Given my taste for Asian art, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that I was immediately drawn to the Riesner furniture set, with its Japanese lacquer. However, as I spent more time with the works, I realized that what I was truly interested in was the unique blend of cultures that the pieces articulate.

I would like to provide background information about all of the different parts of the piece (the gilt-bronze mounts and Japanese lacquer in particular). By arming my audience with this knowledge, I hope to compel future viewers of the works to question what it means to combine or subsume different cultural iconographies (in this case, Japanese and French) within one work of art.

In order to communicate this visually, I intend to create an interactive model of the Riesner drop-front desk and commode. The model will allow the user to click on certain elements (perhaps a certain panel of lacquer, or a particular gilt-bronze mount) in order to learn more about them. As the user moves their cursor over the piece, the click-able elements will light up, indicating that the user should click. When the user clicks, a small text box will appear with information pertaining to that element. I hope to use jQuery to create the text boxes. Our group has agreed to assign the 3D modeling to someone else.

I also intend to create two info-graphics to accompany the text. The info-graphics will be accessible through links that appear in the text boxes. One info-graphic will detail the process of creating Japanese lacquer, and the other will visualize the process of making gilt-bronze mounts. To make these, I will use Adobe InDesign and Photoshop.

Within my larger group, I am serving as the editorial point person. I imagine this role will likely entail coordinating and editing all of the textual content within the project.