four Similitudes

Blog following the inspiration, ideation, planning, sourcing for materials and creation of my Degree Show Project for Bsc Digital Arts Computing at Goldsmiths. // Artwork inspired by Foucault's description of the four Similitudes - Convenientia, Aemulatio, Analogia, Sympatheia - that governed knowledge through resemblance up until the Sixteenth century. // Four custom made wooden boxes with magnifying glass domes mounted on top distort encased screens displaying computational representations of the four Similitudes.

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I made a video following the making of the boxes!

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Convenientia, Aemulatio, Analogia and Sympatheia boxes materialised in my garden one morning.

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Exhibition contributions 3.0

As I mentioned in a couple of previous posts, I took part in quite a few aspects of the exhibition planning: as well as helping out with general logistics, I was part of the Design, Website, and Writing & Editorial Teams.

In the Design Team, I helped find a general stylistic direction, discussing colours, fonts, and layout ideas, which were exchanged through this Miro board.

We set up a brief to propose home page designs for the website, for which I provided a few design ideas based on the website’s framework and the discussions we’d had. The other designs I proposed can be found in a previous post, this one I made is what we chose in the end:

I also shared an animation prototype:

Which eventually became:

As part of the Website Team, I mostly helped out with styling and CSS, as well as getting people to send in information about their pieces to be integrated in the website.

Very thankful to MA students Julian Burgess and Nathan Adams for showing us how to customise their website to fit our design ideas.

The positioning statement on the homepage was also drafted collaboratively in the Writing & Editorial Team, I'm very proud of how it turned out. It is based on our re-contextualisation of the concept of Third Space, which I became interested in during my dissertation research and that others on the team also found very fascinating, finding that it resonated in a comprehensive and inclusive way, since it deals with the idea of a hybrid space of intervention which transcends binaries, refuting the traditional opposing notions of what is same and what different.

Third Space is a postcolonial sociolinguistic theory of identity and community realised through language, narrative and education. Attributed to Homi K. Bhabha, Third Space Theory explores the hybridity of human beings within the social, cultural and historical.

Edward W. Soja offers a conceptualization of the same term within the social sciences and from a critical urban theory perspective, derived from the spatial trialectics of Henri Lefebvre in The Production of Space and Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia.

In turn, more recently, Third Space has been used by media artist Randall Packer to represent the fusion of the physical (first space) and the remote (second space) into a networked hybrid place which, blurring the real and the virtual, can be inhabited by multiple remote users simultaneously or asynchronously (third space).

Because of all the strong references connecting this terms to different subjects and theories, we opted for Third ____  as our exhibition title, substituting ‘Space’ with ____ , thus simply implying the word and granting the title an open-endedness that might further free us from the limits of definition and direct reference.

Love the stylised version of the text that Ashley came up with and think it adds a lot of character to the show and the homepage.

Finally, Matthew and I collaborated on the poster for the Exhibition, which I also really enjoyed designing and am very happy with. The iteration of it can be found in a previous post.

As a whole, I am really very happy with how the Exhibition turned out. It wasn't easy and working remotely definitely added the extra hurdle but I think that in the end we managed to create a great platform and experience and I really enjoyed the process of it all.

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Convenientia | Aemulatio | Analogia | Sympatheia

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6 May 2021

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Finally managed to finish the video documentation for the final year project to my Bsc degree in Digital Arts Computing, in view at next week's online exhibition, Third___. Here are some bts pics.

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Just bought the wood for the next three boxes!

Padauk wood from Pterocarpus soyauxii.

Purpleheart from Peltogyne pubescens.

Sycamore from Acer pseudoplatanus.

I wanted all the types of wood to have distinct identities so that each box might express a different character. Because of this I chose each wood variety to have a slightly different tint. Looking up the trees I had this feeling of guilt, thinking that the wood I was to use would inevitably mean one of those wonderful plants had been cut down. And even though my project is infinitesimally small compared to other ways and scale these woods might be used, I made sure that each of the woods was responsibly sourced. This is why despite admiring this Honduras Mahogany from Swietenia macrophylla, when I realised it was CITES listed, I opted for a different wood.

Also why I decided to dig deeper and learn more about the trees and woods I’d chosen, in a way to honour the plants. I will be posting a bit about the lore of these trees in the next couple of posts.

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I wanted to add some info about Santos Rosewood, used for the Aemulatio box.

The name Rosewood was inspired by its sweet rosy scent and deep red color that speaks to our heart.

Brazilian rosewood, Dalbergia nigra, is a large evergreen tree. Its wood varies in color from nearly black to brick red. The sound of rosewood resonates with a sustained, bright metallic ring when tapped. This along with its beauty has plucked at the heartstrings of instrument makers for centuries, who sought it to make lutes and stringed instruments in the late Renaissance and Baroque eras.

