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Damien Hirst is a British Conceptual artist that was part of the Young British Artists movement in the early 1990s. Although he had created installations, sculptures and drawings, it was his spot paintings that really caught my attention.

In this set of works, he explored different sizes of dots, varied in colour (sometimes the painting was colourful, sometimes monocromatic) and used different distances between each dot. Because of that, even if they have the same graphic elements, each artwork was unique.

One of the spot paintings that most caught my attention was Chlorpropamide (1996). The equal distance between each dot in both vertical and horizontal orientations allude an idea of balance and order, which is a characteristic that is very appealing for me once I am a perfectionist who values symmetry in mine and others work.

Also, another important characteristic in this work is the colour. Since Hirst used different hues and tones, there is many points that caught my attention, and because I didn’t know where I was supposed to  look, it felt a bit confused. However, the interesting for me is that even that it seem a bit confusing, each dot have its individuality intact in the composition.

Last but not least, as Gagosian analyses “the spot paintings evoke various psychological and perceptual dichotomies: they are both calming and unnerving, beautiful and ordinary”, and since it is hard to see such opposite feelings together, it is hard to get enough of the artwork because in every look you feel something different.

Since I need to try other patterns than bars to figure out which form is the best to use as a representation of my alphabet, seeing Hirst’s spot paintings inspired me to try with even spaced dots. Plus, I believe this pattern of repeated could be the perfect background to have a message that needs to be unveiled because if I wrote the word I want for the audience in the same colour of dots and put them in a colourful background, the hidden word wouldn’t be hand in to the audience, so they would have an active role in the work, just like what I was planning to do.

Bibliography

Artnet (n.d.) Damien Hirst [Online] Available at: http://www.artnet.com/artists/damien-hirst/ [Accessed 20th April 2019].

Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. (2015) Chlorpropamide [Image] Available at: http://damienhirst.com/chlorpropamide [Accessed 20th April 2019].

Gagosian (n.d.) Damien Hirst [Online] Available at: https://gagosian.com/artists/damien-hirst/ [Accessed 20th April 2019].

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In 1992, Arthur & Passini described in their book Wayfinding a method to calculate the contrast difference between two colours based on the light reflectancy (LR) readings in percentages for each of the two colours involved. To know if two colours have an assured legibility, it is necessary to subtract the highest LR (K1) from the smaller LR (K2), then divide by  K1 and then multiply by 100. If the result (H) is higher than 70, there is sufficient contrast for display; if not, the colours shouldn’t be using on top of each other because the legibility is not assured.

The contrast between the background and foreground colours is very important to reading, so choosing the right colour is if I want the hidden word in my poster to be unveiled by the audience. And since I am having a bit of trouble to decide the colours I am going to use in my poster because the combinations that I tried did not make the squares of the word legible enough (or with sufficient attraction to the audience). I believe that I can use this theory to help me on get to the colour palette where the colour of squares of the word stands out from the black background and the rest of the squares.

Bibliography

Contrast value of each colour and its relationship with other hues. (n.d.). [Image]. Available at: https://www.designworkplan.com/wp-content/arthur-passini-color-wayfinding-01.png [Accessed 26th April 2019].

Design Work Plan. (n.d.). Signs and color contrast - /designworkplan wayfinding design studio. [Online] Available at: https://www.designworkplan.com/read/signage-and-color-contrast [Accessed 26th April 2019].

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For a long long long time, men had to learn to understand the signs of nature such as clouds, wind, lightning, weather seasons, etc, in order to survive, either alone or as a group. Even though it is known that vocal and sign languages were used to communicate with each other, they were insufficient to transmit a complex though. This is what probably urged our ancestors to create signs through graphic annotations such as carvings, engravings and paintings. As said in (Mandel, L, 1998, p. 25) "We found symbols responding to the more pragmatic functions: warning of a danger, indicating a diffraction, marking a territory, a property, tattoos indicating the group or social hierarchy, account for time and goods, others serving as support for games and amusements or elements of ornamentation". The figuration of beings and familiar objects ordered in a determined sense is called pictography, the first visual language ever discovered.

Eventually, pictographs became obsolete because they couldn't communicate an abstract thought. Which led to the ideograph form, in which each sign represents an idea, rather than only resembling what they actually mean. Then, "In a very rapid way, all ideographic writings, such as the Chinese, cuneiform and hieroglyphics, have been enriched from phonetic elements to a more precise transcription of thought to be translated by words." (Mandel, L, 1998, p. 33).

Cuneiform was first used around 3400 BC by the Sumerians, in southern Iraq. Since this region was an economic pole back then, it was probably the need for accounting goods and rations that motivated the invention of this writing system in the world (probably the oldest one). However, cuneiform is not alphabet because it uses signs to represent words and numbers. But also, each sign could represent a syllable. For example, an ideogram of water could be used to represent both "water" and the sound of the word "water", which was "A" in the Sumerian language spoken back then. This way, everything could have a visual and verbal representation.

It took several centuries to the first writing alphabet being invented. The writing was considered only used by the aristocracy as a way to prevent knowledge from the rest of the population. Yet, the merchants had to communicate somehow in order to make commercial deals with the Phoenicians, that reduced the cuneiform system to an alphabet of — approximately — 30 letters. It was an extremely easy system because it just required to give a name to the figures and know the first sound of the acrophonic system to obtain the letter and to know how to read and write.

The Phoenicians' letters were difficult to understand and sometimes even illegible. So, when they brought their alphabet to Greece around 800 BC, the Greeks perfected it: the letters were simplified to geometric shapes of easy memorization (circles, squares and triangles) and were added letters for vowels, so now all sounds could be represented.

I found the history of the alphabet really interesting. It is definitely important to my project because the alphabet is used in 2/3 of the world, which makes it the most successful system of communication known. And understanding how it was developed made me realise how the subconscious took part in our communication and how each culture adapted it regarding their needs.

Also, after understanding this subject better, I keep thinking of how the visual language evolved from pictures to letters and, at the same time, we are doing the opposite movement on the internet by replacing all possible words by emoticons. Maybe the alphabet is not the most successful system of communication after all, or we are de-evolving somehow, or we are looking for a system that could be globalised just like the rest of our culture nowadays.

Bibliography
BBC RADIO 4. (2003) The Alphabet introduced by Melvyn Bragg. [Online]. Thursday 18th December. Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0054950. [Accessed: 21th March 2019].

History Extra (2015) Cuneiform: 6 things you (probably) didn’t know about the world’s oldest writing system. [Online] Available at: https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-egypt/cuneiform-6-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-worlds-oldest-writing-system [Accessed 25th March 2019].

Khan Academy (2014) Cuneiform.[Online] Available at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/ancient-near-east1/the-ancient-near-east-an-introduction/a/cuneiform [Accessed 25 March 2019].

Mandel, L. (1998) Escritas, espelho dos homens e das sociedades. São Paulo: Edições Rosari.

Schmandt-Besserat, D. (2014) The Evolution of Writing. [Online] Sites.utexas.edu. Available at: https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/the-evolution-of-writing [Accessed 25th March 2019].

The History of Visual Communication (2019) The History of Visual Communication. [Online] Available at: https://www.historyofvisualcommunication.com [Accessed: 25th March 2019].

Typography Gdp 113 In Ancient Pictographs From Mesopotamia | Early In Ancient Pictographs From Mesopotamia (2013) [Image] Available at: http://www.attachmax.com/18/postXVII/ancient-pictographs-from-mesopotamia.html/typography-gdp-113-in-ancient-pictographs-from-mesopotamia-early-in-ancient-pictographs-from-mesopotamia [Accessed 25th March 2019].

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I believe this lecture had the perfect timing. If I hadn’t had a bad time the last couple of days caused by my anxiousness about my project, I wouldn’t understand so well what Charles told us. I wouldn’t be open to new ideas and to make more mistakes as I am now.

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Olivier Tossan is a visual development artist that was born in France and now is living in California. Even though it may seem that he is not a direct reference for me, he did say interesting things in his lecture that inspired me.

