Selected Work

Identity Wordmark Design

2015 New Identity Wordmark for SDSU's School of Art + Design

2015 Leigh Cotnoir developed this wordmark for the School of Art + Design at San Diego State University as an identity to bring visual unity to the two divisions of the school (fine art and design). As the school moves forward in its 2015 publicity outreach efforts, it will do so representing itself as a holistic, interdisciplinary School that crosses boundaries between disciplines. The combining of the two words through the modifications of the letterforms highlights this symbolic practice.

Technologies: Adobe Illustrator, analog sketching

Other Media

Passageways

Interactive Digital Installation

2001 "Passageways" was a collaborative digital installation work between artists, Leigh Cotnoir and Karl Clevelend. Created from still photography of real environmental landscapes, the 12 invented and animated immersive environments were accompanied by unique and original soundscapes, any of which the gallery participant could choose to embrace or ignore. Each environment could be triggered by audience movements via the use and programming of an iCube MIDI device with tracking sensors, thus making the user's body an "input device" in the physical gallery space.

This video shows the collaborators manipulating environments for documentation efficiency, but real audience members spent more time exploring and learning how to manipulate each environment.

Excerpt

Interactive Video Tripych: Polychromed wood, video, etched stainless steel, 84" x 4.5" x 3"

2002 Explores the concepts of time as a filter for altered memory, perception, and identity. Each piece has a written 'excerpt' about the artist's familial memory, paired with a set of videos. The videos first play seamlessly until the viewer moves in front of the piece to both read the etched panel and view the footage, at which time the movies begin to randomly and disjointedly play in-and-out of one another to create disruptions to each others' timelines. Each piece has progressively more rapid interruptions as you move from one to the next. The purpose of this manipulation is to highlight the fact that with a greater passage of time, we must exercise greater focus to remember details of events and separate out what we believe to be truths vs. fictions.

Time Traveler

Sculpture: Suitcase, rice paper, printmaking, cherry wood, glass, copper, acrylic, grains, chair

1999 This piece is a portrait of my grandmother whose stories fascinated me and gave me an anchor to generations that came before me. The foundational tray bears graphics from my grandmother's formative years during the early twentieth century, and the four boxes have internal prints that represent the personalities of her four children. Each box bears one of sugar, salt, peppercorns, or oats as a manifestation of each personality, as well as her love of cooking and familial devotion. The rice paper prints behind the satin cover are of images of media contemporary to her adulthood and her home and husband to create a more private personal space.

Student Work

To see selected student work, please visit the Teaching page.