You can project meaning onto anything, attaching your own interpretations to the most arbitrarily chosen of objects.* This is especially true as work gets visually simpler or more abstract or both, and the amount of background information provided decreases. Sometimes the idea that a work is in any way interesting or meaningful seems to be a leap of faith based on one's opinion of the maker of the work (e.g. the time I spent an afternoon drawing on my shoes and making finger paintings of cats and someone decided that I must be a genius). If little is known about the maker of the work, it could be mainly up to chance whether or not an "expert" projects some idea of intelligence/thought/intention onto it and then convinces others of his interpretation.
How about if I learn to take proper photos?
*I think I will create a series of objects or images where all the decisions are made by chance (which links back to other research from the beginning of the year). I might create two series: one series of objects whose aesthetic qualities are decided by chance, and which do not aim to be anything other than their physical qualities (actually, phrasing it like that makes it sound exactly like Frank Stella's idea of "art as object," which is a relief; if it's that derivative, it means I don't have to actually bother doing it), and another that includes randomly chosen imagery that creates the potential for very specific interpretations that happen entirely by accident and are entirely created in the viewer's mind and are unconnected to the thoughts present during the creation of the work (one could sever someone's penis and stick it on a plinth because one is a bitch, and it would be viewed as a feminist act).
Martin Creed: "Work No. 78 (as many 2.5 cm squares as are necessary cut from 2.5 cm Elastoplast tape and piled up, adhesive sides down, to form a 2.5 cm cubic stack)," 1993 - A work which only acknowledges its physical qualities.
Robert Rauschenberg: "This is a Portrait of Iris Clert if I Say So," 1961 - A work which acknowledges the impact of interpretation - in this case, the artist's.
Michael Craig-Martin: "An Oak Tree," 1974 - As above.
