Signism

The second project for CommDesign was Signism. For this particular project, we had to study art movements, the final piece that was based of German expressionism. This was probably my favorite project because I got to work with my hands and take my sweet ol time on it. The idea of the assignment was to combine a metaphor, a symbol, and a sign and create a triptych. For my German Expressionism Triptych, I began by using three slightly off set rectangular shapes and arranging them to form a city scene. Each section has a specific color, canary yellow, dark purple and dark blue, describing the main color feel of the movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The triptych as a whole appears to be a movie set, relating to the popularity of the film industry during German Expressionism. My metaphor is the mind is full of sharp edges. This metaphor is represented by the magnifying glass and the triangular strips of tissue paper. The mind is symbolized by the entire “movie set.” My sign are the colorful spheres placed around the upper half of the triptych, representing Kandinsky's famous artwork, Several Circles. My symbols are the figures proceeding down the stair case. I chose these figures as my symbol because they are what German Expressionism Film are based on, horror flicks. Horror films became extremely popular during the German Expressionism movement. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was the first horror film, hence why I extracted certain characteristics from the film and incorporated it into my triptych. Another addition emphasizing the "movie set" feel are the streetlights. Each streetlight is cut out so a little tealight can illuminate each post. The streetlights represent the dim lighting within the mind.