IOP Journal #1

My first idea when initially brainstorming IOP ideas was to connect Camus philosophy in the Stranger with artwork of the time. This idea was exciting to me as I thought of artists such as Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists. However, upon delving further into Camus philosophical ideas, I realized they really cannot be represented artistically. Art, in a way, is a contradictory to the absurd. In art things make sense, artwork has unity. Things in artwork are representative of things, and a new world is created that is logical. Absurdism is everything that this isn't. According to absurdism, nothing makes sense and it is pointless to try to make sense of it. The world has no unity so it is purposeless to try to give it unity. With this revelation, my original idea was scrapped. But that idea was not in vein. I now have a deeper understanding of the philosophy Camus is conveying through the stranger and this point, of the meaninglessness of art, can be an important one in my presentation.