Rachelcapstone - Rachel's Capstone

Thinking through new statements

I am interested in the design convention of juxtaposition and the phenomenon of how our brains naturally create connections between disparate imagery. I hope for my audience to be more aware of when this phenomenon happens and how it can change our viewpoint.

I’m an interested in the phenomenon of juxtaposition and how psychologically connections are created between disparate items. I hope to learn how juxtaposition can be manipulated to create beauty and harm, and to make people more aware of its soft power. 

I am interested in juxtaposition’s importance in design and psychology, and how we tend to make connections between disparate imagery. I hope to demonstrate this phenomenon so that people are more aware of it and can detect when the brain is creating these connections.

Notes from Meeting with Nancy 9/16/22

Put two disparate things together and see what happens 

My capstone might be my process, meaning it’s more emergent

Finding a balance between knowing what I’m doing and giving myself room to explore

Play is important

Put some rules in place: 

- 10 experiments over the course of the next week 

- use 10 different materials 

- It can't be more than 1-2 minutes per experiment

Or something like that....

Summer update

Week 7: October 18

For scholarly research this week, I wanted to learn more about soft power. I read an article by Joseph Nye, the one who coined the term.

Citation: Nye, Joseph. “Soft Power: The Origins and Political Progress of a Concept.” Palgrave Communications 3, no. 1 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2017.8.

Link to article: https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms20178

I learned more about the exact definition of soft power, straight from the source. He defines power as the following: “Power is the ability to affect others to get the outcomes one prefers, and that can be accomplished by coercion, payment, or attraction and persuasion. Soft power is the ability to obtain preferred outcomes by attraction rather than coercion or payment." I think it's interesting that he coined it because of an apparent decline in US imperialism, as I feel the same discussions are still being held today.  He discussed how the meaning of the word has changed in relation to more recent events, and the varying responses to his invention of the word. I actually think still that soft power is underrated, because of its subtlety and its lack of discussion in politics. The same goes with juxtaposition, where I think that the power it has is subtle and underestimated. 

I also wanted to highlight my own version of the recipe cards from that I saw at Poster House the previous week.

This is just a sample, but I was thinking maybe the cards could contain information about any objects I make, or maybe any significant quotes that I found in my research. 

I was running out of blue ink, but I made the cards in photoshop and glued them to cardboard to make the cards. 

It’s a little sloppy, but I enjoyed making them. I feel like they are less the main focus of my project, and maybe something that I would make to go along with it and hand out if I had time. I would need to figure out a way to mass make them though. The cards could probably be printed somewhere like CVS or staples, but I’m not sure if there’s a way to reproduce the carrying case cheaply (I’m sure getting a custom folder like that would be expensive) or easily (making that many by hand would take too much time. I will think further about this. 

Overall this week, I was glad I got to learn more about the origins of soft power. The only reason I had heard that term before was in relation to Kpop, and how the tourism and hype that it brought has brought South Korea much more money and influence. I thought of the US as more of a hard power because of this country’s emphasis on the military, but I suppose our cultural influence would give use soft power as well. I would like to try to find another source that discusses this more in an art or media context though. I will also look more into the process of making the cards, or deciding exactly what information I would put on them. I may put it off for now though and decide to focus more on the main project, and make this more of an extra or side project. 

Hi!

This page is dedicated to explorations and updates about Rachel’s senior capstone project. 

Week 1 Update: September 12

After reading the articles that Nancy sent this week, and after our conversation, I have decided to not purse the 3D printing idea specifically. While I am not against using it in my work, I already don’t feel like the passion for it is deep enough for it to be the main topic of my capstone. 

I did really like MERRICK by Daan van den Berg. I like how it created a relationship between computer and biology (how the computer virus cause mutations similar to the way a real virus would). I also like how it was sort of out of your control what exactly the results would be like. 

I also liked Damien Davis’s work. While I don’t think what it’s what I'm trying to do in particular, I do think it gave me some inspiration about exploring process and material. For some reason, his work kind of reminds be of the interactive puzzle things that you would find on the jungle gym at the playground. Maybe it’s the way the material was used.

(the other articles I read and was sent were posted below)

I think I’ll try thinking about collage as a medium this week. It still doesn’t feel quite right through? But maybe will help get me to a better direction.

7 days of making to be posted soon. 🎂

Week 4: September 27

Last week, I talked to Nancy about how juxtaposition was a difficult topic to research, as it can be sort of a generic word that can be about the comparison of any two things, from scientific topics to art. This means that when researching it, it can be difficult to find articles that relate to it in the art/design context that I am looking for. 

Links from Nancy on juxtaposition: 

https://arttalks.com/exhibition/juxtaposition/

https://kayleyhutchinson.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/juxtaposition-composition-and-deconstruction/

I was thinking about how Nancy said that movement can be a medium, which also reminds me of the images I reposted on here from Wassily Kandinsky, who published two essays on his theory of form. The essays were accompanied by photographs and abstract drawings. Gret Palucca, a pioneer of the new expressive dance, was the model for the abstract drawings.  The Palucca-inspired sketches are originally based on photographs by Charlotte Rudolph  

This reminded me of another article that I found about dance notation, and how dance is recorded and notated in a 2D form: 

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1567163

They’re not really standardized, but I just love how beautiful and intricate the pieces in this article are, and it reminded me a bit of when I was looking into data visualization. I also shared this article with Arianna, as I thought it related to her topic as well. 

