Date of Award
Spring 5-30-2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Graphic Design
First Advisor
Clement Valla
Second Advisor
James Goggin
Third Advisor
Andrew Sloat
Abstract
Edge is a deceptive word. It suggests lines, borders, designations—a kind of certainty. I see edge instead as a porous adjacency—the noise at the intersection of planes that adds meaning, rather than separation. Live Edges is a design research practice that is hyperobservational and multi-planar. Equal parts training ground and methodology, what began as an effort to derive graphic form from the intangible qualities of place developed into an approach to parsing complexity.
Setting locality as my origin point, signifiers of place—materiality, behavior, orientation, architectural form—serve as catalysts for graphic response. I interpret landscape in order to construct my own, testing methods for framing that employ rhythm and topography across multiple surfaces (physical or virtual), to construct immersive experiences.
My methodology is structured around a set of relationships and across a spectrum, from place toward process—from specific to abstract, structural to sensorial, interior to exterior, contained to fluid. The work modulates along these variants, simultaneously addressing dimension, clarity, and poetics, and bringing structure to the amorphous.
I build up from and into surfaces, blurring the flat and spatial as a tool for tension, interest, and layered meaning. Informed by architectural practice and theory, Live Edges considers context and scale, and observantly prods the edges, addresses the gaps, and uncovers every facet of terrain in research and form. The act of mining for nuance, combined with an agile approach to framing, constructs a process that is broadly translatable.
Recommended Citation
Leffell Koren, Rebecca, "Live edges: all possible adjacencies" (2016). Masters Theses. 32.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/32
Creative Commons License
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