This is IP
Senior year for the University of Michigan Art & Design students means one hell of a long project. A year-long (really only 7-8 months) project that is supposed to be more or less the culmination of the 4 years students spend at the university. Myself, this is my 5th year in college, but only my third at the University of Michigan. The current curriculum is that of a very conceptual nature; “thinking outside the box” type stuff. This can be beneficial, but all the conceptual stuff comes at the expense of very little technical, skill focused classes. Unfortunate, but a reality. Those that care make do and learn what they need to know outside of class.
The year-long project I mentioned above is for our IP class, that’s Integrative Project for the unknowing. My initial ideas for my project were based off my main interests: continue developing my analog photoblog, do some infographics work, do something using code, furniture design, packaging, or something with computer generated designs.
I’ve spent my time here working in all variety of mediums; wood, plastic, ink, paint, steel, bronze, pixels, code, etcetera, etcetera, and now my final year is in it’s beginning stages. I was pretty set on continuing with my photoblog before the year began, but once things got underway I started to think about all the things I won’t have access to after graduation, mainly the printmaking studio and the sculpture/metals studio. I had to make a decision. I could either do something that I can do anytime or something that I have limited access to; easy choice.
With that said, my project can basically be summed up as a combination of new media processes and traditional, fine art finishings. What I’m envisioning as my final project is a series of prints, and a few bronze sculptures. The prints will be data visualizations from any sort of data set, a few from music, perhaps some sort of census data or what have you. The data will be processed with code that I write, in programs like Processing or Flash, then finalized as a digital illustration which I will take to a 4-axis mill to cut into some wood blocks, and finally I’ll use those blocks to pull some woodblock prints. I might also do some intaglio printmaking and screenprinting, but we’ll see about that. The bronze sculpture will be based on waveform from some sort of audio source. I plan on making two sculptures, one utilizing a laser cutter and the other using rapid-prototyping.
The final result of the project will be taking new media art which is generally considered “throw away” art, that is to say, it isn’t exactly desired or collectable as you see with the traditional mediums in the fine arts world, and then transforming it into something desirable. Basically taking digital art and giving it more “credibility” by transforming it into “fine art.” With this project I hope to further my knowledge of programming, data visualization, and the boundary between digital art and fine art.
Now is the time to let my inner geek shine through into this world paint, pencils, pigments, and metals.