He told us how in Europe you have to choose one thing to be, not here in Brazil or in the United States where being more than one thing is an advantage. I didn’t know about this European characteristic, and I hope that until it is time for me to enter in design market this will be changed.

Another thing that he told us is that for him is important to understand how the body works, the articulations and how gravity affects our movements so his characters can be accurate to reality. He told us “if you want to make a horse, than be one”. This had lots in common with empathy, which made me think about communication. Character design, graphic design and communication are areas that you have to understand the other. Whether is to make something accurate or something to be understood.

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the influence of the romans in our writing system

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the influence of the romans in our writing system

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Romans used the letters to show power by writing their victories in the highest monuments, so it could be seen and read by everyone. In order to facilitate this process, they perfected the alphabet that the Greeks created by alternating thin and thick shapes and putting spaces between every word.

Throughout Romans' Empire, at the same time their power spread,   Latin became the main language of the world. Even with the end of the Empire, Latin survived because it was the sole language of the Catholic Church, that monopolised every kind of knowledge, either scholarly, historical, or scientific.

Consequently, the influence of the romans in our writing system can be seen until today once Latin became the basis of a group of languages, which includes French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian.

It is mind-blowing to know that we now speak languages whose roots are in the 6th century BC. This makes me think of the historical weight of the nowadays dialects that we use, but also makes me wonder if it is not time to change that and introduce a new one. As said in Escritas, espelho dos homens e das sociedades (Mandel, L. 1998, p. 103), "'A language and its writing are made of concepts that contain and convey the words within a sequence; concepts associated with the geographic, historical, economic, social and cultural realities of a human group ', and I do not see our society as the same as the last decade, much less 15 centuries ago.

Bibliography
Mandel, L. (1998) Escritas, espelho dos homens e das sociedades. São Paulo: Edições Rosari.

Society, N. (2018) Traces of Ancient Rome in the Modern World. [Online] Available at: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/news/traces-ancient-rome-modern-world [Accessed 25th March 2019].

UNRV (n.d.) Roman Latin Language. [Online] Available at: https://www.unrv.com/culture/latin-language.php [Accessed 25th March 2019].

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Graphic Means is a film by Briar Levit that explores the transition between graphic design in 1950s until today.

I already knew that graphic design was a hands on activity until desktop computers revolutionised the way this industry works, but it was nice to see very through how each tool evaluated from the linecaster to the photocomposition. There were plenty of specific vocabulary that it was hard to understand, since they don’t exist anymore, but still, it was interesting to understand the trajectory.

There were two things that caught my attention the most. Firstly, the fact that it took a while to designers incorporate computers in their practise. It was not something that had an immediate success because they thought that what they did manually was better. Which is quite interesting to compare with our reality where we expect the new launches and it is hard to find someone that would rather stay with the ‘old technology’.

Also, I realised that the tools that we use today on Photoshop were inspired on what was done manually. For example, the grids are blue because back then designers used a light blue pen to help to diagram the layouts since this color wouldn’t appear on the photocomposition since only the negatives were printed. So, while some earlier designers know the tools manually and couldn’t adapt to the new technologies, the new designers that do know how to use Photoshop and other softwares doesn’t know how to do it manually, even that they are the same (in essence).

The other thing that piqued my interest was the fact that the new technologies introduced in 1990s in Design Industry was a surprise for the professionals. Apple and Adobe introduced to the future without anyone expecting some changes. And now, I keep thinking about what is the next step to Graphic Design that we are not seeing?

I saw a clear connection between this film and my project because despite both of them talk about Design, also they talk about changes that we don’t expect. Just like I can’t think about what could be next for designers in terms of technology, it is also hard to think about what is coming next to communication systems (which is actually something that I am trying to think of solutions for).

Bibliography

Briar Levit (2015) Graphic Means. [Online Video] 14th November 2018. Available from: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/graphicmeans/157620840 [Accessed: 26th March 2019].

Grafik (2015) Make Paste. [Online] Available at: https://www.grafik.net/category/news/make-paste [Accessed 28th March 2019].

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Signs can take a wide range of forms, from words, images and sounds to flavours and objects that are nothing without meaning (once it needs to be understood). The theory behind them that aims to understand the tools, processes, structures, and contexts for creating and understanding meaning in a variety of different way is called semiotics.

One of the most famous theorists of the field, Ferdinand Saussure, believed that communication systems had not only a hole to name and classify things, but also a social aspect, reflected in the way in which they were structured. Language is a system of signs, which were composed of two aspects: the signifier, the part of the communication that carried the message, and the signified, the part that communicated by that sound. The signs unite concepts to sounds not a thing and a name.

For Saussure, both signifier and signified are psychological, united in the mind by a link, that could be either a rule or a convention. This is what makes a certain communication successful or not. For example, when someone says 'dog', you will know that he/she meant a four-legged domestic creature due to social conventions. It is important to freeze that this model is not based on the notion of a reference to extra-linguistic reality, therefore, the sign does not represent reality, but a notion of it.

Another famous theorist in semiotics was Charles Sanders Pierce that, in contrast to Saussure's dyadic model of the linguistic sign, he believed that sign had three main elements:  the representamen (the medium of communication), the interpretant (a sense of meaning) and the object (a reference). Also, he considered that the relationship between the signifier and the signified could have three different forms: the icon (direct ressemblance), the index (physical or causal relationship) or the symbol (no arbitrary relationship).

I personally relate best with Pierce's model because I believe a reference is an essential element to the understanding of a signifier because concepts are the basis for our thinking and communication once they are indispensable to organize and understand the world. However, they can be quite personal because not everyone has the same reference in mind. Consequently, a shift in the reference can compromise our ability to communicate clearly with one other.

The basic unit of natural language is the word, which we usually interpret as part of sentences that express thoughts, and consequently, have a meaning. So, in order to transmit a message successfully — which I am trying to do in this project — it is important to understand what are the aspects that influence the creation of signs.

Bibliography
Chandler, D. (2017) Semiotics: the basics. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.

Hall, S. (2012) This means this. This means that: a user's guide to semiotics. 2nd ed. London: Laurence King Publishing.

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As we see in Diethyl Malonate - 1, 3-C (2007), when Hirst used a similar tone of blue in most of the dots, the ones that weren’t blue caught more the attention of the audience. But still, the blue ones don’t disappear in the background, they just have a secondary role on the artwork.

If I want the hidden word to stand out on the piece but still be hidden, I could also try to use one colour (or one hue but with variations of tone) for the extra dots on the background that doesn’t take part in the word and another colour for the dots that writes the message.

Bibliography

Cuming Associates (2012) Diethyl Malonate - 1, 3-C [Image] Available at: http://damienhirst.com/diethyl-malonate-13-c [Accessed 20th April 2019].

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Morse Code is a character encoding scheme that represents text, numbers and punctuation marks by dots (dits), dashes (dahs), and spaces. This system was named after Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of both Morse Code and the telegraph.

Before the telegraph, most messages that had to be sent over long distances by messengers that had memorised them or had them physically. Also, they depended on the velocity of the horse to be delivered.

Developed in 1837 by William Fortherfill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone, the first telegraph made it possible to sent messages over long distances in a much quicker way. The device sent electrical signals that would line up compass needles on a grid containing letters of the alphabet.

One year later, Samuel Morse and his assistant, Alfred Vail, invented a more successful telegraph which sent messages using Morse Code. The messages were converted into electrical impulses and sent over telegraph wires, while the wire converted the impulses back into dots and dashes, and then decoded the message.

However, the first Morse Code didn’t allow the transmission of non-English text because it lacked codes for letters with diacritic marks. So, in 1851 was created the International Morse Code, a simpler and more precise system than Morse Code.

I found Morse Code very interesting because it is a system that managed to represent letters, numbers and words through elements and sounds and visual elements other than words. If we think about it, the alphabetical characters are a abstraction of the element they represent, and the Morse Code was the next level. And since I want to find a way, through design, to transmit ideas without depending on the alphabet, the Morse Code is a great example that it is possible to do that.

Still, Morse Code can only be used with Latin scripts, which means that the other 1/3 part of the world that doesn’t communicate through this script.

