Project Deconstruction

Project Deconstruction: Develop an Electronic Learning Portfolio post to archive your experience, as a researcher, of a project you completed last semester.

Goal: to look back on a project and consider in detail why and how your project was made, less as the maker and more as someone researching how it was made. Consider all the outside stimulus that may have influenced this project.

Using a project you created last semester, deconstruct it as if you are a researcher looking for new insights in how the project was put together: 

  1. What was the initial idea and did the final outcome meet your expectations? What class was the project for? What was the conceptual framework that inspired the work?
  2. Next, focus on the process: what was your process of making this project? What were the material choices you had to make? Why did you choose those materials, would you choose new materials if you had to re-do it?

Describe the project clearly, using writing, photos and other media (if needed, i.e., video, a gif, audio, etc.) to describe the project from the beginning (process pictures, if you have them) and the final image of the completed project.  

What to include?

1. You will begin by collecting and reviewing all the different aspects of the project that you still have. These aspects might include the following: A.  notes and sketches in your sketchbook, B. photos of materials/supplies, C. photos of your work in process and, D. a final photo of the completed work, installed, if you have one.

2. Describe the project: A. what was the focus, purpose, intent  of the project?  Who assigned it and why did they assign it – what did they want you to learn?

4. What part of the project was most meaningful or that you learned the most from? What was the most challenging? Did the skills or ideas you developed and used connect to another project? Would you like to continue to explore your ideas from tis project in the future? Why or why not? 

Double check that you have categorized (IS2 Seminar and Studio) and tagged your post!

In your seminar class you will go deeper into the broader contextualization and influences that may have affected the outcome.

Artist Salavat Fidai.  What theme would you categorize his work as: identity, gender, race, class, environment?

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Did you know that modern pencils owe it all to an ancient Roman writing instrument called a stylus? Scribes used this thin metal rod to leave a light, but readable mark on papyrus (an early form of paper). Other early styluses were made of lead, which is what we still call pencil cores, even though they actually are made of non-toxic graphite. But pencil history doesn’t stop there… [click here for the rest of the article]

Inside One of America’s Last Pencil Factories

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