Project Description
In our humanities and math classes we are doing a project where we read the books Slaughterhouse Five and Flatland. These were both books relating to the depth of dimensions. After reading these books we made an art piece related to the content we learned, the art piece could only contain straight lines and be overall precise and geometric. Leading up to doing this art piece we did packets that showed us how to use different geometry tools to produce different shapes and pieces or art. Through this project we learned about the complexity of dimensions as well as key tools to use in geometry to make precise shapes and arrange them in a beautiful way.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Flatland explores a square’s life in a two dimensional world called Flatland. He explains how the people of Flatland (or Flatlanders) live and how they do things such as rank each other by the number of sides they have, or how they recognise themselves in a two dimensional world. This book shows the struggles and challenges of a two dimensional world and shows us the difference to our world, or Spaceland.
Slaughterhouse Five
Slaughterhouse five shows the life of Billy Pilgrim and how he becomes “unstuck” in time. At Billy’s daughter’s wedding he is abducted an alien race called the Tralfamadorians, the Tralfamadorians teach Billy about the fourth dimension of time and how all of time is already mapped out and is just repeating itself. After this Billy gets “unstuck” in time and travels in time from his birth to his death and the moments inbetween. Slaughterhouse Five explores ideas about the fourth dimension and the life of Billy Pilgrim.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Flatland explores a square’s life in a two dimensional world called Flatland. He explains how the people of Flatland (or Flatlanders) live and how they do things such as rank each other by the number of sides they have, or how they recognise themselves in a two dimensional world. This book shows the struggles and challenges of a two dimensional world and shows us the difference to our world, or Spaceland.
Slaughterhouse Five
Slaughterhouse five shows the life of Billy Pilgrim and how he becomes “unstuck” in time. At Billy’s daughter’s wedding he is abducted an alien race called the Tralfamadorians, the Tralfamadorians teach Billy about the fourth dimension of time and how all of time is already mapped out and is just repeating itself. After this Billy gets “unstuck” in time and travels in time from his birth to his death and the moments inbetween. Slaughterhouse Five explores ideas about the fourth dimension and the life of Billy Pilgrim.
Artist Statement
My price is a representation of how the ranking of social classes is broken and allow a small group of people (CEO’s, Governors, and especially the president) to rule over everyone, whereas most people are just being controlled by the top one percent. I chose to represent this with the White House covered with different colored construction paper broken up into different shapes. On the inside I used a different pattern for each space in the house to represent this brokenness. I decided on the outside to make it mostly different shades of blue except for a portion of white because I thought it would make it more visually appealing if it had a range of colors and design throughout the piece. This piece had everything measured out and drawn out to make sure it contained a level of geometry to make it look better.
Project Reflection
1. Write about your learning experiences of the two texts. What was it like to read a book in math class? How did it change the way you think about math, or through Abbott’s commentary, the way you think about society? After you finished both texts, what connections did you see between the two? Once you made these connections, how did your understanding or learning deepen or change?
Reading the text opened me up to the ideas of the possible fourth dimensions and spiked my interest in the project. This reading made me see the application of math to the real world and and brought forth my interest in the different possibilities or of fourth dimension. One idea that I got from both the texts is uncertainty, when I first read Slaughterhouse Five I thought that the fourth dimension was time and I thought I had a good idea of what it would look like. But after reading Flatland I saw that that there is no way for me to truly picture the fourth dimension. Reading these together challenged me to think about the possibilities of the fourth dimension but also get frustrated because I know there is no true way for me to realistically visualise it.
2. Describe your design process for your art piece from start to finish. What was your original idea? How did that idea change? If you abandoned your original idea altogether for a new idea, why did you do this, and what sparked the switch? The goal here is for you to explain how your interpretation of the final assignment evolved as you conceptualized and created your art piece.
When we first started this project I had no idea what to do, this led to me going through a lot of our work time just trying to think of an idea. Eventually I just started to look at different architecture that I thought resembled the requirements for this project (no curved lines, containing a good amount of geometry) and decided to trace one in Adobe Illustrator, I eventually went with the White House. I started on my project and got a good way through it when I realised that it wasn't really challenging to me whatsoever. I have always excelled at this sort of thing so it was really easy for me to do. That's when I decided I wanted a good amount of challenge by going into a field of art that I wasn't as skilled in. I decided I was going to measure out and cut the main pieces of the White House and glue them to paper. This was really difficult for me but when I got it done I was glad I evolved past the more basic form I had originally decided on.
3. How did the art piece assignment change your thinking about Flatland and/or Slaughterhouse Five? How did the art piece set you up for Stage 2? What interests or excites you moving forward? What new questions do you have?
This art piece set me up for stage two because it showed me what to expect when going into the next portion. My art piece taught me how to take ideas from a reading and put it into an a project like my art piece. Going into part two I will need to know how to use this skill to get all my knowledge from our readings and Meow Wolf into my project if I want to be successful and stage one has helped me learn how to do that. I am excited for stage two because it looks like it has more content that we can put into our project. I hope that stage two has more content than stage one.
Reading the text opened me up to the ideas of the possible fourth dimensions and spiked my interest in the project. This reading made me see the application of math to the real world and and brought forth my interest in the different possibilities or of fourth dimension. One idea that I got from both the texts is uncertainty, when I first read Slaughterhouse Five I thought that the fourth dimension was time and I thought I had a good idea of what it would look like. But after reading Flatland I saw that that there is no way for me to truly picture the fourth dimension. Reading these together challenged me to think about the possibilities of the fourth dimension but also get frustrated because I know there is no true way for me to realistically visualise it.
2. Describe your design process for your art piece from start to finish. What was your original idea? How did that idea change? If you abandoned your original idea altogether for a new idea, why did you do this, and what sparked the switch? The goal here is for you to explain how your interpretation of the final assignment evolved as you conceptualized and created your art piece.
When we first started this project I had no idea what to do, this led to me going through a lot of our work time just trying to think of an idea. Eventually I just started to look at different architecture that I thought resembled the requirements for this project (no curved lines, containing a good amount of geometry) and decided to trace one in Adobe Illustrator, I eventually went with the White House. I started on my project and got a good way through it when I realised that it wasn't really challenging to me whatsoever. I have always excelled at this sort of thing so it was really easy for me to do. That's when I decided I wanted a good amount of challenge by going into a field of art that I wasn't as skilled in. I decided I was going to measure out and cut the main pieces of the White House and glue them to paper. This was really difficult for me but when I got it done I was glad I evolved past the more basic form I had originally decided on.
3. How did the art piece assignment change your thinking about Flatland and/or Slaughterhouse Five? How did the art piece set you up for Stage 2? What interests or excites you moving forward? What new questions do you have?
This art piece set me up for stage two because it showed me what to expect when going into the next portion. My art piece taught me how to take ideas from a reading and put it into an a project like my art piece. Going into part two I will need to know how to use this skill to get all my knowledge from our readings and Meow Wolf into my project if I want to be successful and stage one has helped me learn how to do that. I am excited for stage two because it looks like it has more content that we can put into our project. I hope that stage two has more content than stage one.