Thesis Idea Update

UPDATE:

My research topic focuses on creating a neutral space dedicated to self-reflection and personal identity, where people of different spiritual and cultural orientations may come together under one roof for reflection and constructive dialogue. The concepts of expression and knowledge all revolve around the notion of the inner self, and creating a singular space where different people can experience self-reflection in their own way makes this a unique concept. The challenge is to heighten a person’s sense of wisdom, truth, identity, and a desire to connect through a neutral aesthetic experience.

Topic Map the Third

This is my updated topic map. I had a difficult time explaining it to others and I noticed some of the keywords and ideas that i was trying to portray were somewhat tangent to what I really wanted to convey. The main ideas I am trying to convey are Reflection, Expression, and Knowledge.

These all directly revolve around the notion of self; self-reflection, self-expression, and knowing yourself. I am sure it will be updated even further in the upcoming weeks, but to date this is what i have:

Thesis Topic and Abstract

The following is a graphically abstract representation of my thesis concept to date. I want to explore a person's spirituality and create a center dedicated to a person's spiritual self. It has become very common for people to describe themselves as "Spiritual but not Religious" yet I see no center's that embrace that concept. What I want to create is not a church, it is not a religious center, and regardless of your belief system, the center I want to design is intended for EVERYONE!

To date, my thesis topic can be mapped out as such:

The main concept of Spiritual Identity is branched off into three key topics: Spirituality, Expression, and Knowledge. Furthermore, those keywords are fragmented to more specific concepts that are helping mold my thesis.

Next I translated these ideas into a visual abstract. You may notice the images are cropped, implying horizontal and vertical movement. This is an organizing technique used to differentiate the images. The vertical images are place that one may easily associate with my keywords, the horizontal images are more transparent and represent what I personally may see as a place or mindset of the keywords I have outlined.

First Blog

I am not much of a blogger and have fallen a bit behind, but here it goes for my first blog! My first blog will be a presentation of my thesis 2 class projects to date. I know, boring, but once I get more comfortable with blogging I will update with more interesting topics.



Project 01: Spatial Investigations: Collage and Montage


The first drafts were an exploration in the concepts of Passage of Time, Color, and Infinite Space. After viewing examples from past students, I noticed the common approach to the project were to find a location, take multiple pictures of the same scene from different angle and perspectives and put the pictures together to recreate the scene in an abstract way. This was not the approach I wanted to take. Instead I wanted to represent the terms I chose as a concept that have been graphically abstracted, not visually abstract. I felt the concept was more important that the artistic abstraction itself (It also did not help that I am not very good at artistic abstraction). Anyways here are some of my first draft iterations:

Color

Infinite Space

After feedback from my peers and exploring the revised collage's, I arrived at these: