Icarus

Icarus
The story of Icarus is rooted in Greek Mythology. Once there was a man named Daedalus who created a labyrinth for a disturbed King. The King trapped his daughter within and then had Daedalus and his son, Icarus, imprisoned so that no one would be able to solve the secrets of the maze.

While in their castle prison Daedalus and his son captured birds and fashioned their feathers into great wings, which they used to escape. Flying free to the island of Crete, Icarus, who had been forewarned by his father not to fly too close to the sun, disobeys him. The wax on the wings melts, sending Icarus plummeting to his death in the ocean below

Project
Create a triptych and poster series that embodies three key words of the story of Icarus. Finally create a poster that, without words, explains the story in one image.

Source imagery
First, I was asked to compile images which represented the story both literally and figuratively. The images represented imprisonment, escape, and flight.

Action words
Next I chose three action words that would set the premise for my triptych. Prison, Escape, and Tragedy.

3 Compositions
Take your action words, prison, escape, and tragedy and any combination of lines and circles; apply opacity, layering, and transparency
to build upon your action word.

3 Compositions
Add a distorted or effected form to an action composition. Re-compose to find formal relationships between the new object and the existing forms.

Mass media image
Next, I was tasked with finding an image that spoke directly to the story. I chose the image of the Colditz Cock which, was built by British prisoners of war for an escape attempt from Oflag IV-C (Colditz Castle) in Germany.

3 Compositions
Experiment with manipulating an image from mass media within a square format. Explore how an image can communicate differently with each manipulation.

Typography
I chose the quote "Like a bird..." from the story because I liked the simplistic and literal translation of Icarus's flight.

Triptych
Representing my action words Prison, Escape, and Tragedy

Final Poster
For my final poster, I wanted to show Icarus following his father from the prison cell. The large circle represents Daedalus who is always watching over his son, and the smaller circle represents Icarus being almost spit of his cell into the open blue sky. The letter from holds the shape of a body, while the line elements create the wingspan. My media image, The Colditz Cock, comes into play as the photographic element which, is broken down and reconfigured to fit
the piece.