Light the Grid

Hooray!!!!!! I've finally finished my gridart project. It took a week of painstaking measuring, cutting, assembling, and an amount of gluing that borders on insanity, but it is finally complete. And I have to say that it turned out even better than I originally imagined. Overall, I'm extremely pleased. Before I even turn it in, I'm posting a bunch of pictures, from different stages of the construction process, to give a better appreciation for the work that went into the piece.

The cardboard grid fully assembled, without the paper cover or lights

Again

And again

The holes for the lights, taken from the front

The holes for the lights, taken from the back

The light wiring on the back of the grid; everything's been glued down

And finally............. the finished product. I made the pattern first in Microsoft Paint, then transferred it to the grid. A difficult, but fun process.

One last shot: the back of the grid, with the lights turned on

Again, I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and will definitely be putting this up somewhere in my dorm room. I think it is a perfect representation of what we are studying in class. It perfectly blends traditional, hand-made art with the magic of modern technology. I also like that it looks so clean and simple from the front, and yet so complicated in the back. It is a great example of how much goes on behind the scenes to produce nearly everything we enjoy in our daily lives.

P.S.
I'm considering adding, at a slightly later date, blue lights in the smaller, unused cells around the edge of the grid. I think it would add a nice contrast to the plain off-white lights, and serve as a sort of virtual frame.

A View to A Flipbook (and Gridart)

As far as the main subject matter of our most recent Art & Technology classes goes, we've been mostly looking at the history of radio, television, the computer, and most recently, the internet. However, my focus in this post is on the projects I've been assigned.

Firstly, as promised, I've posted some frames from my flipbook animation to give you a taste of what mine is about. Check them out below. I will talk more about it when I get the whole thing assembled as a proper video to upload.


Now that the flipbook project is out of the way, I'm working on a "gridart" project. This is pretty much what it sounds like. It is essentially any piece of non-digital art that is based around the notion of a grid. I won't reveal exactly what I'm doing yet, as I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I will say that it involves copious amounts of cardboard and a little electricity. Once it is done, I will definitely upload some pictures.