Marching Towards the Stars One Step at a Time
Throughout
history, three dimensional sculptures and objects have been very effective at
conveying a message and persuading its viewers to accept the same ideals in the
object. Take for instance many of the statues built in the former Soviet Union
that praised communism and the eventual coming of the workers revolution. For
this visual rhetoric assignment, I had to create an object that conveyed a
message from my previous assignment which I did on space exploration.
For my visual rhetoric 3-D object, I had
to create a sculpture to go along with my theme of space exploration. In the
previous genre analysis assignment, I stated that going back and conquering
space will usher in a new age of wealth and opportunity for mankind. The wealth
comes from the incredible amount of natural resources in the form of rare
elements and materials throughout the cosmos. To illustrate this, the object is
composed of a spaceship rocketing towards a sun with money signs covering its
surface. The spaceship is made out of LEGOs. The ship is made out of LEGOs to
symbolize the fact that many people and efforts need to come together and
cooperate in any space faring mission just as the LEGO blocks need to fit
together and cooperate to stay together. Any adventure as complex as space travel
requires a team effort from many people of different expertise and
nationalities represented by the different LEGOs. The sun consists of a
styrofoam orb as the material has a shine to it which is useful in representing
a bright star. The orb is completely covered in yellow and some orange paint to
complete the image of a sun. The sun itself represents the brighter future that
humanity is heading towards if we go back to space. A future filled with plenty
of opportunities and resources from the new worlds we discover. The orb is also
be sporadically covered in dollar signs. I chose dollar signs as this sculpture
will be primarily displayed to North Americans of the United States, who are my
target audience. They are my target audience as the U.S. is the most capable in
spearheading the drive back into space and perhaps the youth that view this
object will be inspired to join the movement back into space as engineers or
scientists. The dollar signs also represent the wealth in resources that are
out there in space waiting for humanity to claim them. Both objects are perched
on metal wire from a coat hanger to make the scene more dynamic and
interesting. If this were a full size
sculpture, it would be displayed at a public park to expose more of my target audience,
especially children in hopes of inspiring them about astronomy. To keep the
objects balanced, I placed metal weights at their bases and covered the weights
with a plate for each object. The main message of the sculpture is that it will
take all of us to band together and rocket towards a brighter and wealthier
future of humanity in space.
Compared to the other three texts
from the previous genre analysis, my 3-D genre shares some characteristics and
also differs in some areas. My genre shares much of the same message from the
peer reviewed article and the NASA website. Both of those texts expressed the
desire to inspire the younger generations about the beauty and excitement of
space exploration. They further stated that any venture requires a group effort
from a multitude of people, just as my sculpture aims to convey that message.
However, my genre does differ from the photo of the International Space Station
as the photo failed to have any message. My sculpture shared much of the same
message from the article and website, then took the picture a step further by
incorporating a message.
To construct this sculpture and
message, there was difficult period of struggling to define the sculpture than
construct and further define it. At first, I thought I did not want to be the
person that brought LEGOs and seem childish, but when I asked my sister what I
should do with this assignment, she made it apparent to me that there is no
problem with using LEGOs. However, much of the guidelines with the assignment
were very ambiguous when it came to the use of LEGOs. Once the plan for
constructing was nailed, then came the sun. I purchased orbs of different sizes
and material as my sister warned me about the use of spray paint on the foam
orbs could melt them if they were a certain material. To counter this, I coated
the orb in glue to seal the surface to put paint on it. When the orb with the
right material was chosen, it was an easy task of spray painting it and adding
the money signs to it. This was difficult assignment and had many obstacles as
any challenge should, but I feel I did an adequate job in succeeding to address
the main points of the assignment.
If I were to determine my own grade
for this assignment, I would of course give myself an A as any other grade
would be foolish unless I felt I did a truly poor job with the assignment. If I
do get an inadequate grade with this assignment, then I have no one else to
blame but myself for failing this assignment. I do have a very stressful
schedule, but that should be no excuse and therefore should have started
working on this assignment earlier. Again, I feel I did an acceptable job with
this assignment by creating a persuasive 3-D sculpture that was crafted from my
own effort and conveys a message from the space exploration theme of the
earlier assignment.
Space is a very exciting topic to me
and hope that one day in my lifetime, I get to witness humanity setting aside
our petty differences to conquer the stars together. I hope I can share that
same excitement through my sculpture of LEGOs and foam, then hopefully inspire
some people to join me in my hopefulness and excitement.
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