Gabriel Drozdov | “Image” and “Event”

Conceptual Projects
“Image” and “Event”

“Image” and “Event” were conceptual projects I created for Graduate Seminar I, which I completed as part of RISD’s 3-year MFA in Graphic Design. Anther Kiley taught the course during the Fall 2021 semester.

My work during this course focused on the themes and concepts explored during our class discussions. “Image” explores the function and implications of an image, including its relationship to replication, deception, and originality. “Event” explores the performative event of experiencing a piece of art or design, or even just reading a text.

“Image”

From the project description for “Unpack a Term”:

“Start by picking a noun, either from one of the readings or from elsewhere in design/cultural discourse—that you think merits unpacking (perhaps it’s politically charged, contested, multifaceted, overused, underused, etc).

Gather 5 images that illustrate various aspects of your word’s meaning.

For each image, write a 1-paragraph caption (no more than 200 words!) Clearly and concretely describe the subject of the image/entry. Then explain how it complicates, clarifies, nuances, or extends our understanding of your word.”

To see a high resolution PDF of the original poster, click here.

“Event”

“Event” is a project proposal that is also a completed project. It was exhibited at RISD’s Graphic Design Triennial 2021: Portals. The proposal reads as follows:

The properties of the created thing must DEPEND [sic] upon the employed material... its colour... its peculiarities when exposed to light...

— Mieczysław Szczuka, “What is Constructivism?”

Unlike a painting, a poster was never meant to exist as a unique object. Therefore, reproducing a poster does not make a second-generation object... From its conception, the poster is destined to be reproduced, to exist in multiples.

— Susan Sontag, “Posters: Advertisement, Art, Political Artifact, Commodity”

Event consists of five prints of this page in its totality, laid out in Times New Roman, presented in an indoor room. The prints are enumerated below and placed clockwise on the room’s walls in ascending numerical order:

Printed at quarter Letter (2.125” x 2.75”)
Printed at half Letter (4.25” x 5.5”)
Printed at Letter (8.5” x 11”)
Printed at double Letter (17” x 22”)
Printed at quadruple Letter (34” x 44”)‍

Event is the initiation of (or portal into) an event—the spectator, reading this prompt, brings the event into existence. The spectator’s subjective experience gives the event meaning, shaped by the prompts’ coexistence as both unique and reproduced objects.