THE UNCANNY ATLAS ARCHIVE
MICA Undergraduate 2019 Graphic Design Degree Project
by Ryan Hahn
To view the full web project, click here:
Main Site: https://rhahn01.github.io/theUncannyAtlas/
An objective, design-centered, and peripheral exploration of a speculative and dystopian world.
I wanted to create a chronological gallery of fictional but realistic (both conceptually and physically) designed objects that collectively and contextually convey a larger meta-narrative story that can be experienced like a novel and other long-form narrative mediums.
I created, crafted, and established as much peripheral detail of an imaginary world as I can in the hopes that one can be conceptually and visually immersed into a world that critically deal with the progression of our society, government, politics, philosophy, and humanity.
By making a seemingly distant (and at times unsettling) world feel tangible, I can maybe encourage critical thought about the present.
From my experience, the sheer quantity and volume of items can sell its realism. So I created over 400 unique pieces for this project, all also viewable in a chronological web archive that I made accessible in the exhibition as well.
To sell the realistic element of the art objects, I created a accession glossary of every piece in this project, all listed with unique accession key numbers, titles, creators, and dates created that all also directly and accurately apply to the web archive. In addition, every art object I physically displayed had a corresponding accession label with its key written on it.
Audience interaction with both the physical pieces and the website was important to me, and so I took measures to connect a bluetooth mouse to a miniature computer that was hidden behind the monitor.
The physical works were all hung using fishing wire and eye-screws. I built in hanging rings and hooks onto many of the pieces for aesthetic harmony and convenient installation/deinstallation.
Hanging the works in a curve created a cornucopia-like immersive effect, acted as a funnel to guide the viewer to the center screen, and also provided more room to hang artwork on the walls.
With permission, I bombarded my and the surrounding area with stickers of icons and brands that exist within my narrative.
Process:
Design:
As it was important for me to see all pieces as a whole as I was making them, I worked on almost all designs from 1 main Illustrator file. It may look like a total mess, but they are somewhat organized (to me) by area of time.
Web Gallery API:
This Google Sheet labels and categorizes all of the images in the web gallery, as well as add descriptions, links, and numbers.
I used "Sheety", a free API creator, to turn this document into an API which translates this information into html.
Web Gallery Mock Ups:
Coding:
Once I had the overall interface/experience mocked up and planned out, I used Brackets to code the website.
HTML (+ Jquery):
Javascript:
CSS:
Glossary, Tags, and other physical supporting elements:
Vinyl Files:
Installation Plan:
As a part of the thesis show, we were provided a 7ft by 7ft square to display our work. With this in mind, I created a large display that uses the square space efficiently.
Installation:
Solo installation process took about 20 hours.
Thanks for tuning in!
