Date of Award

Spring 6-1-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Graphic Design

First Advisor

Paul Soulellis

Second Advisor

Aki Nurosi

Third Advisor

Keira Alexandra

Abstract

Open Articulations invites an exchange between human and environmental worlds through cycles of improvisation, reflection, and rebirth. It is a study of how exchanges emerge, what forms they can take, how they are mediated, and how we can sustain them with each other and with our surroundings. Through our coordinated immersion in landscapes and our spontaneous creation in them through frameworks encouraging play, we channel the spirit of a jazz drummer riffing with his midnight quartet, exchanging rhythms, images, sounds, movements, and textual fragments. A gentle breath, a flickering sensation, a gesture: expressions of a specific time rooted in a specific place.

The thesis is a window into how we experience and perceive landscapes in our own way through places that are often geographically separated, and how we find a sense of belonging in place through our improvisation and mindful presence in these spaces. Through a call and response with each other and with our own environments, we become motivated to explore new directions in our spaces, to take creative risks, and to nurture a more forgiving atmosphere, embracing our own and others’ mistakes. In making participatory archives of our experiences, we open a collective space for multiple voices to be heard and explore a shared history of a territory, thus offering new ways of understanding a place and each other. Together, our voices find new resonance points, commonalities, contrasts, and tunings, and our expressions take on new meaning as a result. This in turn shapes our next engagement with the world.

Comments

View exhibition online: Matthew Bejtlich, Open Articulations

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.