Design as Research Portfolio
Lantern Comics
Concept
In my PhD research, I explored the bounds of comics’ structural reading conventions, such as panel borders, visual rhythm and braiding (where meaning is created through repetition). By dislocating comics from two-dimensional space and integrating them into sculptural artifacts, I could examine how these structures operated at the limits of their legibility.
The following pages present two lantern sets that I present as comics. Each set, one consisting of four lanterns, another as two, contains a narrative, although the reader must assemble the elements herself and use her own subjective experiences to bridge the gaps within the stories. I have provided details from certain lanterns to give a sense of the layers of visual information encountered in each object.
Outcomes: (see also the gallery here)
‘Whose Woods These Are’ lantern comic set
‘Whose Woods These Are’ details:
- (left) Detail of lantern in situ;
- (right) Process detail of interior panes from same lantern.
Poem ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost.
Details of lantern in situ:
- As the viewer rotates the lantern to view each pane, the physical tree house interacts with the illustration of the tree house, physicalizing Thierry Groensteen’s concept of braiding in comics, and encouraging the viewer to form relationships between the foreground and background information depicted in the lantern artifacts.
‘Find my way home’ details:
- (left) Interior detail of right lantern in situ;
- (right) ‘Find my way home’ lantern comic set