Bibliography
Camp, V. and Snodgrass, R. (2006) International Morse Code. [Image] Available at: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/International_Morse_code.png [Accessed 1st April 2019].

Encyclopedia Britannica (1998) Morse Code. [Online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Morse-Code

[Accessed 1st April 2019].

NRICH (2004) History of Morse. [Online] Available at: https://nrich.maths.org/2198 [Accessed 1st April 2019].

Wikipedia (2019) Morse code. [Online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code [Accessed 1st April 2019].

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This video shows how each word is represented in both visually and through sound. It is interesting to see how Morse managed to make a language with four simple elements: dots, dashes, spaces and sounds.

After seeing and hearing the Morse Code, I become curious to experiment with simple elements to see if I can represent all the letters through them.

This way of representing words is not that global because it is required to know the language behind the code to understand the message. However, it is more inclusive because the sound is global. One good example is S.O.S, which Morse Code sound is known everywhere and is still used in difficult situations.

Bibliography
Himslef, D. (2009) See and hear Morse Code. [Online Video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J8YcQETyTw [Accessed 1st April 2019].

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David Carson is an American graphic designer, best known for his unusual style in visual communication, mainly magazine design and experimental typography.

The work that most caught my attention was one of the spreads of Ray Gun magazine in 1994 in which he used Zapf Dingbats instead of text to talk about the musician Bryan Ferry. It is said that he found the content rather dull, so he used dingbats (a font that only contains symbols) instead to make it at least visually interesting.

I found this approach quite intriguing because we usually see dingbats as an ornament, not as a letter to transmit (or not) a message. And since each letter had a correspondent in Zapf Dingbats, we can consider dingbats as a language too.

Seeing the interview, it almost feel like a code that you have to unveil (which it was possible because the text version of the interview was published at the back of the same issue of the magazine).

We are in the middle of a transition to a hybrid language where visual and audio complement alphabetic characters in a text (on the Internet). So, in order to have a system that is exclusively visual, introducing dingbats could be a way to start to represent ideas in symbols since each letter has a respective dingbat.

And this got me thinking that maybe doing a code could be one possible solution for the problem I put myself to resolve in my project, which is a more globalised communication system.

Bibliography

Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d). David Carson. [Online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Carson [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

California State University Northridge (n.d.). David Carson. [Online] Available at: http://www.csun.edu/~pjd77408/DrD/Art461/LecturesAll/Lectures/PublicationDesign/DigitalTimes/David-Carson.html [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

Process & Skills: parsons graphic design blog (2013) David Carson and his notorious use of Dingbats!. [Online] Available from: https://processandskillsdotcom.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/david-carson-and-his-notorious-use-of-dingbats/ [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

Ray Gun (2013) [Image] Available at: https://processandskillsdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/raygun1994.jpeg [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

Wikipedia (n.d.) Dingbat. [Online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingbat [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

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Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof was born in 1859 in Poland, which was still part in Russian Empire. But he did not have to learn only Russian, but also German, Yiddish, French and English in order to be able to communicate with everyone in his town. He believed that conflicts between ethic groups in his hometown occurred because of the miscommunication between them and the lack of a single common language.

After struggling through years to solve this problem, in 1887 he found the solution. Instead of choosing one existing language to make it the world’s standard because this could make those who weren’t native speakers second-class citizens. So, he created Esperanto, an international language that would be easy to read, to speak and to learn.

Esperanto has 16 regular and exception-free rules and a regular phonetic spelling, which means every letter only has one pronunciation, not depending on the letters surround it, which makes it way easier to learn than other languages. There are some estimates that Esperanto only takes 150 hours to study, compared to 1,5000 for English.

Since its creation, the International Language have been spoken by 2 million people in 120 countries, but it is hard to estimate this number once the Esperanto language is not attached to a country, but to a community of people. However, Esperanto didn’t become mainstream as expected (even though among invented languages Esperanto is the most successful).

This may have happened because Esperanto didn’t express a culture like other languages; it was only a way of communication. And why someone would learn another way of communication if the ones you can talk too are very difficult to reach? This is a reaction that I could suffer too in my project by trying to make a global language too. But different from Esperanto, I will not be using letters, so it could be seen differently by the audience.

Also, I believe Zamenhof was way ahead his time. He already had a picture of a global language almost a century before the globalisation happen. And now we are way more open to a global language because everything else already is.

Bibliography
Esperanto.org (n.d.) Some Basic Information about the International Language. [Online] Available at: http://esperanto.org/us/USEJ/world/index.html [Accessed 6th April 2019].

Eurotalk (2015) A beginner's guide to Esperanto. [Image] Available at: https://eurotalk.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/esperantoweek-3.jpg [Accessed 6th April 2019].

HowStuffWorks (2014) Esperanto, The Universal Language: Where did it come from? | Stuff of Genius. [Online Video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq7mRzH5Smg [Accessed 6th April 2019].

MosaLingua (n.d.) The Esperanto Language: What Is It and Why Learn It?. [Online] Available at: https://www.mosalingua.com/en/why-learn-esperanto-language

[Accessed 6th April 2019].

Westmaas, R. (2017) Esperanto Is the World's Universal Language. [Online] Curiosity. Available at: https://curiosity.com/topics/esperanto-is-the-worlds-universal-language-curiosity [Accessed 6th April 2019].

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Neil Harbisson was born with achromatopsia, which is total color blindness, or in other words, he only sees in greyscale. When he was 21, he gathered with a couple of scientists to make an electronic eye, a color sensor that detects the color frequency in front of him and sends this frequency to a chip installed in the back of his head, so he can hear the sound through bone conduction.

So, in order to be able to externalise what color he was seeing, he had to make a connection between the sound of the colours and its respective name. And by this, his perception of the world changed. He not only saw it, but he started to hear it. For example, instead of dressing up to look good, he dresses up to sound good.

His relationship with color is completely different from me or anyone that see colour. He adapts the sounds of each color to each situation instead of adapting our perception of each color to the situation. For instance, if he had to go to a funeral, he would dress in B minor, which would be turquoise, purple and orange, while in these situations it is a social convention to use black, because it is perceived as a sad colour.

While Harbisson told he would find sounds everywhere, such as clothes, objects, people’s faces and speeches, I kept thinking about how would it be to transform words into sounds (and maybe into colours then…). Sounds are a much more inclusive rather than alphabetic writing system, so if this translation word-sound worked, it could be a good solution for my complex problem.

Bibliography

TED Talks (2012) I listen to color. [Online Video]. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/neil_harbisson_i_listen_to_color/up-next?language=en#t-100169 [Accessed 1st April 2019].

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Artist Neil Harbisson was born completely color blind, but these days a device attached to his head turns color into audible frequencies. Instead of seeing a world in grayscale, Harbisson can hear a symphony of color -- and yes, even listen to faces and paintings.

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london's lunar BBDO designer recruitment ad

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london's lunar BBDO designer recruitment ad

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Two creative directors at London’s Lunar BBDO, Daryl Corps and Ben Kay, made an unusual recruitment advertising for a typographer. Instead of using letters, they wrote all the information in dingbats. The ad defiantly catch attention because of the colors and the layout, but only the ones that excepted the challenge of decipher the message were the right ones for the advertisement agency because it would attract the attention of typographically obsessed people.

I found this ad genius. They had an specific audience to reach and they found a way to do an almost exclusive ad for them. This was a great example not only as an approach that really understood its audience and managed to fit both the expectations of the agency and the curiosity of the typographers, but also as an outcome that managed to communicate through a code, in this case, dingbats.

Just like David Carsons’ Ray Guy article, London’s Lunar BBDO recruitment ad makes me want to explore more the universe of codes and not exactly use dingbats (because they already exists and I want to create something from scratch), but something that I could simplify and turn into a code.

Dingbats, just like Morse Code, aren’t ‘global’ because they are based in letters, therefore, alphabet and written systems. However, they are an alternative, very successful indeed.

