we were wrong in trying to analyze them in the first place. In other words: this is a trap. -Gabriela Degwitz** == == **I think he was just moseying around in the wilderness, when he just so happened to spot some grizzly fur - which wasn't all that interesting so he brushed it off with a coolly impassive "whatever". Then he spotted sunlight, and then algae. I think though, that removing all of the filler stuff in between reveals some sinister intention. It was all very simple, but he made it enigmatic just so that he could laugh at people who suspect a deeper meaning. That is it. It's all for his own perverse form of entertainment! - Anonymous** ==

**Oh, thank you. I understand now.**
**Nguyen's Explanation: ** ** grizzly, whatever, energy, algae **

**These words were selected by Paul Natland, Jorge Camacho, Jose Rodriguez, and Jorge Guzman, respectively. I individually met with each gentleman and gave him a dictionary with no instructions. On each occasion, the person stared at me blankly for a while, and I stared blankly right back at him. Mr. Natland, Mr. Rodriguez, and Mr. Guzman ultimately opened the dictionary to a random page. The first word they uttered from that page is the word I attributed to that person. Mr. Camacho refused to open the dictionary, and since instructions were not forthcoming, he simply uttered “whatever” multiple times. These words represent the end product of a months-long conversation about the nature of art between the aforementioned gentlemen and me. The conversation actually originated in May 2008 between Mr. Rodriguez and me. I had visited the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC and encountered the work of Ellsworth Kelly. A room was dedicated to his work and consisted of large canvasses. A couple of the canvasses were painted in a single color with no image. The remaining paintings had two or three colors with approximately half the canvas in one color and the other half in another color. There was not a single image on any painting in the room. I asked Mr. Rodriguez whether these works amounted to art. Over the past three years, this conversation (at least for me) has evolved into the question of whether an art museum is an appropriate vehicle to showcase minimalist monochromatic works of art. This style of art seems to have originated with Kazimir Malevich in Russia circa 1913. Perhaps in the context of the postmodern art movement, these monochromatic paintings challenge the notion of art itself. What is art? What is not art? I have submitted these four words because I think they challenge the notion of what constitutes literature. In truth, I spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how to distill my ongoing conversation into the fewest words possible. The conversation between my colleagues and me has been a long and enlightening one. Sometimes it has been frustrating. Always, it has been enriching. It is my hope that these four words will generate more conversation around campus. **