Deconciousness By EX/AR/IN/PA
Collaborative installation developed amongst 13 University of Michigan students under the mentorship of Roland Graff, Robert Platt and Laura Magnuson. The installation transformed the 50' x 60' space into the 3 levels of Consciousness.
Final Documentation of the installation
Work in Progress Documentation
Multiple stages of Floor plans (to scale) rendered on Rhinoceros by Dara Firoozi
This exhibition DECONSTRUCTS the extreme disconnect between the internal and external realities under which Millennials are forced to operate. Through the three “zones” of the installation, participants can examine the role of the “CONSCIOUS”, “SUBCONSCIOUS”, “SUPERCONSCIOUS” and the practice of seeking refuge in the deconstruction of our own INTERNAL conflicts.
The nature of the exhibition is naturally amorphous. And no wonder. “There’s a subtext of how the students are processing the changing times, how they integrate… with technology, how they interact with themselves in society, and… the larger, confusing complex times we are living in,” Associate Professor Robert Platt states.
As a class of Millennials, the inheritance of troubling times and situations demands that the focus be back on this respective generation. The inherent elitism in art exhibitions, installations, and even institutions calls for a reclaiming of spaces-- thus, for the entire week of exhibition, “DECONSCIOUSNESS” will be a functional common workspace for art students. The importance of having the exhibition remain completely functional can be explained by a student involved, D Wang Zhao (BFA ‘18), who explains “[that] the last thing we wanted to do was have this lofty, pretentious work”.
The work’s different zones of the exhibition allow for both thoughtful and visceral interaction-- where ultimately if the conceptual nature of the exhibition is inaccessible, the visuals and audio are weaved alongside it.
The student collaborators include Abigail Barrera, Adrian Bazbaz, Mallory Donahue, Jonathan Downing, Dara Firoozi, Erica Gavan, Gabrielle Graves, Adrian Hanna, Benjamin Leigh, Hannah Mabie, James Mackin, and D Wang Zhao, with assistance from first-year MFA student, Laura Magnusson.