Beautifools / Memoir May – June 2018
Located on the third floor of Block 37 across from the Chicago Design Museum in an empty retail space, Beautifools / Memoir was a public collaboration fusing Thirst and Satoru Nihei (Cranbrook MFA), Japanese designer and 2018 Thirst Artist in Residence.
Conceived and designed by Rick Valicenti, the two-week pop-up installation explored alternative design methods from phone app animations, a bespoke soundscape, 3D printing, four display dioramas, laser etched mirrors, and Shou-Sugi-Ban. These methods of making were put in concert to reveal a familiar narrative arc between two-love struck individuals locked in an intense virtual connection.
See the limited edition 142-page Beautifools Memoir book here.
“It is not like me to over hype graphic design research, but this installation still feels like a rather unique experiment. Just the notion of leveraging an all too ubiquitous retail space and turning it into a proscenium and stage for dramatic narrative and thinly veiled social commentary pushes all of my buttons.” — RV
Narrative, Texts, Masks, Dioramas
Rick Valicenti
Index Finger Video Animation
Satoru Nihei (3st AiR)
Video Compositing
Kyle Green
Nose/Horn Modeling
Baozhen Li
Diorama Modeling
Zach Minnich
Linear Typography
Anna Mort
Soundscape
John Pobojewski
Typestyling
Bud Rodecker
Hand Drawings
Suzie Shin
Mask Vector
Christi Valicenti
Strangerous
Marc Magdaleno Hernandez
Production
Mohamed Dardiri
Installation Photography
Jonathan Allen