Brian Bulfer
Projects:

PROJECTS: æ | TC Tuition | Prayer Flags | Sared Exchange | 3D Memory | Feng Shui Clock | OWS | Decline | Diamond Dust | Thai Trade | Diet Lingam | Data Paintings | Econ Drawings | Peaking | ....... CATEGORIES: Drawings | Paintings | Sculptures | Prints | Photo-Mixed Media | Videos | Animations | Murals | Installations | 3D Prints | Collaborations | Artist-Based Research |

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æ, 2017
 
 
-There are five vowels in the English alphabet, but this symbol system does not account for the numerous vowel sounds made in general American English. The letter ‘a’ can be pronounced in seven different ways, such as in ‘cat’, ‘barn’, ‘about’, ‘tall’, ‘ate’, ‘air’, and ‘senate’. These different pronunciations for a single letter make this semi-transparent orthographic script challenging to master without some rote memorization. This body of work explores the making of a new symbol through visualizing the sound vibration of ‘a’ as it is pronounced in the word ‘cat’. Throughout this project I explored different materials and digital ways of making to create a new symbol that bears a relationship to the phenomenon it represents.
  
Link To More Artwork
  
   
   
Teachers College Tuition Rates (1916-2016), 2016
  
   
-A video project concerned with representing the change in tuition rates per unit at the Teachers College Columbia University between 1916 to 2016.
  
Link Coming Soon
  
   
   
Prayer Flags - On-Going Artist-Based Research Project
  
 
-Prayer Flags is an on-going project that includes the representation of neurological, cognitive, linguistic, semiotic, psychological, and social dimensions of communication through visual didactics. Each flag represents information that becomes a pictogram, which is then linked together with other pictograms that can be read in a sequence. The information can be read spatially or sequentially allowing the viewer to freely navigate through the material to create new narratives of how these systems interrelate.
 
Link Coming Soon
  
   
   
RoadWork - On-Going Collaborative Artist-Based Research Project
  
   
-RoadWork: Memories Under Construction is an ongoing, migratory, artist-based research project designed for participants to share memories and their imagination through the arts. Organized and executed by New York City-based doctoral students and artists from the Teachers College, Columbia University, Roadwork seeks community participation in an effort to understand the experiences of others and speak to concerns about their local neighborhoods and the world in which they want to live.
  
   
RoadWork strives to sustain a public space that catalyzes social imagination, as described by philosopher Maxine Greene. In the participatory process, community members are invited to share through drawing workshops, conversations, writing, videography, and performance. Through oral history interviews (transcribed, in live time, by a stenographer), artwork is displayed as a “living” exhibition, building a wall of collected quotes and images from participants. These participatory activities offer communities the means for remembering the past and imagining the future, to allow others to "look at things," as Greene puts it, "as if they could be otherwise."  
  
   
In the past this project has taken place in Miami, FL in 2014, as well as Harlem, Jamaica-Queens, NY in 2016, and South Bronx, NY 2017. Findings include the impact of social life and sense of place in locations that are undergoing the process of gentrification. Re-creations of such memories turned into drawings, writings, photography, and video for display. In addition to working with community locals and tourists, RoadWork engaged and collaborated with local public high school students, recovering stroke patients, children from a day care program, and local students to transform data collected from the street into a record of action research and, ultimately, final created artwork. Participation in this project ranged across generations from ages 4 to 75 years. Participants also ranged across socio-economic statuses, from homeless to the most affluent communities. 
  
Link Coming Soon
  
   
   
Sacred Exchange Project, 2014
  
   
-Sacred Exchange is a project involved with revisiting memories through photography and data used during a residency in Thailand.
  
Link Coming Soon
  
   
   
 
 
-3D printed transitional object series that represents computer and neuroscience data, taking what is often ephemeral and elusive about cognition and making it into something tangible.
  
Link To More Artwork
  
   
   
 
 
- A collaborative project with Brian McMahan, a cognitive science PhD student at Rutgers University, that represents the history of Chinese dynasties from 2000 BCE to 2013 CE in a digital Feng Shui system using a Javascript animation.
  
 
 
 
 
 
- A print project concerned with modes of represention through printmaking on digital photos
  
 
   
 
 
 
- A ritualized object and performative project concerned with the decline of art education in the US public school system.
  
 
   
   
 
 

-A wall painting representing the fluctuation of the gross domestic product for the European Union, the US and China, as well as the stock value for three of the largest media corporations between 2008 and 2010.

  
 
   
   
 
 
- A residency project concerned with representing trade data relevant to Thailand and South East Asia.
  
 
   
   
 

 
- A single sculpture project concerned with representing Indian economic, dietary and brainwave data through a ritualized object.
  
 
   
   
 

 
- A series of geometric abstract paintings concerned with representing social data.
 
 
   
 
 
 
- A percision drawing project concerned with representing quantitative economic data.
  
 
   
   
 
 
- A single installation piece representing three US market peaks in layers of material.