Here’s a fun video courtesy of Archives for a drizzly Tuesday—an Art Center promotional film from 1969.
It was directed by Advertising students Wayne Carmona and Gerald Eggers, and funded by the Society of Art Center Alumni. We really love the groovy intro and outro music, and the psychedelic cartoon near the end has us scratching our heads, yet thoroughly entertained. Head over to our new Videos section to view.
As you know, there’s always something going on when it comes to Art Center alumni, students and faculty. Some of the latest:
The New York Times has a fascinating profile on super-talented Illustration student Max Pauson, and his journey to Art Center.
“…This promising art student’s strong sense of self was hard-earned. It was forged in an unstable, emotionally wrenching childhood and, in an odd detail that might serve as a metaphor for his struggles, it comes after 19 years of life without a legal name. His birth certificate read only ‘(baby boy) Pauson.’ Name to come.”
Read more: What’s in a Name? A Lot, as It Turns Out
Transportation Design student Shane Baxley has developed the “Aebulle,” a vehicle concept for Hyundai that runs on an electric engine to provide a sustainable drive to the rider. Keeping the rider safe like a butterfly in a cocoon, the three-wheeler delivers the mobility and speed of a motorcycle. Very cool stuff.
Read more, and view more images: Hyundai Aebulle Concept offers a safe and sustainable ride
Great news—Art Center’s recruitment and portfolio posters, designed by MDP faculty member Brad Bartlett, have recently received Gold Awards from Graphis.
Congrats, Brad!
Next month, Art Center will welcome Dr. Penny Florence to her new post as Chair of the Humanities and Design Sciences Department. Florence comes to Art Center from The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, where she led the research programs. Prior to that, Florence was a professor of contemporary arts and director of research at University College Falmouth, U.K., where she inaugurated and led the Ph.D. program.
We recently spoke with Florence about her educational philosophy, goals for the department and her interest in electronic poetry.
What compelled you to move halfway across the globe and join Art Center?
Art Center is a great school, and I have always been impressed with the students, faculty and staff during my visits. But there’s something more—the College feels very dynamic at the moment and I want to contribute to this. HDS is a cross-disciplinary program whose potential interests me a great deal, and I aim to bring my experience to benefit and develop it. It’s so relevant today because jobs change so fast that you can’t just train to do one thing. You have to be able to transfer skills. Thinking across disciplines is really useful in assessing how best to move from one arena into another. That’s a big reason why a background in the humanities and design sciences is valuable for artists and designers. Another is that it enables you to look at the field of art and design in its entirety. This will always be useful, and sometimes essential.
LA HAS FAULTS, PHASE 1 (Sean Donahue, Graduate Media Design Faculty)
The L.A. Earthquake Sourcebook and the short film Preparedness Now, developed at Art Center as part of The Los Angeles Earthquake: Get Ready project, will be showcased in Cooper-Hewitt’s 2010 National Design Triennial, opening Friday. Art Center students, faculty, alumni and artists, in partnership with leading scientists and community experts, generated new research and visual communication tools about seismic safety as part of this Designmatters-led project. The project has become a national and international example of the power of design thinking applied to disaster preparedness.
“When we initiated the research phase for Get Ready, we were coping with the aftermath and systemic disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina, and seeking to understand how we could use the art and design expertise of our community as a catalyst for resiliency in our own backyard,” said Mariana Amatullo, vice president and director of Designmatters, the College’s social impact educational initiative. “We wanted to provoke a conversation about preparedness and rally public attention around it. Today, we look back at this project that has engaged so many of our students, faculty, alumni and a multidisciplinary consortia of partners nationally through Designmatters with a great sense of accomplishment. The conversation we started keeps resonating with the same sense of urgency and relevance as before.”
Check out this new addition to our online videos, courtesy of Archives: silent footage from the groundbreaking for the Pasadena campus in 1974. It’s hard to imagine Hillside Campus looking this way—where are all the trees? And the tent reminds us a little of graduation. Architect Craig Ellwood makes an appearance in the film, as does famed designer Charles Eames. Very cool stuff.
Check it out: Pasadena Groundbreaking
Dubbed “the event with the intimidating title” by its organizers, the first annual 4 Hours Solid took place on April 21 at Art Center’s South Campus and marked the first time the College specifically showcased work and ideas from its four graduate programs—Graduate Art, Broadcast Cinema, Industrial Design (GradID) and Media Design (MDP).
Over 300 people attended the evening event, which included a panel discussion, exhibitions of recent student theses and work, student film screenings and a reception.
For the students showing their work, the evening provided a welcome opportunity to get feedback on their projects.
MDP student Haemi Yoon, who presented her thesis project that explores the down-time of everyday electronic objects, said she was surprised by the questions visitors asked her. “I thought people wouldn’t understand the project, but they totally got it,” said Yoon. “People asked me, ‘What do you think a future object will look like?’ and ‘Do you think these objects should have personalities?’ It was a great dialogue.” Continue reading
Film student Steven Butler is a professional dancer and choreographer in addition to being a full-time Art Center student.
Recently, he worked on a project for a cinematography class where the assignment was to reveal objects in a frame using just one shot. Steven decided to capture a dance performance.
“The idea was to choreograph the camera movements of 10 to 15 dancers to match three minutes of pre-edited music. This meant I had to shoot a three-minute take with no mistakes,” he remembers. “I ran into obstacles with lighting and shadows and most of all, blocking the dancers’ movements off-camera. After about eight takes we got it right.”
Read more about Steven and his experiences at Art Center in this great interview.