Jenny Holzer

Before watching:

• Visual art is related to spoken and written language because they are all ways used for expression and to show emotion. Visual art is a language because it can communicate a thought or idea.
• Artists and writers reveal their authorship in their work by using a specific motif or style that is unique to them.
• Authors or artists may choose to remain anonymous when creating very controversial works, during protests involving their work or in thing like graffiti. They may also choose to remain anonymous to make the audience focus more on the meaning behind the piece than on who made the piece.
• Written and visual information are censored in places like our school or in libraries or maybe in a work facility. They are censored by authority figures such as a principal, boss or even someone in the government.

Reflection after watching:

• Truism is simply an obviously true statement that contains nothing new, but in terms of Holzer's work, truism is an obviously true statement presented in a way that makes the reader/audience think about the meaning behind it. The first person voice used in truisms reflects the meaning onto the reader and allows for thousands of different interpretations of it.
• The meaning of Holzer's truism changes with the objects they are placed on because that object was chosen to further the meaning of the truism. When outside and in public, the truism must be shorter and to the point because most people don't have time to stop and pay attention to random projections. When inside, the truism can be long and can require further thought because people who go inside to view it most likely have the time to see it in full. 
• Information concerning the government and national security are censored in the original texts because the public is not allowed to see that information. She uses numbers, arrows and uniquely painted backgrounds to draw attention the eliminated parts of these texts.
• Holzer believes that signing her work or even being near it would take away some of its effect on the audience. This makes sense because if she is there, people would be too busy asking her what it means and how she did it instead of focusing on what it means to them. Her appropriation of text serves this objective because she is using words and ideas that have been used before but leaving the interpretation up to others.

Definitions:

• appropriation- the action of taking something for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission 
• propaganda- information (usually biased and misleading) used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view
• censorship- the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc. and removing unacceptable parts
• redacted- to edit text for publication