Bibliography

Riggs, T. (2007) If You Can Read This, You're Hired. [Online] CreativePro. Available at: https://creativepro.com/if-you-can-read-this-you-re-hired/ [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

This want ad might catch your eye, but could you understand it?. (2007) [Image] Available at: https://3v6x691yvn532gp2411ezrib-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/story_images/20070319_fg1a.jpg [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

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Ghada Wali is an Egyptian designer that believes graphic design can change the world, specially how the world saw Arabia and its culture. So, in order to foreigns see Arabics as equals, not terrorists, she picked the most pure, innocent and fun element she could think of, LEGO, to represent Arabic.

Ghana Wali used LEGO to make a representation of each letter in Arabic and explained each of them in form, sound and examples of words in function, in addition to the equivalent in Latin. By doing so, she not only created a way to connect Arabic and Latin, but also found a solution to spread the Arabic education.

Also, it is possible to see this work as an code made with LEGO’s, as each piece of it correspond to one or more letters. I don’t know yet what I could simplify to then use it as the base of my language, but it is defiantly an exercise that I could try.

Bibliography

Wali, G. (2017) How I'm using LEGO to teach Arabic. [Online Video] Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/ghada_wali_how_i_m_using_lego_to_teach_arabic#t-369874 [Accessed 1st April 2019].

This Egyptian Artist Is Teaching Arabic Using Legos (2017) [Image] Available at: https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/kcAOFIC7FeqU2icPC3i4BzwN1kw/fit-in/2048xorig/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-/2017/09/05/549/n/38922795/tmp_UUZtDn_fb9fc54b095d860f_Screen_Shot_2017-09-05_at_2.50.56_PM.png
[Accessed 1st April 2019].

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Barcode is a visual representation of data that can be decoded by a proper machine. The first one was created by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver and inspired on Morse Code that were extended to thin and thick lines.

I like the aesthetics of the barcode because they can vary not only in their numbers below but also with the combination of thick and thin lines. Since I wanted to make a language that worked as a code, maybe if I could make 26 variations of the bars so each of them would represent one letter. Plus, bars are, essentially, a rectangle, and rectangle is an universal shape, which would make sense to use it as an unit in an universal language.

Bibliography
Barcoding, Inc. (n.d.) The History of Barcodes. [Online] Available at: https://www.barcoding.com/resources/barcoding-basics/the-history-of-barcodes/ [Accessed 6th April 2019].

UPC-A barcode image (2018) [Image] Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UPC-A-036000291452.svg [Accessed 6th April 2019].

Wikipedia (2019) Barcode. [Online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcode [Accessed 6th April 2019].

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I found interesting this type of barcode because when aligned from the bottom, you can see the difference between the height between them. Because of that, this could be a solution to differ each letter from the alphabet.

Bibliography
Postnet Barcode (2012) [Image] Available at: http://posthastemailing.blogspot.com/2012/06/if-youre-still-using-old-postnet.html [Accessed 7th April 2019].

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Bridget Riley is a British artist known for her clean lines, color choices and geometric precision. According to Artsy “In the late '60s, she introduced color into her work and went on to win the Prize for Painting at the 1968 Venice Biennale. Since then her work has unfolded through numerous groups and series that engage the viewers' perception to induce simultaneously shifting patterns of forms and changing, optical mixtures of colors.”.

I got very intrigued when I saw some of her works that she made a pattern by mixing different thickness and colours of bars, such as Achean (1981), Ecclesia (1985), RA 2 (1981). They reminded me a lot of barcodes, which was my inspiration for the first test of my language, so I thought I could inspire myself on her to make another test for my language.

The problem with the alphabet that I made was that without unit, it would be hard to anyone understand which letter is which without a scale or a ruler. So seeing these artworks made me realise that a solution for my alphabet could be using a thin bar as a unit so that the representation of A would be one bar, the representation of B would be two bars, until Z that would be 26 bars. Plus, inspired by the bright colour palette used by Bridget Riley, I could associate each letter to a different colour, which would make it even easier to identify them and also more visually interesting.

Bibliography
Achean by Bridget Riley (n.d.) [Image] Available at: https://arthive.com/artists/62362~Bridget_Riley/works/493961~Achean [Accessed 19th April 2019].

Artnet (n.d.) Bridget Riley. [Online] Available at: http://www.artnet.com/artists/bridget-riley/ [Accessed 19th April 2019].

Artsy (n.d.) Bridget Riley. [Online] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artist/bridget-riley [Accessed 19th April 2019].

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Ecclesia, 1985 - Bridget Riley (2012) [Image] Available at: https://www.wikiart.org/en/bridget-riley/ecclesia-1985 [Accessed 19th April 2019].

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RA 2, 1981 - Bridget Riley (2012)[Image] Available at: https://www.wikiart.org/en/bridget-riley/ra-2-1981 [Accessed 19th April 2019].

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Julio Le Parc is an Argentine artist known as one of the progenitors of the Kinetic Art, an art movement from the 1960s that represented “a new form of abstraction that played with the viewer’s visual perception.” (Op Art - Artsy).

The first work of him that caught my attention was Alchimie 366 (2017) because of its colour palette. He painted with bright tones of red, orange, yellow, green and blue on top of a black background. I found this combination of colours very interesting because the colours really popped out and they had a harmony together. In this work, black doesn’t have the attention of the audience, but it is the element that makes the colours stand out to the audience.

Having in mind that black is the colour associated with mystery and the fact that it is very successful as a background in order to make the other colours stand out, I think using it as the background of my poster would work very well.

Bibliography

Artsy (n.d.) Julio Le Parc. [Online] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artist/julio-le-parc [Accessed 21st April 2019].

Artsy (n.d.) Op Art. [Online] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/gene/op-art [Accessed 21st April 2019].

Galeria Nara Roesler (n.d.) Julio Le Parc. [Online] Available at: https://nararoesler.art/en/artists/43-julio-le-parc/ [Accessed 21st April 2019].

Julio Le Parc: 9 + 3 + RV (2017) [Image] Available at: https://nararoesler.art/en/exhibitions/123/ [Accessed 21st April 2019].

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Another work from him that I found interesting was Séquences ambivalentes (1959 – 1991). In this piece, he combined different sizes of black and white dots in a grey background, which created an optical illusion effect. Because of the concentration of big white dots in the centre of the painting, it is hard for me to focus on the black dots. If there weren’t the black dots, the illusion of movement would be lost, which is one of the main elements for me in this artwork.

I don’t intend to create an optical illusion on my final outcome because this effect can confuse people sometimes, and since I want the audience to succeed at unveiling the hidden word, this could make it harder, or even impossible for them to find it. However, Séquences ambivalentes showed me the importance of using a colour with a secondary role in order to make the protagonist one pop in a pattern environment, which is very important for me to consider as I want to make sure that the word hidden can be read by the audience.

Bibliography

Séquences ambivalentes (n.d.) [Image] Available at: http://www.julioleparc.org/surface.html [Accessed 21st April 2019].

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After creating Twitter’s blue bird logo, Martin Grasser decided to imagine what a “true universal language”, which led him to Color Dot Font, a typeface that automatically converts alphanumerical characters into coloured dots.

In an interview that Grasser gave to It’s Nice That, he said “while it might be hard to imagine anyone ever being able to read in Color Dot, we have managed to get our head around various structural conventions that have become ubiquitous across many cultures”. This is something that I do not only agree, but — only— the premiss of my whole project. For me, we live in a globalised world where everything have become universal: culture, money, relationships, just to mention a few, except for the languages that sometimes act as a barrier jeopardising not only the communication between different people but also their perception of the world. In regard to this matter, the solution is an universal letter.

I have just discovered this font, and while I wish it would have been launched a couple months ago so I could have used as a reference during my experiments, it is still valuable to my project because it is a proof that it is not only me that believes that we need a more universal language. And hopefully, with the increase of examples surrounding this idea, this could spread globally and taken into — serious — consideration by everyone so that a universal language exists and make it possible for everyone to communicate and be understood by anyone.

Bibliography

And Repeat (2019) Google (Via Color Dot). [Image]. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/system/files/052019/5cd16bd77fa44c12980044c7/images_slice_large/color-dot-typeface-martin-grasser-graphic-design-itsnicethat-04.jpg?1557228596 [Accessed 1st May 2019].

