Category: Event

The Chicago Design Through the Decades project is a swift, exciting journey through the history of Chicago design spanning the last one hundred years (1920s–2020s). The project is based on the vast collection of the Chicago Design Archive (CDA), a permanent online record of Chicago design, currently holding over 3200 examples of work by over 1100 Chicago designers, including posters, books, and other publications, from typography specimens to identity systems. 

Investigating a human-centered approach and following engaging characters and textual tidbits from archived design works, the journey begins in the 1920s with the era’s painterly and illustrative techniques. Forms then evolve under the modes of photography, minimalism, futurism, three-dimensionality, and postmodernism throughout the 1930s–2010s. Ultimately, the journey ends in the 2020s with digital portraits produced by using neural networks, a machine learning (ML) approach that formed the foundation of much of modern artificial intelligence (AI)—technologies becoming increasingly prevalent in contemporary art. This part is a tribute to Chicago as an alma mater of neural networks, where in 1943, Warren McCulloch, a neurophysiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and logician Walter Pitts from the University of Chicago, proposed the first mathematical model of a neural network. 

Each ‘design decade’ emphasizes specific understandings and methods. The underlying research made it possible to apprise how particular characteristics evolved over time in the presence of social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental contexts. Decades presents an opportunity to review the development of Chicago design history as a series of chronological stages and connects them into a cohesive visualization.

At once nostalgic and whimsical, the overall journey abounds with both humorous and sobering moments. It harnesses immersive technology to focus public attention on the complexity, historical context, critique, and interpretation of archival materials. The breadth of creative works by Chicago designers shown in the time-lapse visualization illustrates the perpetual advancement of design, a field that continually expands, allowing members of the public to immerse themselves in design history. Following seasons of forced social isolation, this outdoor public projection celebrates the resurgence of communal gathering experiencing art together, sharing impressions and collaborative success in the streets of Chicago. 

For the team, the project opened new avenues for collaboration between design, science and digital humanities to elevate the appreciation of Chicago design history, and to contribute to the recognition of Chicago as an international modern design center through their use of innovative technologies.

Daria Tsoupikova, UIC School of Design & UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory
Sharon Oiga, UIC School of Design & Chicago Design Archive
Guy Villa Jr, Columbia College Chicago
Krystofer Kim, NASA
Jack Weiss, Chicago Design Archive
Cheri McIntyre, Chicago Design Archive
Lauren Meranda, Chicago Design Archive
AI/ML contribution by Fabio Miranda, UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory
Music by Louis Schwadron, Sky White Sound
Featuring vocalist/activist: Nnelolo Karen Wilson-Ama’Echefu, and rapper Elijah Robb

Inequity for Sale is an artistic, virtual, and physical exploration of homes sold on Land Sale Contracts in the 50s and 60s, demonstrating how legalized theft in the past directly contributed to present inequity in Black communities. The project by Tonika Lewis Johnson includes 10 life-sized land markers, a website documenting the homes and stories of residents, a podcast, and virtual walking tour that connects this history with present-day conditions. In the spring of 2022, Johnson and podcast co-host Tiff Beatty performed a live podcast for npr’s WBEZ Chicago, with graphics designed by Studio Brazen.

This project has received extensive media coverage:
Block Club Chicago, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reader, Crain’s Chicago Business, WBEZ Chicago

Home can mean many things to many people. It’s the place where you rest your head, the table where you eat family meals, it’s the place where we experience both pain and joyous celebration. These memories are the ordinary, everyday activities that make up life At Home. 

At Home is a projection installation, which acts as an ephemeral monument for the everyday lives and stories of public housing residents. 

Do monuments matter? Must they be forever carved in granite and steel? Who is worthy of monumentalization and who gets to decide?

At Home is an artistic attempt to address some of these questions through projections that will begin in Chicago at the last remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes and future home of the National Public Housing Museum. Stories are being collected and added to the At Home collection, and future versions of the monument with different stories will travel all over the United States at sites of significance to those who live or have lived in public housing.

36 Questions for Civic Love began as a digital toolkit and has expanded to a nationally performed program. In 2021, I designed an outdoor interactive installation of the project for the San Francisco Urban Film Festival (SFUFF). Along with the installation, there was a virtual event with San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and multimedia journalist Yesica Prado.