Initial approach to the project “designatum”. Built with Max/MSP/Jitter

The initial lines that fall horizontally and vertically (juxtaposed) represent the artist’s interpretation of the entities in this world at its resting state (quiescence) in which it is always balanced but never symmetrical. Interactivity with the piece would create a disturbance in the curve values of each line, upon which the system would create a counterbalance whereby the curve value of the opposing color will be inverted. That is to say, an object is always harmonized by other opposing factors when its position in the “great scheme” is compromised and the prime value of the whole system is always retained.

download equilibrium

download “end of the world”

Generative forms created using MEL script

An audio visualizer built with processing

download “audio circulation”

This piece of work is an adaptation/ interpretation from a different perpective of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Taken from the point of view that Alice is a representation of the audience, this installation focuses on what is within Wonderland, which is what is encountered by Aliece (audience) in her spiritual journey and the conundrum that she goes through. The question that arises is what is actually “inside” wonderland?

Designatum is an interactive installation, using input from users to build random spatial networks out of its web-like internal structure. As a user enters a sentence (via the attached keyboard), a microcontroller processes their given information: breaking the sentence into its individual words. It then scatters the words within itself, creating a new and random pattern of electro-luminescent wires, connecting the LCDs displaying the words of their original sentence — the original context is discarded as obsolete. When idle, Designatum cycles automatically between a random flickering and a directed traversal of the electro-luminscent wires — creating a visual interest that attracts the users’ attention.

The linear narrative created by the user is deconstructed, it’s initial meaning and context withdrawn. Randomly generating a spatial syntax illuminated by the connectivity between the displayed words, Designatum illustrates a manifestation of cyberspace. As cyberspace draws symbolic patterns from random connections between the words and symbols we use in daily life, Designatum dares us to find new meanings in our deconstructed sentences.

Designatum shows us that meaning can exist in the arbitrary connections between our symbols, independent from their contextual arrangement. Our words are quantum symbols, signifiers, given meaning only when observed: creating concepts that only exist while pausing beside our physical reality.