If you haven’t been up to North Campus in awhile (or at all) or if you’re a freshman who’s been avoiding that seemingly obscure, desolate and even uneventful place, now is the time to get your act together. The chance to experience this other world and get inside the minds of numerous engineering, musicology and art and design students has come Central Campus’s way. Now through Nov. 6, the 10 year anniversary of the Duderstadt Center will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary with the exhibition of an expansive range of artistic works.
- Steven Neff
- ANGELA CESERE/Daily
While seemingly obscure, the exhibit and the art it displays offers a comprehensive retrospective of an important University institution.
“This will be an opportunity for students to see creative work produced here by other students and to learn how they can take advantage of technology and resources available to all students at the Dude,” Glenda Radine, public relations manager of the digital commons, said.
The gallery is a modest and honest collaboration of work from passionate students. You may be exposed to things you have never seen before or even thought about, and is acceptable because it will only add to this learning experience. Among its many pieces are the 3D models produced by the Duderstadt’s very own 3D printer which, according to the exhibit, “creates physical models directly from 3D surface data.”
To fill the gallery’s open space lies a table holding an odd assortment of comic books and artists’ books originally held in the Art, Architecture and Engineering Library. “Shutterbug follies” by Jason Little and “The Book of Leviathan” by Peter Blegvad are two of the books that may tempt you to question whether comics can be seen as art.
“I try to select books that represent a variety of materials, cultures, sizes, structures, colors, and ideas,” Annette Haines, an Art & Design field librarian, said in an email.
If you remember rocking out on your toy synthesizer, then a trip to the exhibit isn’t complete until you see the vintage moog synthesizer, on display with a modern 5.0 surround sound demonstration. Although this one doesn’t have the raindrops, disco or trumpet sounds you may remember hearing as a child, it is not only elaborate in its size but even more impressive in its background and history.
The glass display case of artifacts is just as captivating and deserves more than a glance. Each of these works contains a message about humanity that is illuminated in their artistic display. In “Words for the World,” by Edward H. Hudkins, messages in different languages with an English translation is written on a variety of colored pencils. “Tolerance starts with me” and “It doesn’t hurt to listen” are two of the universal sayings.
Perhaps the most intricate of the pieces is Julie Chen’s “You are here,” a miniature book illustrating degrees on a compass that correspond with a particular feeling or emotion such as pain, solitude, laughter and despair, to list a few. Chen’s words accompany her exhibit: “(This book) talks about the emotional landscape of where you use the map as a metaphor for figuring out where you are emotionally and where you are spiritually.”
The visitor may view these pieces as being oddly drawn together, but in retrospect, they reflect some of the Dude’s most unique and thought provoking work from the past 10 years.
The video montage of the Duderstadt’s past performances is imaginably the most prominent display. Expect to see clips from 2004’s “Where the book falls open” and 2005’s “