THEORY:
Erik Erikson, a well know psychologist emphasized the role of culture and society and the conflicts that can take place within the ego itself. According to Erikson, the ego develops as it successfully resolves crises that are distinctly social in nature. Erikson extends on Freudian thoughts by focusing on the adaptive and creative characteristic of the ego, and expanding the notion of the stages of personality development to include the entire lifespan. Erikson’s (1959) theory of psychosocial development has eight distinct stages:
5. Identity vs. Role Confusion
7. Generativity vs. Stagnation
CONCEPT:
My idea was to create my own 12 stages of life which are prebirth, birth, infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, late childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, midlife, mature adulthood, late adulthood and death. My main focus is on these 12 stages and a timeline depicting these stages. For my project I have allotted a word for each of the stages and a short description of how I perceive that stage in life. I have also done some research on the tree of life and its value in history, philosophy, science, etc and I feel like its very relatable to these stages of life. So for the project I thought I would create a tree in the centre of a large styrene circle. On that circle I will use the laser cutter to cut out the words that symbolize the stages for example hope, vitality, imagination, etc. The tree won’t be a traditional tree. Instead of leaves, I will have little openable cards with the names of the stages on the outer part of them and on the inside, I will have short sentences describing my perception of that stage and what it means to human life. The main concept this project follows is that of symbolism. Each individual part of the tree depicts a different stage of life and the complexity of the tree itself is a portrayal of the complexities of life. Each person perceives everything differently. The tree is a rendering of my portrayal of a tree. There are theories that tell us that a lot of assumptions about our past and lives can be made from how we perceive things to be. A very popular example of this is the House-Tree-Person test designed by John Buck. Buck felt artistic creativity represented a stream of personality characteristics that flowed onto graphic art. He believed that through drawings, subjects objectified unconscious difficulties by sketching the inner image of primary process. Out of the three, the house, the tree, the person, I chose the tree to be my main emphasis and I will choose 5 subjects and ask them to draw a tree. I will ask them a few questions about their drawing and the answers to these questions will reveal a small part of how they perceive life.
Materials Used:
1) Copper Wire
2) Styrene Board
3) Cardboard Cylinders
4) Foldable Cards
5) Laser Cutter
PROCESS:
WORK IN PROGRESS:
MY INTERPRETATION OF A TREE:
FINAL PIECE:
Photos:
Videos: