Results tagged “Rivane Neuenschwander” from :: ( CRIT ) :: DESIGN BLOG ::
Our graduate studio is on the fifth floor. We share the floor with the SVA undergrad animation department. Unless you’re an undergrad animation student or a graduate design student, you wouldn’t normally find yourself on the 5th floor. But if you did, you wouldn’t find yourself talking or interacting with another student outside of your aforesaid category—which is a shame because as designers and animators, we’re genetically predisposed to be natural story tellers and collaborators.
With this in mind, two first-year students, Andy Sir and Lauren Wolff, set out to design an experience to bring together the students of the 5th floor. Working as a team for Stefan Sagmeister’s Can Design Touch Someone's Heart class, Sir and Wolff created Comic Bond: a large, colorful and inviting installation of empty comic bubbles with markers and candy to lure both animation and design students into interacting with the wall and thus with each other.
Sagmeister’s parameters for this assignment were simple: touch the hearts of a community of 200-600 people through design. The students are given 4 weeks and free realm to address any community.
Wolff describes the idea for Comic Bond as “something free-form without too many instructions. The concept was to allow for a collaborative story to unfold in the form of blank comic panels.”
The students must be hungry because after a week, a dominant theme of hamburgers prevailed as the boards erupted with wild stories of an escaping Ronald McDonald being chased by an evil Ham Burglar, among many others. Many animation and design students eagerly scribbled away at the panels, mingling, talking and interacting with each other in the process. Comic Bond definitely created a conversation piece for the faculty and students of both programs. Wolff and Sir received accolades across the board, getting praise from the faculty of the Animation department on the project’s success, and the students asking if Comic Bond could be a permanent fixture. MFA Design Co-Chair Steve Heller applauded the project, saying, "It was the first outreach I know of from our department to the animation group. I think it touched the people who look at MFA Design as a walled sanctuary...coming out from behind the wall was a very warming and touching gesture."
Including audience participation is a long-time tradition in performance-based art. The inspiration for Comic Bond came from the work of Rivane Neuenschwander’s Zé Carioca No. 4 (2004), beautiful minimalist comic panels of colors and balloons and Measuring the Universe (2007), by Slovakian artist Roman Ondák where the inclusion of viewers in the process of art making involves marking down the gallery walls with their height. When an artist invites their audience to be a part of the work, the traditional division between art and viewer disappears. And in the case of Comic Bond, the division between the two departments disappears as well.
The creators only wish that they had more time to set up a stop-motion video to record the unfolding of the project, but they both learned that creating an interactive public art piece takes patience, but most importantly, that in a stream of day-to-day where 99% of people are going with the current, it only takes that 1% to take a turn and make a difference.
With this in mind, two first-year students, Andy Sir and Lauren Wolff, set out to design an experience to bring together the students of the 5th floor. Working as a team for Stefan Sagmeister’s Can Design Touch Someone's Heart class, Sir and Wolff created Comic Bond: a large, colorful and inviting installation of empty comic bubbles with markers and candy to lure both animation and design students into interacting with the wall and thus with each other.
Sagmeister’s parameters for this assignment were simple: touch the hearts of a community of 200-600 people through design. The students are given 4 weeks and free realm to address any community.
Wolff describes the idea for Comic Bond as “something free-form without too many instructions. The concept was to allow for a collaborative story to unfold in the form of blank comic panels.”The students must be hungry because after a week, a dominant theme of hamburgers prevailed as the boards erupted with wild stories of an escaping Ronald McDonald being chased by an evil Ham Burglar, among many others. Many animation and design students eagerly scribbled away at the panels, mingling, talking and interacting with each other in the process. Comic Bond definitely created a conversation piece for the faculty and students of both programs. Wolff and Sir received accolades across the board, getting praise from the faculty of the Animation department on the project’s success, and the students asking if Comic Bond could be a permanent fixture. MFA Design Co-Chair Steve Heller applauded the project, saying, "It was the first outreach I know of from our department to the animation group. I think it touched the people who look at MFA Design as a walled sanctuary...coming out from behind the wall was a very warming and touching gesture." Comic Bond Day 1
Comic Bond Day 5
Including audience participation is a long-time tradition in performance-based art. The inspiration for Comic Bond came from the work of Rivane Neuenschwander’s Zé Carioca No. 4 (2004), beautiful minimalist comic panels of colors and balloons and Measuring the Universe (2007), by Slovakian artist Roman Ondák where the inclusion of viewers in the process of art making involves marking down the gallery walls with their height. When an artist invites their audience to be a part of the work, the traditional division between art and viewer disappears. And in the case of Comic Bond, the division between the two departments disappears as well.
Left: Rivane Neuenschwander; Center and Right: Roman Ondák
The creators only wish that they had more time to set up a stop-motion video to record the unfolding of the project, but they both learned that creating an interactive public art piece takes patience, but most importantly, that in a stream of day-to-day where 99% of people are going with the current, it only takes that 1% to take a turn and make a difference.
