Faculty:

Beili Liu

STUDIO ART

Lure #1
dimensions variable
thread, needles

Janet Kastner

STUDIO ART

Flower Portrait (roses)
22 x 22 x 17 inches
porcelain

Jade Walker

STUDIO ART

Figures #5
55 x 37 x 22 inches
fabric, plastic, weight bench pads, cast rubber

Dan Olsen

DESIGN

Suspension of Disbelief
photographs

Dan Sutherland

STUDIO ART

Hope Sack
5 x 6 feet
oil on canvas on panel

John Stoney

STUDIO ART

Explaining Time to a Dead Hare
27 x 12 x 17 inches
polymerized gypsum, 24k gold leaf

Leslie Mutchler

STUDIO ART

Cabinet InFlux
3 x 3 x 7.5 feet
wood, veneer, newsprint

Riley Triggs

DESIGN

Set design for Forest Grove film, a Sundance Online Film Festival “Frontier Project” selection

Peter Hall

DESIGN

The following is an excerpt from Hall's essay, published in Up, Down, Across: Elevators, Escalators, and Moving Sidewalks. *

Download the entire article as a PDF.

Designing Non–Space: The Evolution of the Elevator Interior

“Arbo equipped their newest model with an oversized door to foster the illusion of space, to distract the passenger from what every passenger feels acutely about elevators. That they ride in a box on a rope in a pit. That they are in the void.”

Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist

The idea that, in entering an elevator, we are entering a kind of limbo, a transitory space where gravity is momentarily defied, lurks behind the entire history of the elevator interior's development. More than any decorative embellishments or surface treatments, awe and fear have defined the space since its invention. In Delirious New York (1978), Rem Koolhaas characterized the elevator as an invention loaded with contradiction: it “contained in its success is the specter of its possible failure.” For the elevator to gain public acceptance and cohabit with the skyscraper to alter city skylines irrevocably, Elisha Otis first had to perform a miracle at the New York Crystal Palace exposition of 1853–54. He cut the cable that had hoisted him above the assembled crowd. It snapped, the platform jolted, but Otis did not crash to the floor; his spring–and–rachet safety brake had held him steady. “Thus Otis introduces an invention in urban theatricality,” noted Koolhaas: “the anticlimax as denouement.”

*Hall, Peter Alec. “Designing Non–Space: The Evolution of the Elevator Interior.” In Up, Down, Across: Elevators, Escalators, and Moving Sidewalks, edited by Alisa Goetz, 59–77. London: Merrell, 2003.

Ken Hale

STUDIO ART

Fragment #7

Beili Liu

STUDIO ART

GO #1
6' x 6' x 4"
salt, water, shotgun shells

Leslie Mutchler

STUDIO ART

Untitled (Manufactured Utopia II: High Density Housing)
60 x 80 inches
digital print on Somerset paper

Dan Sutherland

STUDIO ART

Alluvion
6.6 x 4 feet
oil on aluminum

Gloria Lee

DESIGN

Magnet Carter
Engagement and criticism through writing;
Engagement and criticism through market– or client–based projects;
Engagement and criticism through form–making, or polemical objects; and
Engagement and education through form–making

I view design as not only as a practise of form–giving in isolation but of form–giving within a larger system and context, that recognizes the interdependence of design decisions and the individuals they affect. In addition, the process of creating the designed object can be as important as the object itself.

As someone who has worked both in the more traditional arenas of branding and software development, I have become more interested in recent years in the environmental, communication and educational conditions in which we operate, and through that, the democratic process–in particular, the collaborative process and voicing of all actors or actants (Latour) within the networks we live. This interests lies within the domains of action research, particularly action science (Argyris), and participatory action research as espoused by Friere. My intent is to build upon this with the incorporation of designed visual or environmental cues.

The 2008 Magnet Carta project is an example this–the creation of a performative visual cue that is meant to instill and reinforce group identity through an articulation of belief. While, in its first iteration, an imperfect example of participatory design due to time limitations and modular participation, I believe it does hold promise in terms of evolving and changing the quality of classroom and program environments.

Middle school students are notorious in terms of their independence, their rebellion and their lack of pre–frontal cortex development (the area of the brain neurologists commonly associate with executive activities, or “sober second thought”). Behavior issues and lack of con–sideration of others in middle schools are not uncommon, even among the more “select” programs. This Magnet program, which draws students interested in humanities, arts and law, is no exception.

Through discussion with program faculty and parents, we worked to develop this “environmental cue” to aid both students and faculty. Initial ideas, suggested by the faculty and parents–removable tattoos, stickers, mascot–were nixed when presented to the students. Instead, what received a warmer welcome was a singular and formal document. Modeled upon various historical declarations of importance (think Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights) and working with a few students and one parent, I crafted the text of the belief statement.¹ In addition, I designed and produced the document, which was then presented to each grade level within the program in a ceremony. The students signed their names as part of the ceremonies for each grade level, on special days, such as a field trip to the Alamo in San Antonio. Initial follow-up from this activity (with seventh and eighth graders), while scant, has been positive; some teachers have used the text within their social studies classes; the framed documents live in the office of the program director, where students will frequently point to their signatures.²

The Magnet Carta

And, in order to obtain these rights, we must also afford these rights to others.

We now, therefore, proclaim this Magnet Carta as a common standard of achievement for all peoples of the Fulmore Magnet Program, to the end that every student, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights both among the peoples of the Program, and among our social groups beyond.

ARTICLE 1

We commit to our own individual authority to develop our own minds and behavior in order to engage our minds to our greatest capacities; and to work with teachers and peers to reach set standards, and when possible, surpass them.

ARTICLE 2

We agree that each student has the right to learn from the class and are responsible for the impact of our individual actions upon each other and ourselves; and

ARTICLE 3

We accept the consequences, be it positive and negative results from those actions and decisions.

ARTICLE 4

We, the Students also proclaim that ways that we can accomplish these ideals include:

• Complete assignments by due date
• Listen to the teacher and each other
• Treat teachers and each other with respect
• Follow classroom agreements

Proclaimed on the Third Day of December in the Year of Two thousand and Eight and to bear witness thereof
We have hereunto subscribed our Names…

Michelle Bayer

DESIGN

Thumbprint Dress, version 2 (paper)
paper, thread

John Stoney

STUDIO ART

Central Park Morphology
32 x 25 inches
colored pencil on rag paper