Design, Strategy, & Practice Week 7: Materials exploration

With Joseph Beuys’ work as a starting point, I became interested in the mental associations we have with different materials.

The meaning of Beuys’ Rose for Direct Democracy, for example, is derived entirely from perceptual-emotional confusion that we experience as viewers when we attempt to reconcile the presence of the rose (romanticism, revolution) with that of the graduated cylinder (science, knowledge).

For my own exploration, I decided to transform the PCB, a symbol of digital technology, into a canvas for artistic expression. I think there is something beautiful about the complex, city-like structure of the PCB, and I wondered if there’d be a way to make it come alive. Using spray paint, I ended up making an abstract painting on a spare PCB.