_ teaching 20221205 Virginia Tech 22FA He foundation lab

_ Virginia Tech 22FA He foundation lab : eyes of medusa

tag: [teaching] [phygital] [digi] [phys] [virginiatech]
date: 20221205
class: 2022 fall VT first year foundation lab : eyes of medusa
instructor: Nero Chenxuan He
review guests: James Bassett, Aaron Betsky, Enrique Ruiz Geli, Luis Borunda, Ellen Braaten, Virginia Melnyk, Isaac Mangual-Martinez, Miranda Shugars, Madision Cook, Bill Green
students: Ghadeer Al-Hassan, Camden Baker, Ira Carling, Amr Elamin, Isaiah Eneliko, Daniela Evans, Ally Hagyard, Hudeeja Ijaz, Karen Le, Sarika Maganahalli, Makena Mclaughlin, Callie Mikita, Dana Nurgaliyeva, Luis Núñez, Lilly Olejnicki, Jake Pabis, Manuel Quinones, Charan Rathnagirish, Madison Thompson, Elijah Trumbo, Nivisha Vikraman, Maggie Whitt

“I cannot do a building without building a new repertoire of characters, of stories, of language, and it’s all parallel. It’s not just building per se, it’s building worlds.”

— John Hejduk

Students selected objects from their daily lives and applied a range of design techniques to decompose and reform them into components that collectively generated John Hejduk inspired figures. The project engages as many fabrication facilities as possible in order to understand how digital materials can be translated into physical form. Beyond developing craft skills, students confront the consequences of their digital models and learn to negotiate material behavior within a digital environment.

The final work exists through the exchange between two media that produce distinct residues. Assets collected and curated in the first project are revisited and reseen with new objectives. Moving beyond image making, the project shifts attention toward what is typically overlooked, including the back, the hidden, and the unresolved. In doing so, it explores the latent conditions that emerge when digital and physical processes collide.