All “true” rosewoods belong to the genus Dalbergia. Dalbergia is a large genus of small to medium trees native throughout the tropical regions of the world. This genus includes several valuable hardwood trees such as African Blackwood, tulipwood, Brazilian kingwood and cocobolo to name a few. The most valuable part of the rosewood tree is the heartwood, which is found in its core, which is darker and denser than its outer layers.

Rosewood is a tree that is both strong and vulnerable.

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Went to uni the other day to start documenting the boxes !! Here is a sneak peak of Sympatheia in action :)

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Went to uni the other day to start documenting the boxes :) Here is a sneak peak of Sympatheia in action.

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Updated 3D models of Convenientia, Aemulatio, Analogia and Sympatheia boxes - made on Blender using pictures of the real boxes as texture for the wood and visuals.

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And then they were done!

Spent an awesome last day in the workshop, sanding, assembling, soldering, oiling and celebratingggg :)) can't wait to document these babies properly but they are here !

Infinite thanks to my friend Mike for showing me the woodworking way.

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Another day at the woodworking workshop!

Cutting the circles with the laser cutter at uni didn’t pan out, so we decided to cut them with the hole saw and the result was pretty tidy in the end! Sanded the insides of the circle to bring it to the right circumference and smooth the edges for a nice finish.

Then moved on to assemble and glue the boxes.

For the Analogia box, I am encasing a set of speakers, so we made a guide and then transferred the holes for the buttons to the side of the box. 

We made a set of two buttons for the Volume and Power and sanded them into square-ish domes. 

Next time we will glue the buttons to the board and finish off the boxes entirely.

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Exhibition contributions 2.0

Worked with Matt on a possible poster for the exhibition! He designed the diagrams, text, and thought out the initial layout; then passed over to me to come up with the grainy background and play around with the disposition of the elements on the page. After a bit of back and forth and feedback from the rest of the Web Team, we landed on a version we liked. It was a really awesome collaborative effort and a lot of fun.

Here’s the final design:

And a couple different themes we worked out on the way:

I really loved this purple theme but the visibility of the text was an issue so we went for the orange/yellow at the top.

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Exhibition planning contributions

I have been taking part in various aspects of the Exhibition planning.

As well as helping out with general logistics, I am an active participant of the Design, Website, and Writing and Editorial Teams.

The Design Team met up a handful of times to discuss the general stylistic direction, talking colours, fonts, and general layout ideas. 

We used this Miro board to exchange ideas and inspiration.

We set up a brief to propose home page designs for the website, so I provided a few design ideas based on the website’s framework and the discussions we’d had:

In the end the majority decided on the simple white on black design I shared. 

To illustrate the animation ideas I had in mind for the homepage, I made this simple gif:

As part of the website team, I met with the MA students Julian Burgess and Nathan Adams to learn about how to customise their website to fit our design ideas.

I mostly helped out with styling and CSS, as well as getting people to send in information about their pieces to be integrated in the website.

We are on very good track with the website and am really happy about how it’s looking right now. It has been a truly collaborative effort and everyone’s contributions have enriched the site immensely.

The site isn’t finalised yet of course, but the progress has been awesome and I’m very proud of our work.

The positioning statement on the homepage was also drafted collaboratively in the Writing and Editorial Team, and it totally exceeded my expectations so very proud of that too. It is based on our re-contextualisation of the concept of Third Space, which I became interested in during my dissertation research and that others on the team also found very fascinating, finding that it resonated in a comprehensive way to almost all of the pieces we might possibly include in the exhibition, since it deals with the idea of a hybrid space of intervention which transcends binaries, refuting the traditional opposing notions of same and different.

Third Space is a postcolonial sociolinguistic theory of identity and community realised through language, narrative and education. Attributed to Homi K. Bhabha, Third Space Theory explores the hybridity of human beings within the social, cultural and historical. 

Edward W. Soja offers a conceptualization of the same term within the social sciences and from a critical urban theory perspective, derived from the spatial trialectics of Henri Lefebvre in The Production of Space and Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopia.

In turn, more recently, Third Space has been used by media artist Randall Packer to represent the fusion of the physical (first space) and the remote (second space) into a networked hybrid place which, blurring the real and the virtual, can be inhabited by multiple remote users simultaneously or asynchronously (third space). 

Because of all the strong references connecting this terms to different subjects and theories, we opted for Third ____  as our exhibition title, substituting ‘Space’ with ____ , thus simply implying the word and granting the title an open-endedness that might further free us from the limits of definition and direct reference.

Love the stylised version of the text that Ashley came up with and think it adds a lot of character to the show and the homepage.

Looking forward to wrapping the website in its final version and having all the artworks and artist info on the site.

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awesome day woodworking !

all the pieces for the remaining three boxes have been measured, cut and levelled, so that everything is ready to laser cut of the holes and assemble.

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physical boxes

Excited to finally get started in building the final three boxes tomorrow !