Viewfinding
Contributor:
School of Visual Art & Design, University of South Carolina
PROJECT INFORMATION FOR EDUCATORS
Where?
Course Level
Why?
Conversation points for instructors
This exercise helps students learn to observe closely, study and play with materials and (tiny) scale, and become more familiar with abstraction.
Acknowledgements:
This project was greatly inspired by Bonnie Crawford's Viewfinders. Thanks, Bonnie!
3D Design, Beginning to Upper-level Sculpture, and could, certainly, be used in 2D courses, too.
Previously used in online classes, fully adaptable for hybrid and face-to-face classes.
PROJECT INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS
What?
Project Prompt / Challenge
Interpret found views as teeny,tiny three-dimensional installations inside a plastic keychain viewer.
How?
Strategy
Part 1: RESEARCH
Practice creating at least 3 different temporary installations inside your viewer.
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Try a variety of materials
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Do not glue anything permanently inside your viewer (yet)
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DOCUMENT EVERYTHING, EVERY STEP
STEPS:
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Gather lots of different materials
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Fill the entire space inside your viewer
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Look through your viewer.
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Have you considered the whole space? Background, middle ground, and foreground?
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Have you tried a mix of colors, textures, and densities of materials?
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Photograph each of your experimental installations
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Optional: Making videos looking through the viewer can be fun, too!
Part 2: FINDING YOUR VIEWS
Look all around you. Inside, outside. Take your time. Take a walk. Look really closely.
While you are perusing the view and seeing what you can see:
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Begin looking through your viewer (remove the opaque back piece for this).
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Move around.
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With one eye closed, compose different scenes.
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Document your views.
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Photograph what you see through your viewer by holding up your phone's camera lens to the viewer's eyepiece.
Part 3: INTERPRETING + BUILDING YOUR miniature world VIEW
The view you choose to recreate should come from looking through your plastic viewer and the photographs you made.
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The distortion from the lens of the viewer causes the scene or image to blur.
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This causes abstraction. Use this to your advantage.
Choose one of your photographs.
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Does it have a balanced composition? (radial, symmetrical, or asymmetrical balance?)
Time to Build!
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Use whatever materials you like.
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Consider transparency and translucency.
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Make sure you do not block all the light in your viewer, so you can still see the sculpture / composition inside.
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Layer your different materials inside your viewer.
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Use all of the three-dimensional space to create a miniature installation.
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Glue or attach things as needed.
REMEMBER:
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Consider the whole interior: foreground, middle ground, and background space!
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DOCUMENT EVERY STEP
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Photograph your installations from different angles outside the viewer and looking through the viewer lens.
A fun option: Create a video looking through the viewer. You can also add music or sound!
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Here's an example I made.
Materials:
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Plastic keychain viewers (I bought a pack of 50 from an online retailer)
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You can use all sorts of materials for this. Look around and see what you can find.
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Try different colors, different densities, and contrasting materials and textures.
Timeline:
One week.
Students collect and document views and materials and then make experimental temporary installations during class, or outside of class.
Photographs / Video of 3 temporary experimental installations and one (1) finished viewer are due at the beginning of next class.
FURTHER SUPPORT INFORMATION
Student Examples:
Inspirational
Artists:
Ann Wilson's Errant Behaviors, 2004
Sarah Sze: How we experience time and memory through art | TEDtalks | 13:51 minutes
Additional Tips:
Next time, I might also ask students to swap photos and create mini installations with someone else's photo. This could further play with abstraction, without the remembered in-person view.
