CRONOPIOS

Designers: Florencia Pita

Project Team: Tristan Brasseur , Erin Lani, Pil-Sun Ham, Amanda Hamilton, Kim Lagercrantz, Dulrye Mhin, Yushan Wu

Animation: Jaitip Srisomburanont

Model Photos:  Georgina Huljich

Fabrication Team:  Drura Parrish, Rives Rash

Chicago, IL. 2010

Art Institute of Chicago Installation Exhibit

The name Cronopios originates from a character in the book 'Stories of Cronopios and Fames' (1962) by Argentine writer Julio Cortazar. The 'Cronopios' are described as unique characters; they are naïve, unconventional and sensitive creatures with lush imaginations. Cortazar depicts them in short vignette-proclamations that have an air of surrealist fairy-fragments, with stories such as: 'Instructions on how to climb a staircase' and 'Turtles and Cronopios' that chronicle exhilarating yet casual events.  This installation presents a chronicle of short vignette-drawings where the 2D graphic has an artificial depth, created by exhausting the compelling attributes of extreme coloration, abstract figuration and shallow materiality. The playful atmosphere of the drawings incites a sense of enchantment, as in fairy tales, the enchantment provokes a kind of illusion in a contriving atmosphere of fiction and fantasy. The graphicness of the drawing is excessively expended, a bias towards the drawing becoming highly picturesque, lavish of arresting beauty.