Abstractions
lllustration
This project started as a study of the creative process and its relationship to different forms of technical mediation.
Meant to engage with John May’s book “Signal Image Architecture,” it explores how processes of abstraction are affected by different technical methods.
In the book “Signal Image Architecture,” John May goes to great lengths to describe how our tools alter how we create, how we think, and how we perceive the world around us. This image was chosen out of a series of photos to study how the three types of technical mediation discussed in the book uniquely affect such processes..
To understand this concept, a comparative exercise was developed. First, the image was translated through the three distinct types of mediation:
Left: Orthographic abstraction (hand.pen.paper)
Middle: Pseudo-Orthographic abstraction (hand.stylus.tablet)
Right: Post-Orthographic abstraction (mouse.data.screen)
These three iterations of the same source image were then used to inform a series of thirty compositions. The varied translations of texture, shape, and value that resulted from this process reflect how these technical methods differently affected the perception of these traits throughout the creative process.
From these compositions, one was chosen to be brought to a finished state.
This represents the beginning of a longer project, which will see all compositions brought to a finish as a way to compare the ideas, narrative, and worlds that emerge from this collection.