Design | Media Arts students exhibit their talents at “Offworld: Where you are – where you want to be”

Design | Media Arts students work with a different kind of canvas.

The “Offworld: Where you are ““ where you want to be” exhibition offers a look at the multidisciplinary nature of the Design | Media Arts program, which fuses digital technology and art. The exhibition opens tonight with a reception that will also include musical performances by Flying Lotus and Baths.

“Offworld” will be on display in the Broad Art Center’s New Wight Gallery through Jan. 21, featuring works by UCLA undergraduates, and is curated by fourth-year students Andrew Levy, Wesley Chou and Takumi Akin.

The exhibition contains about 100 pieces ranging from sound works, installations, fashion design, video as well as interactive pieces.

“A lot of people think design students only make posters, but we do a lot more,” Levy said.
Levy, Chou and Akin designed the exhibition around a theme of “liminal” or transitional spaces.

“The idea behind it is that “˜Offworld’ is a liminal place or state of mind. It’s these notions of liminality, of the transition from the non-being to the being where the creative process takes place,” Akin said.

According to Levy, the conception of the exhibition was a year-long project for the volunteer curators.

“It was more independent than we thought, but it was fun working with the faculty and being almost on the same level as them,” Levy said.

Design | Media Arts professor and undergraduate faculty adviser Rebeca Mendez oversaw the conception, design and production of the exhibition. This process began in her Brand Lab class, a part studio, part seminar look into organization, identity and culture in design.

“In Brand Lab, students develop identities,” Mendez said. “This is where they started the process of creating a theme for the show, a concept or idea that would encompass undergraduate work.”

Though Levy, Chou and Akin primarily served as the show’s curators, they also created pieces for the exhibition.

Levy said that one of the sound works he will show is based on sound memories partly inspired by the sounds of a Japanese train station.

Chou said he will display a video projection piece in which images such as a fish are projected on a frosted acrylic board. However, Chou said the work was largely focused on the artistic process itself.

“(The students) were very critical in their thinking and very cultured. This is present in their work,” Mendez said of the three curators in their design of “Offworld” and the creation of their pieces.

Since 2006, Mendez has overseen the production of undergraduate Design | Media Arts exhibition. Mendez praised “Offworld,” which differs from the past arrangements in which pieces were separated by medium.

“It’s very energetic,” Mendez said. “It is a beautiful example of true design arts.”
This exhibition provides students with a chance to see what their peers in the Design | Media Arts program are doing, how they are creating and representing themselves.
“Every aspect of our lives is design,” Chou said.