It all started with the idea that a collaborative final project might ease those end-of-semester pressures. But it grew-exponentially-consuming them for two weeks solid and taking on a life of its own. Remarkably similar to what the three art students hoped to illustrate in their project.
It was a case of life mirroring art.
The three students-Tiffany Calvert '98, Haakon Faste '98, and Scott Gaynor '00-planned and executed an exhaustive fourth and final project for their Advanced Silkscreen class, taught by John Pearson. Pearson, the Young-Hunter professor of studio art, acknowledged that the project could easily have been a semester-long endeavor.
The students wished to illustrate how communications technologies have evolved over time, how the number of technologies has increased exponentially, and how technology has become more and more incomprehensible, but nevertheless essential, to people in everyday life. To understand the beginning, it's best to start at the end.
"We wanted to do something really big," said Calvert.
"To really wake them up, something they couldn't ignore," agreed Faste.
The "really big" part was the final phase of their four-part project, an enormous computer card silkscreened with binary code. The work, which hung from the roof of Mudd, formed a cloth wall extending to the patios outside the lower level, below the first-floor level.
The space filled by the 13 panels of cloth measures 102 feet by 63 feet. That was the dimension with which the artists began.
They began their project with a series of three silkscreen prints, all of which were proportional in size to the Mudd space. To illustrate technology's exponential growth, the students decided to make each print twice the size of the prior one. To illustrate technology's incomprehensible nature, each image was set on a backdrop of some kind of "code."
The first print, a telegraph on a backdrop of Morse code, brought a surprising twist to the idea of incomprehensible technology. "Some people didn't even know what a telegraph was," Calvert said. The second print presented an image of a telephone on a backdrop of a switchboard. The final print featured a radio tower on a backdrop of radio waves. "Each of these codes breaks down to two items, two signals that are not translatable by most people," said Calvert. The prints appeared without explanation all over campus at intervals during the week preceding the Mudd installation.
Then came the finale. Working with staff members from the College's buildings and grounds department, the students hung the 13 panels. Each panel measured 70 feet long by 7 1/2 feet wide. Each panel was bordered top and bottom with blank strips of cloth. An eight-foot length of PVC pipe was sewn into the top strip of each panel to allow for hanging. The strips at the bottom of each panel were held down by three sandbags weighing a total of 210 pounds.
"Doing the code on the library was very interesting," said Gaynor. "It was very simple-just black and white, not as thought-through as the prints, but it was the most striking."
The three agreed that the project, which was funded by the Office of the President, the Student Union, and the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, taught them professional skills that art students don't generally think about while they're in school-like how to organize, obtain funding, secure permissions, get materials, and mobilize manpower."The project was far beyond what the class called for," Faste said. "But when you get an idea like this, you have to do it. It forces people to think!"
| Project Timeline | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, 4/29/97 | The students devise the images and their project plan. | |
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Remainder of week |
They obtain funding for the project and permission to hang the art from the roof of Mudd Center. Building and grounds personnel secure hooks to the roof of Mudd to hold the installation in place. | |
|
Friday, 5/2/97 early morning |
Silkscreening of the telegraph print begins; 1,000 copies were reproduced. The print measures 4 x 8 inches. | |
|
Saturday, 5/3/97 late night |
The telegraph print is hung on building entryways throughout campus. The artists, working with friends, divided into three pairs, each of which covered a third of the campus. | |
|
Monday, 5/5/97 early morning |
The telephone print appeared; 300 copies of the 8 x 16-inch work were reproduced. | |
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Monday, 5/5/97 afternoon |
The students, who had been having trouble finding enough material for the Mudd installation, finally locate a supply. They borrow a car and drive to Toledo to purchase it. | |
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Wednesday, 5/7/97 early morning |
The radio tower print appears on campus doorways; 125 copies of the 16 x 32-inch print were made. | |
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Wednesday 5/7/97 11 p.m. |
After sleeping for six hours, the students begin silkscreening the cloth panels for the Mudd installation. They complete all the 0s, then begin the 1s. They work continuously in shifts, two working and one sleeping, until Friday morning. | |
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Friday, 5/9/97 7:30 a.m. |
The panels are done. The seams of the cloth strips that will hold the panels in place still need to be sewn. | |
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Friday, 5/9/97 8 a.m. |
A crew from the College's buildings and grounds department is waiting on the roof of Mudd to assist with the installation. | |
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Friday, 5/9/97 10 a.m. |
The installation is completely hung. |
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Week of 5/12/97 |
The artists try to catch up on sleep, and on the assignments they've been neglecting for their other classes! | |
--Anne Paine
Go to Centerpiece photos
Return to the ATS-July 1997 Table of Contents