“BARS” is Walecki’s final work a part of her thesis. The work is a culmination of everything she learned during her undergraduate education using animation / video editing, design and typography, text and writing, and sound to investigate deeper meanings: to break down / to put together, to symbolize / to signify, history, and organizing the things that matter to her in order to move forward and find truth. The work uses narrative structure and cinematic techniques (in a combination of subversive and obvious ways) to accomplish this — including signifiers, breaking the 4th wall, absurdism (both in language and in editing), the build up and climax, and the list goes on. The work is also exemplary of Walecki’s interest in 2D objects — specifically text — moving through 3D space, both as a visual tactic and a conceptual exploration.
“BARS” PUBLICATION DESIGN
As the NYU BFA Thesis Exhibition was postponed due to COVID 19, the art department created a newsprint publication as a more immediate solution of the exhibition. Walecki approached her own two-page spread by both supplementing/supporting the experience of watching “BARS” in a 2D, B&W space but also re-thinking “BARS” in order to make a completely new 2D, B&W version of the piece. Walecki decided to utilize the space provided to make a poster, which conventionally acts as a promotional design material to support a real-time events (i.e. a film or concert) — playing off of the 4D vs. 2D dichotomy. Because of this, this layout will be orientated sideways in the publication, with the text “AND THEN I FOUND IT” the only content orientated correctly. In addition, the QR code links to the page you are on right now, working as a gesture that implies that the video is where the real work is.