Baines, J. (2019) Say hello to Color Dot, a typeface that wants to make the internet friendlier. [Online] Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/color-dot-typeface-martin-grasser-graphic-design-080519 [Accessed 1st May 2019].

Han, G. (2019) The Color Dot Font Communicates with the Language of Color. [Online] Available at: https://design-milk.com/the-color-dot-font-communicates-with-the-language-of-color/ [Accessed 28th April 2019].

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Ion IX (2003) consists on a reptition of alternated pink and blue diamond shapes. Because of the contrast between the two colours, the work also gives an idea of optical illusion, even though that the pink caught much more attention than the blue. And is this situation where one colour stands out so much from the other that I have to pay attention for not to happen in my outcome. If the background stands out more than the hidden word, it won’t be read, therefore, my goal won’t be achieved.

But what most caught my attention in this work was the precision of the lines and how he made this possible because I am having trouble to find a media or a method to print my poster because its design is so precise and aligned that a slightly mistake would be crystal clear for the audience.

I found out that this work was actually a airbrushed print on aluminium, but unfortunately I don’t believe I will be able to use this method to print my poster once I have never airbrushed before, so I should practise a lot before doing something so precise and important, and I don’t have this time because the deadline is in two weeks. And even if I could, it would need some sort of stencil to do it, and it would be very hard for me to do every square exactly the same.

Bibliography

John M. Armleder | Ion IX (2003) (n.d) [Image] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/john-m-armleder-ion-ix-1 [Accessed 13 May 2019].

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Hugo Demarco was an Argentinian artist known as one of the pioneers of both Op and Kinetic Art. He makes paintings that allude optical vibration because of his explorations with light, colour and movement in the geometrical patterns. It is really interesting because in artworks such as Vibration (1959), Sans Titre (1959), Relation Couleur (1973), it is hard to say if he uses the same tones of the colours, so the darker and brighter areas would be an optical illusion, or if he actually uses (slightly) different tones of each hue to create this effect.

I am still looking for a technique that would make it possible for me to print my squares sharply and aligned. As some of Demarco’s works he makes geometrical patterns very much aligned, especially the ones I mentioned above in which the pattern is made with squares, I thought his technical choice to make these works could be the solution for my problem. However, since he either paints or screen print them, I don’t think any of them could be possible for me.

I don’t believe painting my outcome is an option because it is something that I have done a very few times in my life, therefore, I need to practise a lot before doing something so big, detailed, aligned and precise. Silkscreen is not better either because there is a risk of the squares not being aligned, especially because my work is quite big and I would use different colours.

Bibliography

Artnet (n.d.) Hugo Demarco. [Online] Available at: http://www.artnet.com/artists/hugo-demarco/ [Accessed 13rd May 2019].

Hugo Demarco | Vibration (1959) [Image] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/hugo-demarco-vibration [Accessed 13rd May 2019].

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Micro expression is a very quick facial expression that represents the response to a thought process and internal emotions. On the contrary of macro expressions, which are the obvious or “normal” facial expressions, last 1/2 second to 4 seconds and match the tone and content of what the person is saying, micro expressions are involuntary and last less then 1/2 second (which makes it difficult for non trained people to notice them).

Dr. Paul Ekman, the pioneer in the study of micro expression, defends that they are universal. In other words, no matter where you live, your age or your culture; everyone makes the same micro expressions, specially the 7 most famous ones: anger, fear, hapiness, contempt, surprise, sadness and disgust.

anger: eyebrows down, lip in a hard line and chin up to display confidence; fear: raised eyebrows, stress in the forehead and mouth in natural position (to either scream or taking a big breath of oxigen); hapiness: wrinkles around the eyes; contempt: smirk (only one side of the mouth is raised); surprise: eyebrows are raised in a rounded shape and the mouth gets loose; sadness: eyebrows make a vertical line and the lips are pressed against each other with the corners downwards; disgust: presence of lines below the eye; cheek is up and there are wrinkles below the nose.

If we think about it, this discovery actually unites us humans in a different way other than the species because it is an involuntary characteristic, which means no one can control, and every one has it, which makes you feel that you are not alone or is the only one with this characteristic. On the other hand, it is also frightening to know that even or deepest and maybe even consciously unknown emotions can be seen by others.

After learning a bit more about micro expression, I realised that maybe a possible solution for the universal language that I want to make in my project could be the micro expressions because they are already universal. Maybe there are a way to use them as a language, or a code, therefore, a system of communication…

Bibliography

Babich, N. (2016) How to Detect Lies: Micro Expressions. [Online] Available at: https://medium.com/@101/how-to-detect-lies-microexpressions-b17ae1b1181e [Accessed 7th April 2019].

Center for Body Language (2016) MICRO EXPRESSIONS in 4K - LIE TO ME Style Analysis - Micro Expressions Training like in Lie To Me. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGhOuA3rr1k [Accessed 8th April 2019].

Paul Ekman Group (n.d.) Micro Expressions. [Online] Available at: https://www.paulekman.com/resources/micro-expressions/ [Accessed 8th April 2019].

Paul Ekman Group (n.d.). Seven Universal Facial Expressions. [Image] Available at: https://www.paulekman.com/resources/universal-facial-expressions/ [Accessed 8th April 2019].

Paul Ekman Group. (n.d.). Universal Facial Expressions. [Online] Available at: https://www.paulekman.com [Accessed 8th April 2019].

Science of People (n.d) The Definitive Guide to Reading Microexpressions (With Examples). [Online] Available at: https://www.scienceofpeople.com/microexpressions/. [Accessed 5th April 2019].

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Lie To Me is an American TV show that explores the cases that Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth), a micro expression expert, and Dr. Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams), a psychologist, solves by detecting if someone is lying. Dr. Lightman is actually based on Dr. Paul Ekman, the real expert in micro expressions.

I watched some episodes and it was very interesting to understand a bit more about micro expressions “live”. In each episode, there are real examples, specially of presidents and famous politicians, which gave me a reality shock because it is possible to see that the micro expressions really existed. Also, Dr. Cal Lightman is very didactic because he is teaching the new member of his group (Lightman Group), so I really did learned about micro expressions.

On the other hand, one thing that I did not liked in the show is that it makes it seem that everyone is lying all the time and this is not true. Recognising a micro expression is not an exact science, and even that could be precise enough, sometimes we don’t know exactly what are our emotions. Plus, in certain points of the show I felt that it was a universal truth that lie was bad, but in my opinion not all lies are bad because there are the ones that we make to protect something or someone (maybe even ourselves), so it is not something that I agreed on.

I believe it was important for my project to see some episodes of Lie To Me because it was something that helped me to learn how to identify better micro expressions, which is important if I am going to make a language or a code based on them.

Bibliography

Lie to Me. Seasons 1 and 2. (2009-2010) Fox Broadcasting Company.

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A partnership between the Dorina Nowill Foundation For the Blind and the Lego Foundation resulted in the Braile Bricks, a set LEGO® pieces with customised adapted to Braille that will improve the learning of the language to the blind, the visually impaired children and even the ones that are able to see and want to learn Braille. According to the official site (www.legobraillebricks.com), each LEGO® piece has a printed letter or a symbol making it possible for the sighted and blind to interact and play on equal terms.

This project is not a direct reference for my project because right now I am focusing on a way to combine languages that uses the latin alphabet. However, this made me realise that, clearly, I won’t be able to call my language a universal one because it still not possible to adapt the square language for Braille and other language that don’t use the latin alphabet.

Still, is nice to see more iniciatives (specially when Brazilian) to make the communication more inclusive because Braille is not only important to communication, but essential for blind and impaired children so they can improve their life skill and improve their life quality in the future. If the systems of communication have an impact on how each of us — that sees — perceive our environment, imagine how much more important is Braille to the ones that can’t.

Bibliography

Glette, G. (2019) Brasil recebe projeto que ensina braille à crianças deficientes visuais usando Lego. [Online] Available at: https://www.hypeness.com.br/2019/04/brasil-recebe-projeto-que-ensina-braille-a-criancas-deficientes-visuais-usando-lego/?fbclid=IwAR2K8YJdEdkJGkgOOvl68OEApEoEPI8kliYgbXr3mepdQSp7nmU2L5tDbss [Accessed 26th April 2019].

