Sweet Designs

When I went to the graduate design show last weekend, I was for some reason expecting to find the most conventional types of paintings, sculptures and drawings. What I found there was astoundingly more elaborate and creative than I’d ever imagined it would be.

The first thing that struck me upon walking into the exhibit was this seemingly simple white box. Its outward appearance was deceiving. When I put my head inside the box to view the rest of the artist’s work, there was a chromatic sequence of solid color following a rainbow progression. The lighting was pure, as though it was emanating from a light OF that color, as opposed to a white light with a filter of that color superimposed over it; the box’s whole inner world was red, yellow, orange, etc, fluctuating seamlessly through the whole rainbow from one hue to another. There also appeared to be a sound component to this work, though perhaps unintentional—it was hard for me to tell whether or not this low humming in the background was intentionally placed there in order to sooth the audience, or whether it was just a result of the light show itself. Thus, if the intent of the artist was to create a soothing experience, in contrast to an otherwise somewhat harsh, bold lighting scheme, then I would argue that the artist succeeded in creating a calming ambience. Without the low hum, close to the noise a TV makes while muted, or the ambient noise that feels close to the sound a white noise machine, the silence would probably have made the work seem somewhat threatening.

It seems then, that the artist who created this white box of colors intended to induce relaxation or even meditation of the viewer—this was achieved through the smooth and seamless progression of pure lighting, and a slight background noise.

The next work that demanded my attention was the model of Chernobyl, which showed the radioactivity on different parts of the mountain. The mountain itself was made of a clear glass, or plastic-like substance, varying in opacity. Emanating up from below the crags was a bright light, intended (as the write-up in front of the exhibit exclaimed) to show which part of the mountain was most radioactive after the explosion—the brighter the light, the more radioactive the area OR, it could be inverted so that the brighter the light, the less radioactive the area. The intent of this piece, judging by the serious tone of the disclaimer by the artist, is to create a visually pleasing, but very structured, planned and organized work of art set in a jarring historical context. This piece successfully demonstrated how history and art can be fused together to create an aesthetic and sentimental appeal.

Finally, I found the map of an artist’s daily travels, rituals, and routines, and appeared to be a highly experimental piece. Every day for a month, she plotted where she went; the really important places were drawn bigger, such that this map was clearly in NO WAY to scale. Typically, a line denoted her path. Considering that this tracking went on every day for a month, it is no surprise that her paths overlapped and were eventually superimposed over one another. The pattern that resulted from this looked kind of like a ring of dark lines, emanating out from the center of the page like ripples. Thus, the darker, more cluttered portions of the page showed the viewer where she had spent the most time over the course of the month. Perhaps the intention of the artist was to stir up questions. As an audience, did she expect us to be completely enthralled with her everyday routines? Probably not. More likely, the expectation was that the viewer would be attracted to the creativity of the concept, and consequently explore how it manifests itself in the form and aesthetic quality of the piece.