Title: Leave The Past Behind
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Brainstorming |
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I had looked to organic versus industrial art designs to get some inspiration and created a list of ones that I saw that I would like to do (bullets above). I decided that I wanted to take on a shadow sculpture. A shadow sculpture is the idea of taking items such as discarded wood, welded scrap metal, broken tools, cigarette packets, soda cans and piles of trash and forming them into a figure that creates something significant off of light. The result is surprising and powerful as it redefines how abstract forms can transform into figurative ones. I also figured that some of the other options were a little disproportionate to that materials that I had access to (3-D printing).
Materials Needed |
I envisioned the use of a silhouette of the side view of a part of my body. It would be made out of child building blocks that the light will extend its shadow from to make my face. I got this idea from the sculptures made by Kumi Yamashita, who created 0 to 9. Kumi Yamashita creates sculptures that look like abstract forms or random assemblages of objects, but when they are lit from a specific angle, the sculptures cast shadows of human figures and other intriguing forms.
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0 to 9 by Kumi Yamashita
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ProcessI first went out and bought myself a bucket full of building blocks and child would use to have to put back into the correct shape. Instead of using it for that purpose, I was going to configure the pieces so that when I would set a light up hitting the pieces at a certain angle, it would cast a silhouette of my face. In the beginning, before starting the project, I thought that it was going to be a very easy and simple process, I was terribly wrong. It was very difficult to arrange the pieces in a manner that was even remotely similar to a face. It took me a long time re-configuring the pieces and the light fixture go get that perfect cast of a face.
Movement InspirationSurrealism is a very influential movement that contributes to shadow sculpting. Surrealism is a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images. Surrealist imagery is probably the most recognizable element of the movement, yet it is also the most elusive to categorize and define. Each artist relied on their own recurring motifs arisen through their dreams or/and unconscious mind. At its basic, the imagery is outlandish, perplexing, personal to the artist, and even uncanny, as it is meant to jolt the viewer out of their comforting assumptions. In my case, my piece is relevant to my own experiences and uncovers certain perspectives to my personal life.
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