LEGO® Braille Bricks (2019) Introducing LEGO® Braille Bricks. [Online] Available at: https://www.legobraillebricks.com/ [Accessed 26th April 2019].

Two examples of LEGO® Braille Bricks (2019) [Image] Available at: https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/braille-lego-bricks-17.jpg [Accessed 26th April 2019].

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Scientific calculation and two examples of results. (n.d.). [Image]. Available at: https://www.designworkplan.com/wp-content/arthur-passini-color-wayfinding-02.png [Accessed 26th April 2019].

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This way of aligning a bar code, by the middle, makes it harder to know which bar is bigger. Because of that, it wouldn't work as a solution to write a word, or even an alphabet because both cases the letters needs to be clearly different from each other.

Bibliography
Intelligent Mail Code (2012) [Image] Available at: http://posthastemailing.blogspot.com/2012/06/if-youre-still-using-old-postnet.html [Accessed 7th April 2019].

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During the World War II, British Intelligence MI6 recruits a group of mathematics in order to decrypt Enigma, the machine used by Nazis to protect messages about commercial, diplomatic and military information. It was an important mission because once they decrypted, they could know the location of the Germans and where they were planning to attack. And it was only with this knowledge that the Allies ha da change to stop the Germans and win the World War II.

In that time, Enigma was considered impossible to decrypt because its settings changed daily, at midnight. So even that the mathematicians could make a machine to decrypt Enigma, it would have to do it in less than 24 hours. However, the machine created by MI6 wasn’t able to do this task successfully until Allan Turin realise that there were patterns in all massages, which were already decrypted before by the machine. Consequently; if the machine focused only on the variables of the message, it could reduce the time of decryption, which means that they would have access to the German protected communication. And it did work.

Seeing this movie was very interesting because at this point of my project I am exploring the universe of codes to then create one that could be used as a new communicating system. And is important to have a reference such as this to understand how codes worked in our society.

Bibliography

The Imitation Game. (2014) Film. Directed by Morten Tyldum. [Streaming Video]. US: The Weinsten Company.

Wikipedia (2019) Enigma machine. [Online] Available at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine [Accessed 4th April 2019].

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must-know words and phrases for any language

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must-know words and phrases for any language

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When travelling to a country that speaks an unknown language, it could be hard to communicate with the local population. In order to make this not so hard, there are must-know words and sentences that could help in simple situations.

They are:

thanks (polite and appreciated by the locals for making effort to acknowledge their language);

I’m sorry (good manners);

hello (the first thing you have to say when start a conversation);

can I have… (helpful for ordering food and beverages);

how much does it cost? (important when shopping and to keep within the budget);

yes (simple and quick answer);

no (simple and quick answer);

I am… (so you can talk a bit about yourself, your nationality, etc);

what is your name? (as a start to get to know the person you are talking to);

how are you? (polite);

great (simple and quick answer);

again, please (so you can have a change to understand better what the local said in the first place in a polite way);

more slowly, please (so the natives don’t need to repeat themselves so much);

sorry, I don’t understand (so the local people know you are having trouble to understand them);

where is (the)… (helpful to ask for directions);

goodbye (polite and appreciated by the locals for making effort to acknowledge their language).

These must-known phrases can be very helpful to my project because these are the words that can be very helpful to avoid miscommunication, so if I wrote them in my language, people could learn the essential words they need to communicate. Plus, as I am thinking about picking travellers that don’t know the local language of the destination, these word would be the best one to make a representation of.

Bibliography

Lewis, B. (2017) 16 Must-Know Words and Phrases For Any Language. [Online] Available at: https://www.fluentin3months.com/basic-phrases/ [Accessed 3rd April 2019].

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As a kid, the process of learning the mother language involves recognising the graphic elements, then understanding the relation between the sound and the word, to then start to make sentences. After that, in order to learn any new language, we have to establish a connection between this and the native one.

There are some methods that can improve the learning and the memory required to learn a new language such as:

spaced repetition because it helps to keep what you learned in your mind if you review it in spaced intervals. According to the Typical Forgetting Curve for Newly Learned Information, the drop gets less drastic after every repetition until you are able to acknowledge the new information.

learn before going to bed because when we sleep our brain move the recent knowledge to the long therm storage, which makes it easier to then memorise it.

A study showed that when studying content, not the language, the new learners were more motivated to learn.

mix new and old because our brain storage words or phrases better when they are mixed with familiar information.

My idea of final outcome is to create a complete experience with my language, and for that to work, it has to be effective enough for the audience to learn — if it is just a bit — of my language. Understanding the best approaches to learn a language is something that I have to consider in order to make my language easy to learn, not something that the audience will see and forget in the next minute.

I am not sure I can apply all these methods together because it is something that needs a lot of time and — unfortunately — I don’t have enough for that until the exhibition. But I think I could combine using repetition with mixing new and old words somehow. Maybe I could do a game that would make the audience play a little by making the association between the square language to English, for example.

Plus, having this game would make the audience used to my language, and hopefully, they will be able to unveil the word unveiled in the poster.

Bibliography

Cooper, B. (2014) The Science of Learning a New Language (and How to Use It). [Online] Available at: https://lifehacker.com/the-science-of-learning-a-new-language-and-how-to-use-1579130048 [Accessed 26th April 2019].

Typical Forgetting Curve for Newly Learned Information (2014) Iimage] Available at: https://lifehacker.com/the-science-of-learning-a-new-language-and-how-to-use-1579130048 [Accessed 26 Apr. 2019].

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Sp-Arte is an art event that brings together famous art and design galleries from all over the world. And due to the amount of represented artists, it is a great place to get to know new works and their authors. Since I am having trouble in finding artists or designers that uses writing systems other than the Latin Alphabet, I thought this was the best place to discover an unknown reference for my project. However, it wasn’t as good as I expected. All the works I could find that talked about communication used letters, which was not what I hoped for. The only artist that I could find that did used an alternative communication system was Detanico Lain, which is already one (if not the only) artistic reference so far.

Still, there were plenty of interesting works, so maybe I could use them as reference later, especially their display.

Bibliography

About (n.d.) SP-Arte [Online] Available at: https://www.sp-arte.com/en/about/ [Accessed 4 Apr. 2019].

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OLHARencaixa consists on an installation composed by five pictures printed on a sort of lamp. All pictures are black and white, but because of the yellow light, they got this sepia effect. I found this piece very interesting because it seems like a representation of a expression that was freezed and separated into frames. And because of that it can also be five different expressions that happened in a series. It is a very intriguing work because it made me stop and notice my eyes movement according to what I felt or what I said.

Another thing that caught my attention was the care of the artist to use a black wall so that the structure and wires of the installation could fade in the perception of the audience, leaving all the attention to the pictures. (In the image below the wall seems to be brownish, but this happened due to the flash of the camera).

The work itself is not relevant for my project because it does not talk about communication neither use an alternative communication system. However, I really liked the trick to use the background colour the same as the things you want to hide, so this may be useful for me when I am going to think about the exhibition.

Faing, J. (2011), OLHARencaixa, [photographs on light boxes], MAC USP, São Paulo.

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This work caught my attention because it was hard for me to identify if it were five different pictures that were put side by side or only one picture that was divided by five. Either way, it made it look like a very dynamic picture, which I found very hard to do, and to find, since pictures usually alludes static or frozen moments. I found very interesting this way of putting together similar elements together to make a unit, but still each of them remain with its unique personality without fading in the composition as a whole.

I don’t know how I could use these elements in my project because I am not exhibiting pictures (or nothing like it), but in case I do something static and want to make it look dynamic, using different size of canvas could work as a solution.

Guilhermina, A. (2019), Impermanência, [Mineral pigment print on cotton paper], 207 x 72 cm, R8, São Paulo.

