Phil  – Dana – Nathan – Eric – Lindsey – Alex – Jordan – Jose – Tali – Glen

questions, problems, paradoxes

Digital Sculpture – Professor: Joe Meiser – Project #3

Project overview:

The first two projects of the semester have been highly structured. This more open-ended project will provide an opportunity for you to explore subject matter and techniques that are of greatest interest and personal relevance to you. In this project you will investigate a question, problem, or paradox.  Once you’ve selected a particular topic for your project, you’ll complete a writing exercise that will help you clarify the idea(s) you want to explore. Then, to assist your divergent thinking about what you could create, you’ll gather visual references that relate to your topic.  As an auxiliary component, you will find a work of art that interests you and borrow a strategy from it to integrate into your own design.

Once you’ve completed the preparatory work outlined above, you’ll create a series of sketches to explore some potential directions for your project.  In these sketches you’ll need to find a way of inventively bringing together your conceptual intentions, aspects of the visual references you’ve selected, and the strategy you’ve borrowed. As you begin your work on the computer, know that you are expected to do extensive modeling in Rhino and/or T-Splines to create complex geometry, but you are free to integrate other resources like human meshes created with MakeHuman.  The final result of your project should be a series of high quality Keyshot renders that are visually engaging and thought provoking.

1. Choose a topic

Identify a particular question, problem, or paradox that you find compelling—this could come from a variety of different sources, including: a subject discussed in one of your courses, a current event, a personal experience you’ve had, a book you’ve read, a song, a movie—ANY origin is acceptable.  For this project to be meaningful it is important that you choose a topic that seriously perplexes and intrigues you, and which you have a deep personal interest in.  It is not always easy to identify resonant problems/questions, so set some time aside to reflect carefully on your choice.

2. Consider and clarify your topic

This brief writing exercise is designed to help you hone in on the your project’s question/problem.  Your answers should total approximately 300 words.

  • What question/problem did you choose?
  • Tell why you chose this topic, and why it matters to you.
  • Give some details on the problem/question—explain it in depth.
  • List out 10 tangible people/places/things which are associated with your question/problem.

Please upload your response to the class website; put your post in the category of your own name. (This is the same category that you used for your second project.)

3. Visual research

Find at least one image for each of the 10 people/places/things that you listed above. Please upload these images to the class website; put your post in the category of your own name.

4. Borrow a strategy

One great way of improving your artwork is to borrow strategies from other works of art.  There are a variety of attributes that you could borrow, it could be an aesthetic quality, a compositional arrangement, the subject matter, a means of presentation, a sensibility, a construction technique, a sense of humor… anything at all.

For this step, you are to:

  1. Find an image of a particular work of art that you find compelling. (You can find some good options by looking in the links section.)
  2. Create a post on the class website in the category of your own name.
  3. Upload your image.
  4. Include the name of the artist and the work’s title.
  5. Write just one sentence that specifies the attribute or strategy that you intend to borrow from the piece.

5. Create sketches

One’s final product can be improved when, at the beginning of a project, one considers a variety of possible end results.  Create five detailed sketches of five distinctly different project ideas.  In these sketches you’ll need to find a way of inventively bringing together your conceptual intentions, the visual references you’ve selected, and the strategy you’ve borrowed.  These sketches can either be uploaded to the class website or turned in as hard copy at the end of the semester.