LightNShadow Course: 1st Day Explorations






1st days shadow explorations…

I kept getting these “insect-like” shadows by accident, however after discovering the initial similarities it was easy to manipulate the shadows to my liking.  It is strange and surprising to see who different the shadow results are when looking at the actual light modulators.  Out of the four studies perhaps one (the “abstract Rose” produced an expected result.  This is encouraging from a discovery point of view.  This seems to suggest that perhaps with more and more experiments one can learn to control these outcomes with more precision, however leaving room for accidental discoveries is highly desired and adds fun to the process.

After the intial studies and seeing other students’ experiments I was entrigued and encouraged to build more modulators of my own utilizing a variety of different techniques and materials.  The shadow screens for Assignment 01 pose several options and challenges as both the aesthetics of the shadow and the screen itself has to be considered.

NEWS: Wed 3/31 Workshop, PPT & Tanizaki available

Welcome to the Light and Shadow class on UfoliO.

I will be available work with students in the basement woodshop this Wed 3/30 at 9am and walk people through blogging in my office at 10:30am.  While the first session was to discuss CNC milling, it would be a good chance to check in about any questions about the class.

You can see the Beauty of Shadows presentation as a PDF file if you go to the Resources page.  The slim Tanizaki volume is on reserve in the library.

Two events that will be very relevant to our class:
– Tomorrow 3/29 Frank Barkow lecture :  at noon on level 3
– April 9’s The Illuminated City symposium at PSU (1pm-9pm)

Add a comment with your URL and I’ll make sure it feeds into the class website.

– Nancy

Overview

This blog was created for use in Nancy Cheng’s Spring 2011 Light and Shadow Class at the University of Oregon in Portland.  The class will provide the framework needed to learn how to aesthetically control light and shadow through rigorous investigation and research.  We will begin to explore how to control the ephemeral qualities of light through the tools available to us, both digitally and physically.