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OGGI VENTICINQUESIMO GIORNO OTTAVO MESE DELL ANNO MILLE NOVE 100 OTTANTOTTO ALL AMATO PANTHEON INCONTRI E SCONTRI by alighiero boetti

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OGGI VENTICINQUESIMO GIORNO OTTAVO MESE DELL ANNO MILLE NOVE 100 OTTANTOTTO ALL AMATO PANTHEON INCONTRI E SCONTRI by alighiero boetti

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The first thing that caught my attention was the cross shape created by the combination of the letters in black and white. The cross have so much visual impact, that the background, composed by the same letters but on all colours except black and white, almost disappear. The background and the cross does not have a visual balance, and maybe because of that only the monochromatic space appeared.

Even though the piece is a bit confusing for me because of the combination of colourful letters on top of other colourful squares, I found it very interesting because it seems like something that have a message that needs to be unveiled. And even if it don’t, this feeling got me standing there for quite a while just in case there was something hidden.

I still don’t know if this will help me on my project, but if I do something that have a hidden message, I would probably use the colour contrast present on this work to caught the attention of the audience (and also to confuse them so it won't be so easy to figure out the hidden message).

Boetti, A. (1988), OGGI VENTICINQUESIMO GIORNO OTTAVO MESE DELL ANNO MILLE NOVE 100 OTTANTOTTO ALL AMATO PANTHEON INCONTRI E SCONTRI, [Embroidery on fabric], 102.9 x 110.5 cm, Gladstone Gallery, New York.

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This work of Detanico Lain was the only one I could find that is using an alternative system of communication, in this case the Radiante system, in which the alphabet was divided in rectangular shapes from a graphic that was illustrating the sun and its rays. The outcome is a eight gold-plated wood that meant megahair, the Indonesian word for sun.

There are three main elements in the exhibition: the title of the piece with a brief explanation; the alphabet; the 3D piece with a word written. All these elements together makes it very easy for the audience understand their intentions with the work, but at the same time, I wanted it to be a bit more mysterious so I, and all visitors, could have an active role in the work. Because the title of the work happens to be the word that was written in the 3D piece with the system of communication created, there is no space to find the word by ourselves.

This made me realise that if I do something like Detanico Lain as my final outcome, I am probably not going to put a title that would hand in the mystery behind the work. But at the same time if there is no title or hint other then the alphabet, this segments my public because not everyone will be willing to try to figure out the message. It is defiantly something that I will take in consideration in the Exhibition Proposal and the elements of my final outcome.

Detanico, A. & Lain, R. (2018), Matahari, [Gold-plated woods], Sp-Arte 2019, São Paulo.

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Hugo Demarco | Sans Titre (1960) [Image] Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/hugo-demarco-sans-titre [Accessed 13rd May 2019].

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Demarco Hugo | Relation Couleur (1973) (n.d.) [Image] Available at: https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Relation-Couleur/F330EF9085B25068 [Accessed 13rd May 2019].

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Cybernetic Consciousness [?] Quantum Horizon is an exhibition hosted by Itaú Cultural that explore the relation of art and techonology in a world that artificial intelligence and quantum computing have been developing very fast.

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Cloud Piano (2014) is an installation that plays the piano based on the movements and shapes of the clouds. This happens because there is a software that articulate the real time images of the cloud with each piano key, so on each time a cloud press the key, a sound is generated.

The software that articulated the real time video with the piano was part of the exhibition, so we could see the image that originated the sound. However, because the sounds don’t play non stop, as I first thought it would, I only understood the software when I accidentally looked at it and a sound was generated.

Even though I don’t see this installation as a direct reference for by project right now, it reminded me of my previous idea of outcome that would be an installation in which each letter would have a correspondent key on the piano.

Bibliography

Bowen, D. (2014), Cloud Piano, [Software, robotic device, piano], Cybernetic Consciousness [?] Quantum Horizon, São Paulo.

David Bowen (2014) Cloud Piano. [Online] Available at: http://www.dwbowen.com/cloud-piano [Accessed 24th April 2019].

Cloud Piano (2014) [Online Video] Available at: https://vimeo.com/101857804 [Accessed 24th April 2019].

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This installation plays the keys of a piano based on the movements and shapes of the clouds. A camera pointed at the sky captures video of the clouds. Custom software uses the video of the clouds in real-time to articulate a robotic device that presses the corresponding keys on the piano. The system is set in motion to function as if the clouds are pressing the keys on the piano as they move across the sky and change shape. The resulting sound is generated from the unique key patterns created by ethereal forms that build, sweep, fluctuate and dissipate in the sky.

This installation was commissioned by L’assaut de la Menuiserie, Saint-Etienne, France and completed with support from the Visualization and Digital Imagining Lab and Weber Music Hall, University of Minnesota.

http://www.dwbowen.com/

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Agent Ruby is an artificial intelligence character that could chat with the audience. Even though we have to write to speak with her, she can recognise our voice and even remember our questions. It was very interesting to interact with because different from other softwares that you can talk with, she has an active role in the conversation since she not only answer our questions, but she also make some to us.

Bibliography

Hershman, L. (1998-2002), Agent Ruby, [Artificial intelligent web agent], Cybernetic Consciousness [?] Quantum Horizon, São Paulo.

Lynn Hershman (n.d) Agent Ruby. [Online] Available at: http://www.lynnhershman.com/agent-ruby/ [Accessed 24th April 2019].

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Quantum Garden is an interactive sculpture of door springs that, when touched, it create fluorescent colour traces. This work was very fun to play because depending on where, how and the strength  we touched the door springs, a different colour trace appeared. And because of that, we tried as much different ways we could think of in order to see a different colour.

Actually, I found out that Quantum Garden is a lot more than an art sculpture. According to the official site of the project, “(The Quantum Garden) collects data which then will be used to shed light onto this problem which is closely related to the implementation of quantum simulators. At each touch of the visitors the Quantum Garden collects the signals from all touched springs, converts them into the parameters of the problem, runs a simulation and displays the solution.”.

When I went to the exhibition I couldn’t think of a way that this work could inspire me in my project, but now that I am researching for my language’s software, I think I could adapt the colour change that happened at every touch to the colours that appear on my software. If I could make it possible for at each new word/phrase written a new colour appear, this could encourage the audience to explore more the software (just like we did when we experimented Quantum Garden), consequently, they will train my language more, and even memorise it more easier.

Bibliography

Baumgarten, R. (2018), Quantum Garden, [Circuit boards, Arduino micro-controllers, Spring door stoppers, LED rings], Cybernetic Consciousness [?] Quantum Horizon, São Paulo.

Dracott, E. (2018) Artist uses 228 spring door stoppers to create vibrant interactive artwork. [Online] Independent.ie. Available at: https://www.independent.ie/world-news/and-finally/artist-uses-228-spring-door-stoppers-to-create-vibrant-interactive-artwork-37553653.html [Accessed 24th April 2019].

Quantum Garden (2018) How does it work?. [Online] Available at: https://quantumgarden.net/how-does-it-work/ [Accessed 24th April 2019].

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Quantum is an immersive experience in the quantum mechanics in a mirror tunnel with movement sensors and projectors. When we enter in the tunnel, sensors capture our movements and sounds, which are projected with in a defined shape and position. While we keep on walking, the images and sounds start to get less defined until the point that they don’t reflect as we see it. That happens because the image and the sound are reproducing how quantum particles behave.

This work clearly is not a direct reference for my project, but still, it was a nice experience.

Bibliography

Cantoni, R. (2019), Quantum, [Installation], Cybernetic Consciousness [?] Quantum Horizon, São Paulo.

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Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain live and work between São Paulo and Paris. Their works consist on a translation of representation systems of the world into writing systems. In each work, they represent a word in its respective graphic alphabet in a different media. It could be a video, a sound, a text, a print, a drawing or even a sculpture.

For me, one of the more interesting characteristics of Detanico Lain works is that the representation of words are so visually interesting that even if they didn't have an writing system behind the idea, it would still caught the attention of the audience. Because of that, they can please the ones interested by the alternative writing systems and the ones that aren't.

My goal in this project is to create a system of communication non based on letters or any graphic elements already used as a character because I believe the world need a universal language that would make it possible for everyone be able to communicate using the same elements. And because of that, Detanico Lain is my main reference since their work consists on creating, for each series, a different system of communication that give the word a shape.

