Vivrant Thing: The Aesthetic of Hip Hop
This research recognizes Hip Hop as a culture that has become a transformative art movement for the past three decades and is designed to investigate the cultural theories and practices found in African American culture and Hip Hop culture to connect a paradigm between design and the aesthetic nature of Hip Hop. The aim of this study is to determine whether Hip Hop culture translates into a visual language that can augment design methodology and visual communication. The methods of this research will underscore the four elements of Hip Hop: graffiti, mceeing, deejaying and breakdancing as well as the ideas and practices of sampling and remixing as a vehicle for creating visual experiments. These visual experiments will emphasize imagemaking, reapportion of space, identity and visual language, while studying the formal conventions of graphic design and framing a series of visual exercises using both digital and analog medias. These experiments will be documented to find the best methodologies for combining analog and digital medias using the perspectives afforded through the Hip Hop culture. The visual experiments were successful in conveying the aesthetic of Hip Hop.