Post Studio Projects: The 109 Thompson Assignments

In addition to the 100 assignments created in the tradition of John Baldessari we were instructed to create an additional 59 and then tailor the list down to the (almost) perfected 109. Remember, these creations are both questions and assignments. 

1. Conjugate a word in a language you don’t know and make a portrait.
2. Inhibit consumption.
3. Create a self-portrait using your favorite/least favorite possessions.
4. Offer a stranger an apple and photograph their response.
5. Reconstruct something out of its opposite.
6. Put your favorite song(s) in a minor key.
7. Portray “adult” themes using elementary school art materials.
8. Change the senses, make someone see a scent or feel a sound.
9. Shave your head or grow your hair.
10. Collect objects from people that they think represent “safety.”
11. Condoms.
12. Have people rearrange your closet and photograph the result.
13. Create a portrait of your worst fear.  
14. Give someone or something a makeover.
15. Induce feelings of doubt. Record.
16. Recreate a nightmare using only one word, image, and object.
17. Use the scientific method.
18. It starts with the light. Follow it. Record.
19. Destroy something precious.
20. Create with your feet.
21. Find the fruit of your loins.
22. “Use me.”
23. Verbalize the unnecessary. In public.
24. Bring attention to the terribly ordinary.
25. Maximize your presence, everywhere.
26. Have a conversation with yourself. Record.
27. Edit your life.
28. Reverse the flow of time.
29. Find the means to break free.
30. Enact a fairytale.
31. Create an art show title from the seventh word on the seventh page of seven books.
32. Sit in the dark and draw what you think.
33. Are dreams in fact reality? Record your dreams and create a blueprint.
34. Try to start a conflict between two other people.
35. A walk in the woods should be relaxing, but in the dark? Who knows?
36. You can’t see them but they can see you.
37. Make music with your feet.
38. Remember the mean kid in school? Be them for an entire day.
39. Give power to good by knowing evil.
40. Create your own season, present with all senses.
41. If ever there were a time to dance now’s the time, in public, bathrooms, everywhere.
42. Limit yourself to only negative words for an entire day, and the rest of the week to positive words.
43. Become a hermit, but your shelter is in a public space.
44. Candy is dandy but tomatoes make great missiles. Demonstrate in a field.
45. They say a picture steals someone’s soul. Steal 100 souls.
46. Pick a word from the dictionary. Scream it at random points during the day.
47. Curate a show based off of a song picked at random.
48. Imagine an object as an orphan. Create an orphanage.
49. Grow a garden in your shoes.
50. If the world were underwater…imagine.
51. Go ahead. Take it.
52. If the slipper fits.
53. Find your despair, now chase it. Give it a rhythm.
54. Build an empire out of paper.
55. Pick a random word in the dictionary and create a movement from it.
56. Fashion a new instrument and attempt to play it, then give it to someone else and see what happens.
57. What would John Baldessari disapprove of? Do it.
58. See how far you can get on a tank of gas.
59. If teas have medicinal properties, try to concoct the cure-all.
60. Become a personal cheerleader for a week.
61. Observe pagan rituals for a whole month. Try and get as many participants as possible.
62. They say to dance to the beat of your heart, but what if you actually did that? Choreograph based on your heartbeat.
63. Do the impossible.
64. Give up.
65. Pull yourself together, get string or something.
66. Say yes to everything until faced with a moral dilemma.
67. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, go the other way. What did you find?
68. Enact the desires of those you hate the most.
69. Prepare your favorite dish.
70. The life of a candle can be fleeting or last an eternity.
71. Play God to the person of your choosing.
72. Give a new name to everything you see.
73. Pick your poison, and then give it to someone else. Does it become harmless?
74. Explore the states of undress.
75. Choose one color and look for it for an entire day and night. How often does it show up?
76. Create a curse, and then create seven blessings.
77. Try to collect time. Can you have all the time in the world?
78. Explore the world at night, how has it changed?
79. You encounter the physical manifestation of stress, what do you do? What will it do?
80. What would you do, or have done to you, in order to become a saint?
81. Thank your body for everything it does. You don’t deserve it. (or do you?)
82. Welcome to our lovely home.
83. Don’t let it in. Don’t.
84. Be horrible, see where it gets you.
85. On the other hand, become poisonously good.
86. Come up with an elaborate plan of murder and betrayal to get what you want. Record how you feel after writing the last step.
87. Birds in the sky and fish in the sea, but what exists in the areas we don’t see?
88. Patent a design that will never work.
89. What does it mean to hate yourself?
90. Find virtue in the smallest of places.
91. Imagine a field as an ocean. How does it move?
92. Gluten.
93. Use a lighter as your source of light for one night.
94. Create your own animal.
95. If you could excel at one thing and one thing only, what would it be? Attempt this.
96. Destroy a relationship with someone you love.
97. See how long you can go without sleep. Draw the same image every six hours.
98. You are only allowed to eat one food for an entire day.
99. Host a pool party. No water allowed.
100. Give your fears a face. Beat it up.
101. Write a letter and translate it into dance, or do the opposite!
102. Become the founder of a new nation. However, you cannot take any land, lives, or anything that does not already belong to you.
103. Disobey seven laws that have already been abolished.
104. Give a punishment that does not fit the crime.
105. Buy the thing you have always wanted. Give it to a stranger.
106. Compose an adagio for a squirrel. Play it for them.
107. Be sticky.
108. Take the first step and then backtrack.
109. Last but not least, don’t forget to scream.