This past week I visited the Mattress Factory to get inspired by some pieces of artwork. I have visited the Mattress Factory many times before, but they just opened a new exhibition called Sites of Passage. I was excited to check out the new installations to see if anything could inspire me. Examples of the my chosen installations can be found below.
one.
As I walked into the satellite building of the Mattress Factory, the first thing I noticed was a large structure that represented an airport security medal detector. As the Sites of Passage has an Arab theme, this made a lot of sense. However, as controversial as the TSA and terrorism have been in the US, it was still shocking to see. From this, I would like to steal the "in your face as soon as you walk in the door" concept. Except for my site, it would have to be altered to a "in your face as soon as your browser loads" kind of idea. Still I want the first thing people see when they visit my site to be surprising, while letting them know what they're getting themselves into.
two.
The second piece I noticed was a series of writings on the walls in arabic. Each is a phrase written by a non-arabic speaking artist. The first one (in blue) extended, shrunk and warped some characters to make it look more like artwork than lettering. The second (in black) because it is text (something so simple and common, especially on a website) and put it somewhere unexpected. Going along with our "strange" theme, I think it could be very interesting to take common text (or objects) and distort them in a way that is unique.
three.
The final piece that inspired me from the Mattress Factory is a permanent piece I have seen before. However, in respect to this class I think it can definitely send me in the right direction. Artists Vanessa Sica and Chris Kasabach took an ordinary umbrella, flipped it upside down and created a light fixture. They claim their piece falls somewhere between "absurdity and brilliance, efficiency and fun." Similar to the distortion of the arabic text, I like the idea of taking something simple and ordinary and using it in a manner that is unconventional.