For creative research, this week I was thinking about what Toni said when I talked to her about making something people could walk through. I was thinking about a garden arches, or tunnels, or doors. I actually made a door that people couldn’t walk through for 3D class as a freshman.

Detail shots

I was really into iridescent paper

Cutting through the door after

So I’ve been thinking about maybe making some sort of collage or juxtaposition related tunnel that people could walk through.

I first started thinking of those wire or metal garden gates that people have.

I though about what if there was a collage or multimedia piece that people could walk through, and see a variety of colors/materials, or maybe collage themes or topics that people could walk through. I like the idea of light being able to pass through it as well. I made a mockup in photoshop here using the garden gate shown above 

I was also thinking about quilts and how they can sort of be a collage, and maybe I could make something quilt like and drape it over a structure that people could walk through. It would be cool if some of it could be transparent too….

Overall this week, I feel like I’ve been thinking a little differently than previously, and about movement and medium. I think the problem with the mockup that I made above is that it is beautiful, but I’m not sure how well it conveys the message of my topic. I also still feel like I need an exact topic for my juxtaposition though, but hopefully I am getting closer. I’ve reposted some other images this week that also interest me. This week I will also focus more on refining exactly what I want to make, and will go to the studio to make my inspiration board on the cardboard given in class. Next week I may try to make a small model of the mockup I made today.

Week 12: November 22

For creative research this week, I went back to Poster House to see two exhibits that weren't open the last time I went. 

Title wall from the first exhibit, Schoolgirls at War: French Propaganda Posters from World War I.

Nous Saurons by Camille Boutet 1918

Title card for Nous Saurons

Title wall for the second exhibit, With My Little Eye: Warnings for the Homefront

Careless Talk Costs Lives Posters

Both of these exhibits focus on propaganda posters. Going back to the topic of soft power, these posters often harness it and use juxtaposition as a way to compare contrasting imagery with the war in order to deliver a political message. For example, Nous Saurons features children looking longingly at a candy store, with the caption “We will know how to deprive ourselves”. There is a juxtaposition between the candy store, the longing children, the caption, and the presumably adult viewer that implies that if children can find the strength and discipline to ration and control their desires during the war, then adults should be more than capable to do the same. The poster is an effort to get the French people to support the sugar rations put in place by the war effort. The use of children to juxtapose the underlying message of supporting a war is much more effective than a poster that would have just said “Rationing sugar is patriotic”. It sets an extreme contrast that says “if you, an adult, are not able to ration sugar, you have worse self control than a child”, without saying that phrase explicitly. This way of using juxtaposition to construct guilt in order to support the war is subtle yet potent. Similarly, in the Careless Talk Costs Lives Posters, people chatting with each other or over the phone in mundane situations are juxtaposed with the captions that they are participating in something deadly. 

This week for scholarly research I read This Means This, This Means That: A User's Guide to Semiotics by Sean Hall. 

Citation: Hall, Sean. 2012. This Means This, This Means That : A User’s Guide to Semiotics. Vol. 2nd ed. London: Laurence King Publishing. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=926138&site=ehost-live.

Link: http://ezproxy.stevens.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=926138&site=ehost-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_75

Summary: Semiotics is the theory of signs, and reading signs is a part of everyday life: from road signs that point to a destination, to smoke that warns of fire, to the symbols buried within art and literature. Semiotic theory can, however, appear mysterious and impenetrable. This introductory book decodes that mystery using visual examples instead of abstract theory. This new edition features an expanded introduction that carefully and clearly presents the world of semiotics before leading into the book's 76 sections of key semiotic concepts. Each short section begins with a single image or sign, accompanied by a question inviting us to interpret what we are seeing. Turning the page, we can compare our response with the theory behind the sign, and in this way, actively engage in creative thinking. A fascinating read, this book provides practical examples of how meaning is made in contemporary culture.

In particular I wanted to focus on this section: 

It essentially discusses how differences between signs is only due our own perception, because what really defines “sameness” or “difference”. After all, it’s only when two objects are the same in every respect that we can say there are no differences. There are two kinds of difference: difference in kind (which is the fundamental thing that the object is) and difference in degree, which when there may be small variations between two things that may be very similar in general. This is important to the function of juxtaposition because juxtaposition is the comparison of two objects or concepts that are different from each other. But what does different really mean? 

I’m glad that this week I got to see the exhibits as poster house that were closed the last time I was there. I saw some good examples of how juxtaposition can be wielded to push a political agenda. The issue is that these juxtapositions are not based in the whole truth, or are not allowing equal comparisons. The lack of context in this case can be misleading, as comparing two extremes (such as the best of something with the worst of something) does not allow for a fair comparison. Without the full facts though, people may not be able to counter the juxtapositions that were put before them, and will come to the conclusion that the creator of that juxtaposition wants them to believe. Thus is the soft power of juxtaposition, and the importance of knowing how it functions and when to recognize it in order to think carefully before making any connections or conclusions. I also learned that line line between same and different is more blurred than I previously would have expected - could this be part of the reason that we can always find connections between unlike things? Or is it their degree of difference or kind that actually creates connections through differences instead? Perhaps both are true. I will explore both of these topics further maybe next week.