DIGITAL ARTS GRADUATE STUDENTS DISPLAY "EYE-BLINKING" WORK

Top left: Tzu-Huan Lin (M.F.A. ’12), Noah’s Ark, 2010, mixed media: (5) inkjet prints, mp3 player, ViewMaster, transparencies, 11 x 14 inches; Top right: John Lee (M.F.A. ’12), Threes Thirty, 2010, video, RT: 1 minute, 30 seconds; Bottom left: Ying Tang (M.F.A. ’12), Peking Opera, 2010, digital print, 11 x 17 inches; Bottom center: Piyatas Tantanapornchai (M.F.A. ’12), Multiply, 2010, touchscreen and action script, 1920x1080px or 1026W x 619H x 132.7D mm; Bottom right: Fangge Chen (M.F.A. ’12), Go Ski, 2010, graphic novel, 12 x 60 inches

“Spanning A Blink,” an exhibition of new works by 27 first-year graduate students in the Digital Arts M.F.A. program and two from the Fine Arts M.F.A. program, inaugurated the new Digital Arts Gallery and the (soon-to-be-called) Green Screen Room in Myrtle Hall for two weeks in December 2010. The exhibition concluded the fall semester of the Digital Arts Practicum required of all incoming graduate students in the Graduate Digital Arts department at Pratt.

The practicum’s three sections were taught by two adjunct faculty members in the Department of Digital Arts, Lara Kohl and Linda Lauro-Lazin, who also coordinated the exhibition.

Alex Kaminsky (M.F.A. ’12), Lookin' For Love, 2010, sculpture, speakers, and PHP, 8 inches H,
4x4 inches W “Spanning A Blink,” centered on two themes that reflected the students’ real life experience of being at Pratt: managing the distance and differences between New York City and the faraway places from which many of them originate—Taiwan, Lebanon, Mexico, Thailand, California, and Korea—and living in an age of instantaneous access to information.

“Great physical distances can be traversed virtually in milliseconds through digital technologies,” said Kohl, “but the places themselves remain in many ways worlds apart. We are more ‘connected’ than ever, but the quality and nature of these connections is changing, while our attention span shrinks and we flit from one topic to the next, from one site to another.”

The works on display ranged from interactive touchscreens, digital prints and photos, to video, embroidery, and mixed media.

Photos: Courtesy of the Department of Digital Arts

GREEN RESIDENCE HALL PROJECT WINS INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

L-R: Ivey Lian, M.I.D. ’11; Edward Hale, M.I.D. ’12; James Ian Killinger, M.I.D. ’12

The 1702—Living Laboratory green residence hall room project was selected as one of five projects to be featured in Storefront for Art and Architecture, Architizer.com, and Actar Publisher's “Total Housing 01: Apartments” exhibition that addresses the incongruity between outmoded ideas of domestic space and contemporary urban lifestyles. The project was selected from nearly 400 submissions and will be on display at Storefront for Art and Architecture at 97 Kenmare Street, Manhattan, through January 22, 2011. 

 

Pratt’s 1702—Living Laboratory project will be on display alongside two U.S.-based projects and one project each from firms in France and Spain. 

 

According to Storefront for Art and Architecture, the projects on display “demonstrate innovative thinking through material applications, programmatic arrangements, or technological implementations through experiments that address notions of age, territory, policy, and education.” Total Housing is a series of competitions launched to create today's definitive source for residential designs that go beyond standardized and canonical models of inhabitation. 

 

Pratt Institute undergraduate and graduate industrial and interior design students, along with staff from Pratt's offices of Facilities Management and Residential Life, worked collaboratively to design and build the 1702—Living Laboratory green residence hall room model in Willoughby Hall on the Brooklyn campus. The project began in spring 2009 as an interdisciplinary studio course that examined the ways that campus and urban living can reduce the use of resources and address environmental health and toxicity. The space includes the sustainable renovation of the kitchen, bathroom, and living area along with energy-efficient lighting, new storage and shelving options, and new furniture using wood from the original residence hall.

 

The project was initiated through Pratt’s Center for Sustainable Design Studies and was led by Anita Cooney, chair of the Interior Design Department; Stephen Brennan, director of Maintenance and Operations; and Chris Kasik, director of Residential Life. The interdisciplinary course was taught by Pratt faculty members Robert Langhorn, Julie Torres Moskovitz, and Corey Yurkovich. Over 20 students participated in the project as part of the design team. 

 

The green residence hall room is currently on view to the Pratt community and visiting school groups as an exhibition space and is also open to current students and campus visitors as a guest room and living laboratory. To schedule a tour of the space, please contact csds@pratt.edu or 718-636-3727.

The 1702—Living Laboratory project was made possible with partial funding provided by a Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The Storefront for Art and Architecture competition and exhibition were made possible with the generous support of NRI, Sciame, and Miele. For more information, please visit Storefrontnews.org.

Photo: Diana Pau

TRUSTEE DAVID MARQUIS TAKES P.S. 270 STUDENTS ON TOUR OF PRATT

Photo Left: Pratt Trustee David Marquis takes P.S. 270 pupils on a Pratt campus tour. Photo Right: (L-R) Pratt President Thomas F. Schutte, Undergraduate Architecture Chair Erika Hinricks, and Pratt Trustee David Marquis respond to questions in Higgins Hall auditorium.

Marquis Studios, an organization that introduces the arts into schools, brought students from Brooklyn elementary school P.S. 270 to tour Pratt's Brooklyn campus at the end of last semester. Founded by Pratt Trustee David Marquis, Marquis Studios most recently has been offering its pupils an architecture program taught by Pratt alumna Anne deVere (B. Arch. ’88) and funded by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. 

Marquis and deVere led 90 fourth- and fifth- graders on a tour of the School of Architecture, the Juliana Curran Terian Design Center, and other locations around campus. 

The tour was followed by a question-and-answer session in Higgins Hall auditorium with Marquis, Pratt President Thomas F. Schutte, and Undergraduate Architecture Chair Erika Hinricks.

Photos: Diana Pau

COMM-D STUDENTS DESIGN DISHWARE FOR FISHS EDDY

The winning dishware designs.

Pratt’s Department of Communications Design recently announced the 2010 winners of the Fishs Eddy design competition. The contest, now in its sixth year, is a collaboration between the iconic New York-based dishware store and the department.

This year’s competition challenged Pratt students to design around the theme of “Ethnic New York.” Elizabeth Kim (B.F.A. Graphic Design ’11) took first place with a line of four New York City graphic novel mugs. Second place winner, Alison Wedewer (B.F.A. Advertising and Art Design ’13), debuted a plate-and-teacup set inspired by city leaves. Third place winner Laurel Ames (B.F.A. Graphic Design ’12) explored New York Jewish cultural recipes with her plate design featuring Brooklyn-born singer, Barbra Streisand.

The students received generous cash scholarships, and select designs will be translated from paper to plate and sold in the Manhattan Fishs Eddy store.   

Photos: Courtesy of the Department of Communications Design