Design Unbound

 Design unbound: when I heard the title of this exhibition, I can’t say I had a very clear picture of what I was about to experience. I entered expecting machinery, but what I saw were unique, compelling pieces of artwork.
In general, the exhibit was very calming and provided for as personal of an experience as one was willing to have. The space itself was very open and it didn’t seem like the artwork was too crowded. All of the pieces on display were fantastic for a multitude of reasons, but I want to focus on three that I found particularly interesting.
The first piece that sparked my interest was a photographic collage entitled “Outcrop.” The artist (Carissa Carter) chose to arrange the four oblong canvases into a square with an open middle. I’m not entirely sure why this was the case, but I liked the arrangement because it emphasized the continuity of the various frames. For me, the most perplexing feature of this work was the subject: shoes. The photographs are of large shoes, small shoes, designer shoes, generic shoes, red, black, orange, blue, clean, dirty shoes. Each canvas focused on a particular attribute of the various shoes; one was a close-up of the laces, another showed the various sizes of the shoes, a third depicted the soles and the last focused on the dirt and wear on the shoes. I thought this piece was very representational of humanity in a distinct manner. Instead of blatantly depicting various members of different societies, the artist chose to show their shoes, which tell stories of where they’ve been. Each section represents a particular aspect of a person. The soles of the shoes show where he’s been, the size depicts his physical attributes, the shoelaces represent his internal composition and the dirt displays what he’s done. What I most appreciated about this piece was that it could be as simple or complex as I wanted it to. At face value, it’s an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of photographs but on a deeper level, I found a meaningful metaphor.
Next, I particularly enjoyed a sculpture entitled “Musical Landscape” by Emilie Fetscher. I first noticed the artist; she has several other pieces of work in the exhibition, all of which were completely different. This one in particular caught my attention because it looked like a three-dimensional representation of several electrocardiograms placed in front of each other. As it turns out, the sculpture represented the different frequencies of a musical composition. I was immediately impressed, for something that complicated and specific had to require an intense time commitment and extreme dedication. The connection between the sculpture and the image of an electric monitoring of the heart made me feel like the piece was suggesting that music is life, a philosophy with which I strongly agree. The colors the artist chose to use for the sculpture reflected this idea, as they were all blissful shades of blue and green. Additionally, I think the sculpture also represented how closely related music and the humanities in general are related to science and mathematics. Without the title, this piece of artwork could easily be interpreted some sort of statistical three-dimensional graph. Interestingly, it is just that: a graph of the frequencies that correspond to a song. Due to the strong implied messages derived from its form, I found myself happily mesmerized by this sculpture.
The final piece featured in Design Unbound I want to discuss was one that utterly confounded me. The title of the work was “Visceral Light Tunnel” and the artist is Ed Browka. Literally, this creation was a box in which one can place his head and experience colors, one at a time. The idea is so simple, yet so effective. Laying in the tunnel, I was able to forget about my stressful day in order to just be. “Lay back and let the color engulf you,” says the tag line under the title, appropriately. Since my head was inside this box, the only thing I could see was the one particular color, so I had to allow it to engulf me. As the color changed from a bright cyan to a tranquil lime green then to an inviting magenta, I felt progressively more relaxed just focusing on one color at a time. None of the colors were abrasive or over-saturated, which allows the person experiencing them to remain calm. This was undoubtedly my favorite feature of the exhibition; I never could have imagined what a powerful effect simple colors could have on my state of mind.
As a whole, Design Unbound was an excellent experience which incorporated an array of art forms. For me, the pieces I discussed were most interesting, but all of the art was genuinely impressive. I am certain that anyone could easily appreciate these creations and from them, derive their own interpretations.