Browsing by Subject "Furniture"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
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    Artifacts from the Anthropocene
    (2018) Spicuzza, Shelley; Hudnall, Katie
    My current body of work captures and displays a humanity manipulated geological history. I use and rework the discarded to build records of time, memory, and progress seen from the perspective of an uncertain future. By combining organic and synthetic materials I create moments fabricated in a modern dystopia. We enter the Anthropocene, the age of humans. Earth is ever-changing and, for the first time, one species is capable of leaving a worldwide impact.
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    BLDG
    (2018) Boll, Greg; Hudnall, Katie; Furqueron, Reagan; Baker, Lesley
    BLDG is a concept - a group of parameters, which create an internal logic. It is a system, in the loosest sense of the word; it is just rigid enough to be productive, but open-ended and flexible enough that a variety of artistic responses and readings are possible. Drawing on numerous disciplines, both artistic and not, it establishes a framework for producing assemblages from a minimal palette of readymade construction materials. BLDG is momentarily self-contained and self-organized. But, references to the world outside itself keep the works from feelings insular and allow new connections to be made between its source disciplines. While markedly different in form, BLDG is the synthesis of ideas about process, space, material, structure, and the object, explored in the works preceding it. Though invested in the assemblages it produces, BLDG is far more interested in, and directed toward, the ideas which these constructions advance. To probe and develop these ideas further, it embraces the ephemeral; the objects created are temporary embodiments of the ideas it promotes. Their provisional nature expresses a position of between-ness. Between noun and verb, object and idea; not necessarily thing, yet not solely action. Between temporary and permanent, no longer physically present, but as an idea easily reconstructed; momentarily static, yet forever changing. Between disciplines - specifically architecture, construction, furniture, design, drawing, sculpture - pulling them into conversation with each other in new ways. Between simplicity and complexity, minimal in material, but maximal in action. Between direction and improvisation. Between stability and collapse, embracing a precariousness that produces uncertainty and unveils the process to the viewer. Between start and end, one part of an evolving continuum reconfiguring ideas from past works to test and develop for future works.
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    Contradiction: Permanent Temporal
    (2016) Li, Shuyu; Hudnall, Katie
    Each individual utilizes memory and experience as the path to explore unknown, and memory functions even more significantly when one physically or mentally dislocated from the environment where the memory was created in. People always try to make memory more accessible by using or manipulating tangible objects, for example: photography, videotapes, and sound tracks. Not only to record life, but also to seek permanence since each human being only has limited time of consciousness. As memory, it’s permanent, as experience, it’s relatively temporary.
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    Form of Play
    (2014) Tommer, Nathan; Tennant, Phil
    I describe the work that I have made for my MFA thesis show as sculptural, Modernist inspired furniture, with forms based on or derived from those of classic mass manufactured children’s toys. It is a body of work which was initially conceived as a reaction to what I felt were the latent formal associations between certain types of children’s toys and prototypical Modernist furniture designs. The idea that there may be a relationship between toys and Modernism first occurred to me in the early part of 2010, while obtaining my bachelor of science in industrial design. Later that year I solidified my intention to create a body of artwork which would explore both the validity of that perceived connection and its aesthetic potential. This paper and the thesis exhibition which it is written to document and accompany are the tangible results of that intention.
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    The Legacy of the Individual
    (2014) Tury, Colin; Robinson, Cory
    What does it mean to be the Maker? In today’s society, with CNC technology and the ability to create objects without having to physically interact with the medium at hand, why would anyone expel energy doing things “traditionally”? One merely needs to know how to navigate a digital checklist to operate such advanced technology. The internet makes learning this technology even easier. With the help of online tutorials and forums, anyone can get a crash course in such powerful technology. I am not opposed to such technology, for I see it as just a tool that can enable one to work more efficiently if needed, but that is not the question. In a discipline full of artists, craftsmen, fabricators, designers, design-builders, and so on, how does one coexist without being lost in the sea of titles? And more importantly, why do we attempt to define ourselves? I am a maker because it is not about the title, it is about the act.
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    Modern Groove
    (2014-05) Ladwig, Samuel; Robinson, Cory
    Robert Venturi’s assertion that “Orthodox Modern[ists] have tended to recognize complexity insufficiently or inconsistently” is at the heart of the disconnection between modernist and post-modernist responses to the world around us and represents the primary rift in the modernist continuum (Venturi, 1966). Whether for rhetorical impact or his own dogmatic beliefs, the point that Venturi failed to acknowledge is that often designers do not choose to “eschew ambiguity” because they don’t recognize complexity. Rather some prefer clarity as a natural reaction to complexity, and some fifty years after his “gentle manifesto” the search for order in a chaotic world is still an important creative imperative. The goal of my research is not to argue against the merits of embracing complexity directly. It is to create a personal guidebook for why I choose not to. My work is not a misguided attempt to suggest that life and the world are simple. My tendency to favor the design principle of unity over variety is due to my appreciation for the preciousness of aesthetically quiet moments precisely because the world is complex. I prefer to use formal qualities to create harmony rather than tension in an attempt to create elegant moments as a counterbalance to a sometimes chaotic existence. Throughout this investigation I have also realized that there is an important distinction to be made between the goals and responsibilities of a furniture designer as opposed to other disciplines, and I have found there to be more latitude within furniture to embrace post-modernist ideas than I originally expected. Scale and the use of furniture automatically make it able to have specific conversations with the user and viewer, but similar to my thoughts on architecture, furniture’s lifespan and prominence in an environment make overtly ironic compositions difficult for me to justify when the user must interact with the work daily. With some pieces I have purposefully experimented with the effects that furniture and posture can have on the user, and I have embraced the use of metaphor and semiology to extend the potential of my furniture to communicate visually more effectively. I believe that chronological distance from the hardline orthodoxy that Venturi challenged has given me more freedom to utilize post-modern concepts without feeling the need to use them as an argument for or against modernism, but it is still important to me that complexities and contradictions in my designs are perceived as whispers rather than screams.
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    Tactile Connections in a Digital Era
    (2017) Campbell, Hannah; Hudnall, Katie
    My research seeks to capture the tactile satisfaction of solving physical puzzles with the excitement of exploring new technologies by reimagining traditional carpentry techniques in a digital context. As is common with modern techniques, the possibilities are endless but I present a few scratches at the surface in the form of puzzle-like joint examples to learn the physical systems combined with demonstrative animations to give the viewer a glimpse of how the small object they are playing with could be applied in different contexts.
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    When Robots Dream
    (2017) Penzenik, Christopher; Robinson, Cory
    I have always been deeply invested in the genre of science fiction and the technology created for and from it. Understanding that the role of science fiction is first and foremost to invent the future, I seek to marry the use of futuristic technologies with traditional methods of making furniture, creating a form that is functional, fantastical, and ironic. In order to accomplish this, I have created RBT-X, a series of six tables that take the form of robots. Each table is composed of Baltic Birch and Cherry woods, the bodies of which have been illustrated with the aesthetic of robots, created by laser engraving into the wood. The tables themselves are constructed using traditional woodworking techniques, which highlight the warmth of the material and the familiarity of the form as furniture. Each table in the RBT-X series has a particular function as a table. This can be seen in the range of tables created within this series; a prototype end table, a production-ready end table, a personal desk, a hall table, a coffee table, and a work bench. Each table is illustrated in such a way that there is an illusionary sense of individuality in the robotic qualities of the piece. This series carries a sense of irony/absurdity both in the non-functionality of each piece as a robot as well as in the bulk of the robotic bodies when compared to a simple tabletop. RBT-X is a glimpse into the future while being firmly rooted in the present.