Month: December 2017

“Expansion into Space” Project Process

Step 1: Mood board

Upon hearing the prompt of “expansion into space” I immediately thought of the future and where humans are headed, both literally and figuratively. Initially I wanted my project to be (visually) gloomy and dystopian, with a colour palette of greys and blues.

Step 2: Inspiration material

Many of the inspirations for this idea came from Radiohead songs, the HBO show Westworld, and a Haruki Murakami short story about a doomed plastic surgeon. All of these sources of inspiration dance around the idea of society becoming an increasingly boring, unhappy place in which (wealthy) people may indulge in many luxuries yet continue to live emotionally/spiritually unfulfilling lives. When I think of the future of “accessible” space travel, I can only see this being enjoyed by the 1% population.

Step 3: Sketches + colour palettes

I looked at old Space Race propaganda from the 60s for further development of this idea, and started trying out content and layout concepts in my sketchbook. On Illustrator I arranged a few potential piece palettes from these pictures.

As I started working towards the actual piece, however, I deviated pretty far from these initial plans. Instead, I looked up “space fashion trend” on Google Images and eventually stumbled upon Gucci’s 2017/18 Star Trek-inspired photoshoot, and decided to go for a more editorial look of the piece.

The Final Product

My concept is that these are what (fashion) magazines will be in the future, when space travel/interplanetary colonisation has taken place. On Photoshop Elements, I’ve created three beta-magazine spreads that would perhaps place an emphasis on the “new age of exploration,” physical luxury and perfection. In a futuristic beauty/fashion industry, I also see an emphasis being placed on plastic surgery, dieting, and more thorough health precautions due to advance in technology. Specifically, for the plastic surgery ad, I chose to use the tragic character “Dr. Tokai,” a plastic surgeon, from Murakami’s short story.

Bridge 4: Intervention with a Monument

The monument I chose to “intervene” with is the General Grant National Memorial/Grant’s Tomb, located in Riverside Park in New York City. My aim was to create a commentary piece separate from the mausoleum itself out of respect and an educational context.

Planning/design process:

Materials used:

  • white, gold reflective, and white plexiglass
  • Olfra knife (for letter engraving)
  • MDF board
  • bristol paper
  • Photoshop + Illustrator (collage)
  • nut-backed screws

Finished result:

The placard, taken as inspiration from the very same quote etched on the outside of Grant’s Tomb.

The original painting inside Grant’s Tomb.

The interactive spinnable collage inside of the wheel. Pictured are roughly 150+ years of protest history in the United states, including the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the mid 1800s into the 1920s, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the Black Lives Matter and student protests in 2014, and the Alt-Right rally and Antifa protests in August of 2017. Using both historical and contemporary examples of rally and protest illustrates that this power dynamic between minorities and their oppressors is not a new phenomena to the US, nor is it showing any signs of ever going away or dying down.