What is Confettiing?
Most often utilized as an expression of Unart, Confettiing is the act of dispersing an artistic vision in fragments over a broad field of experiences. If you have ever received a random, seemingly unrelated, irrational or downright bizarre comment on one of your social media posts, for example, there is a chance that your post has been unwittingly incorporated into an Unart project through the use of confettiing. Acquiring a piece by this method is often referred to as Tagging, in reference to the process of tagging in Grafitti.
Confettiing differs from Grafitti in that there are multiple fragments that combine in order to form a larger and cohesive whole, rather than being a one-off piece of artistic expression. While trolling may be utilized as a part of the art piece, depending upon the concept being expressed, this is usually considered a vulgar use of confettiiing, and is generally frowned upon by the community at large.
Although the comment its self may or may not seem to be related to the post on which it appears, the post that is chosen is typically not random at all, but ties directly back into the larger work being expressed. As a general rule, although not always, depending upon the nature of the art work, the fragment is considered more successful the more seemingly integrated and naturally it blends into the post its self. This means that the fragment can go completely unnoticed as an expression of art until it is pointed out, at which point there should be clues that make it obvious after the fact. Subtlety is often key in the art of confettiing.
Although one can utilize his or her own original artwork when confettiing, and confetting is by no means limited to the confines of comments alone, unart is rooted in the concepts of found art and appropriation art, in which the work of others is reconceptualized. Some will insist upon only using things which were not originally intended as forms of artistic expression in their original form, viewing this as unart at its purest, while others prefer to rely upon the associations inherent in the artwork that has been incorporated in order to deepen the understanding of their own work.
Unlike found art or appropriation art, which focus primarily upon the final product in its relation to its component parts, the primary focus of unart is upon the creative process its self, with the final product being secondary as an outcome and expression of that process. As such, the art is viewed as the creative act its self, being played out in real time as it occurs, and it is usually only after the work is completed that it is compiled and revealed to be an art piece. In this manner, unart more closely resembles performance art being played out in front of a public that is unaware of what they are watching.
If something feels off, if it doesn’t quite seem to fit in with the rest of what you are looking at or reading, it may not be a simple mistake or a poor decision on the part of the creator. It may just be a sign that something greater is going on behind the scenes that you are not yet privy to. It may be an invitation to take a closer look, to dig deeper, to move past the illusion of surface appearances and to awaken to a richer, a more fulfilling and tactile, experience.
