The Resistance of the Archetype 2014 

Invited Distinguished Professor:

Bruno Juricic.

 

Gabriel Esquivel,  Studio Professor

Stephen Caffey, Assistant Professor of Art and Architecture History and Theory

Texas A&M University

 

Team: Lyly Huyen, Adrian Martinez, Stefani Johnson, 

 

Our project explores the notion of ungrounding through a combining of the graphic realm with the scientific image. The graphic nature of our project investigates how application of generated patterns start to exacerbate the object as a way of testing limitations of the digital medium. Consequently, the object in question declares its autonomy by overcoming that which can be achieved through digital means. What is supposed to be an argument of Raw and Synthetic, becomes more of a conflict as the patterned synthetic is trapped in a state of tension with the raw object it is projected onto. This static moment captured in a continuous flux becomes the ultimate moment of ungrounding where Raw and Synthetic reach ultimate chaos and equal autonomy before either takes ­over.

 

The Raw, as stated before, is the object that is fluctuating between a hard and a decayed condition. The decayed, “soft” surface is created by external, unknown forces acting upon it by degrading the mesh. Its original, hardened condition is articulated by the stalactite-like surface found on the edges as well as underneath. It is called “original” because the hard surfaces are derived from the initial ground from which the object was excavated. Now floating and devoid of ground, the object is in constant search and yearning for another placement while simultaneously eating away at itself.

 

The Synthetic is derived from generated patterns applied as a way of differentiating various surface typologies (hard + soft). Similar to the raw surface, the two patterns were created with both articulating different things: high-fi and low-fi. The high-fi pattern we determined was the sinuous graphic applied to the “simple” soft surface as a way of adding complexity. It starts interacting and becoming an active graphic dependent on saturation values with the white areas reverting the mesh to its concentrated original form. The low-fi pattern is a reticulation of the hi-fi pattern used to codify the hard mesh. This hyper-synthetic glitch graphic works dependent upon the angle at which you see it. From certain perspectives, the pattern’s geometric quality starts to simplify the mesh underneath, while at other times, you can see the textural quality of the mesh further pixelating the pattern at a micro-scale articulation.

 

The cartographic method fails when the patterns become so layered and complex that it ends up distorting the very surface it was supposed to define. Consequently, the object declares its autonomy since it is only perceptible because of the limitations of the medium. The pattern acts as a way of exacerbating the surface rather than blurring it. Similar to Alexander McQueen’s “Plato’s Atlantis”, the application or projection of the pattern onto a surface starts to distort depth perception and material reading and vice versa where the surface articulation starts distorting the graphic. Not only that, but the pattern adds another level of complexity that the raw fails to achieve. As discussed in Murakami’s concept of “Superflat”, the layering and scaling of certain portions of the pattern begin to allude to a two-dimensional depth that adds to the existing three-dimensional.

 

Video is used as a way of presenting a two-dimensional + three-dimensional representation of the object. Because of its graphic nature, the object in question is able to mix a comic book-like appearance with the scientific image. Through use of projection mapping techniques, we will be able to animate the 3D prints with the existing pattern as a way of showing that the raw object is in a continuous flux in its hard+soft raw form as well as its patterned, synthetic form (lifecycle condition).

 

This is the ultimate show of autonomy, where the object containing both raw and synthetic is rendered with so much information that the digital medium through which it is shown through fails. The object in question defies all methods of representation and starts to dictate the conditions through which it is shown. The Anarchy of the Archetype.