Hybrid Art Interpretation Assignment:

                        My hybrid art comes from the artist known as Tom Phillips and he created an art piece that includes both text and images that relate to one another in just one art piece. He is known for writing “The Humument” which is a novel that uses the ‘cut and paste method’ of making an exquisite hybrid art piece. The art that I will be analyzing represents the idea of what a man truly is and how he relates himself to the outside world. Thus, the art pieces name is “A Human Document” since it documents a man’s life. First I am going to jump into what the text means within the image.

                        The first words that are seen at the top of the art piece is ‘a human document was written’ and these words centralize the main theme throughout the whole art piece, by stating that this piece will be representing human life. As the viewer looks at the whole piece, there are a lot of phrases upon the image and these words represent what the image is trying to present to the audience. The most interesting phrase that pops out, at least to me, is when the image states, “The Journal of secret scribing and hiding”. This phrase clearly shows how humans are very secretive and like to keep their guards up because it’s easier to let people look at you from a distance, rather than letting them get to know the personal or emotional side of who a person truly is. The idea of being kept hidden is repeated throughout the rest of the bottom half of the image, but the words describe that this journal idea or hiding one’s secrets doesn’t tell the whole story of where one comes from or why people tend to hide things from other. The order of the words implies a certain meaning by stating, “Journal contents, as yet is only half of the story, the first scenes and feelings”. These words are meant to perplex the viewer into the art piece and makes them wonder why when people hide from others, in this case by keeping a journal of their most inner moments, that only half of a person’s story is told because even if we hide our most inner thoughts or emotions, we as people still can know another person fully without knowing all of their hidden traits. Nonetheless, the bottom half of the text relates to the viewers on a personal level, as well as the phrases relating to one another. However, the top half of the image and phrases represent a different meaning when it comes to describing how humans portray themselves in the world and captures the struggle that people must go through in order to live their lives.

                        The most striking phrase that is at the top of this art piece states, “In that very narrative passage, he sat dejected”. This phrase depicts how people are not fully confident in themselves and are constantly judging who they are, as well as other people. The phrase uses the image of a novel to represent this ideology, since in books people are constantly judged and shows that the human race is very hypocritical of themselves, even to the extent of feeling dejected and this makes them feel like they are outcasts or isolated from society. However, the image seems to depict that people are alone in the world, by having the human-like figure sinking into a black abyss of isolation, since some people can’t feel like they are a part of society or that they can’t live up to the expectations that society has for individuals, which in turn makes these people feel like failures and that they can’t possibly integrate into the ideal that society portrays to the world. However, the opposite meaning could be found within this image but in my mind, it seems that the image is trying to represent how humankind puts too much pressure on themselves to be the perfect ideal in society even though this can never be achieved since everyone makes mistakes in their lives.

                        Lastly, the image depicts people as representing the actual text that is described within the image by stating, “Pieces of writing of the writings of the names”. This clearly depicts how even though individuals see themselves as failures in parts of their lives, they still manage to make sure that they contribute to society, regardless of what they think of themselves. Overall, the image depicts how humans view themselves in society, but not all individuals have this take on how they represent themselves in the world. The image though does make the viewer think critically about how we portray ourselves to our society and gives one point of view on how people interpret themselves into the collective world that we all live in.