Bibliography
Varella, P. (2018) Conheça a dupla de artistas Detanico e Lain. [Online] Available at: https://arteref.com/arte-no-mundo/conheca-a-dupla-de-artistas-detanico-e-lain/ [Accessed 26th March 2019].

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IIn the series 27 rue de Fleurus, Detanico Lain created the Cubic system to rewrite poems about Gertude Stein on Tender Buttons’ book. Then, they painted each element respecting the colours present on Stein’s private collection of art, which was located in 27 rue de Fleurus.

I found this series not only interesting because of the symbols behind it, but also because of the aesthetics created. Detanico Lain’s pieces looks like a deconstructed and minimalist version of the real painting, and you can only connect the real paintings with theirs when putting them side by side.

Actually, when I first saw this work, I didn’t know all the history behind, so my first thought was that they created a system of communication using variations of speech balloon, which made me think it was a work about miscommunication as if each balloon could represent different people. Even though the work was not exactly what I thought, the idea of speech ballon inspired me to create a version of my square poster with the hidden word using them. Since my work is about miscommunication, using speech balloons as the unit for my alphabet could give a bigger meaning to my outcome.

Bibliography

A Long Dress (n.d.) [Image] Available at: https://galeriavermelho.com.br/sites/default/files/artistas/pdf_portfolio/DETANICO_LAIN_bx.pdf [Accessed 22nd April 2019].

Galeria Vermelho (n.d.) 27 rue de Fleurus - Detanico Lain. [Online] Available at: https://galeriavermelho.com.br/pt/exposicao/10284/27-rue-de-fleurus/texto [Accessed 22nd April 2019].

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Percurso (route, in English) is a geometric sculpture consisted by eight bars, each of them representing a letter from the word ‘percurso’. In this work, Detanico Lain created a code that each letter of the alphabet is associated with a predetermined sized bar. For example, the representation of ‘A’ is a 10 cm metal bar; ‘B’ is a 20 cm metal bar; until ‘Z’ that is a 260 cm metal bar.

The sculpture itself is very intriguing because the bars were arranged in different directions, which is way more interesting than if it was a linear arrangement because it does not look like a word. But the most interesting part was to make a route through the sculpture in the right order so I would see the word written, and while I would be writing ‘Percurso’, I am actually doing a route. This connection of the theory and the outcome blow my mind. (link to the video showing the sculpture: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NI8eyYOCzBbUjoPNZ2T5FiomthvWRmB_/view?usp=sharing)

Is important to say that I got completely surprised by the coincidence between this work’s alphabet with then I created based on barcodes, but it was nice to see how a the same alphabet could represent completely different things.

Bibliography
Detanico, A. & Lain, R. (2019), Percurso, [metalic structure], Espaço Cultural Porto Seguro, São Paulo.

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AAlguma Coisa Está Fora da Ordem (2019) is a mural painting in which Detanico Lain wrote the title of the work (in English Something is Out of Order with the timezonetype system they created. This alphabet was based on the division of the time zones in the world so that each letter represents one of them.

I think this work is very interesting because it made me think about the way we usually see the world represented and wonder why we don’t use one that have on the centre North and Latin America or Asia, for example. Or a map that would put all time zones in the correct order…

Sometimes the order that we structure ideas, elements or even a map could make it a complete disorder. This work made me think that sometimes we get so used to how things usually are, and in which order they appear, that we don’t even try to change it or see it from a different way. Sometimes the order that we structure ideas, elements or even a map could make it a complete disorder.

Bibliography

Detanico, A. & Lain, R. (2019), Alguma Coisa Está Fora da Ordem, [mural painting], Espaço Cultural Porto Seguro, São Paulo.

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On Colour (2011) Detanico Lain represented the conversation between five authors that studied the universe of colour. In this series of 60 screen prints are illustrated concepts and theories about colour from Aristotle (De Sense et Sensibili), Ludwig Wittgenstein (Remarks on Colour), Goethe (Theory of Colour), Maxwell (Experiments on Colour, as perceived by the eye), and Isaac Newton (Opticks) each of them written in a different typography.

I found this work very interesting because they represent very well the idea of a dialogue because of the overlapping elements and colours. Plus, they created a conversation that extrapolated the time limits by bringing together authors from different ages.

This work made me think about experimenting to represent a conversation only using the square language so the work could make others see that it could both represent logic (letters) and emotion (emojis) because of the code behind it and the infinite colour possibilities it could have.

Bibliography

AMN do Projeto Sobre Cor, 2011 (n.d.) [Image] Available at: https://www.galeriavermelho.com.br/pt/exposicao/3506/det%C3%A2nico-lain-sobre-cor [Accessed 29th April 2019].

Galeria Vermelho. (n.d.). Detanico Lain - Sobre Cor. [Online] Available at: https://www.galeriavermelho.com.br/pt/exposicao/3506/det%C3%A2nico-lain-sobre-cor/texto [Accessed 29th April 2019].

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AWN do Projeto Sobre Cor, 2011 (n.d.) [Image] Available at: https://www.galeriavermelho.com.br/pt/exposicao/3506/det%C3%A2nico-lain-sobre-cor [Accessed 29th April 2019].

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GWM do Projeto Sobre Cor, 2011 (n.d.) [Image] Available at: https://www.galeriavermelho.com.br/pt/exposicao/3506/det%C3%A2nico-lain-sobre-cor [Accessed 29th April 2019].

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Children with autism have difficulties to understand abstraction and symbolism, therefore, with language as a whole. As Ajit Narayanan explains “essentially, (a word is) a completely abstract, a completely arbitrary representation of something which is the real world”. So to help these kids, speech therapists and educators try to teach them to communicate through pictures, not words.

These method of learning inspired Narayanan to develop Avaz, an app in which the kids select different pictures, and these are sequenced together to form sequences, and these sentences are spoken out. It is a translator from pictures to speech.

However, even though he figured out a way to spread the learning of words to children with autism through the world, Avaz couldn’t teach grammar, and it is something very important to a language because they structure the words to have a meaning. And without meaning there is no communication. But then, he find a solution: “Instead of arranging words in an order, in sequence, as a sentence, you arrange them in this map, where they're all linked together not by placing them one after the other but in questions, in question-answer pairs. And so if you do this, then what you're conveying is not a sentence in English, but what you're conveying is really a meaning, the meaning of a sentence in English. Now, meaning is really the underbelly, in some sense, of language. It's what comes after thought but before language. And the idea was that this particular representation might convey meaning in its raw form.”.

So, by that, Avaz is not useful for children with autism, but could be also helpful for the communication between people that doesn’t speak the same language. I think this is very impressive because sometimes we focus so much on the grammar and to get the words write when the meaning is all the matters to a communication.

This was a nice reference to remember me that communication problems not only happen when we don’t speak the same language, but also when we don’t understand the meaning of the message transmitted. Plus, this showed me the importance of the pictures when you are learning a new language so they become your new reference, so is defiantly something that I will have on mind on my next steps in the project to make sure the audience will be able to learn the language I created.

Bibliography

TED Talks (2013) A word game to communicate in any language. [video] Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/ajit_narayanan_a_word_game_to_communicate_in_any_language [Accessed 30th April 2019].

Narayanan, R. (2013) Demo of Avaz - AAC App for children with Special needs. [Video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC61zSmavs0LRGmsUVysz0yQ [Accessed 1st May 2019].

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Demo of Avaz - AAC App for children with Special needs

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In 1982, Dr. Scott Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, created the first emoticon, the smiley :-), when his colleagues were having trouble to recognise sarcasm through electronic bulletin board (what today we know as Internet’s forums). He wanted to make a combination of characters to make a picture that would have to look at sideways. While some inventions took years, this one took 10 minutes.

16 years later, a Japanese artist called Shigetaka Kurita that worked for DOCOMO wanted to design an attractive interface to communicate ideas in a more succinct way. So, Kurita made a set of 12 by 12 pixel images that could be selected from a keyboard from your mobile, which now we know as emojis.

Emojis became very popular in Japan, so much that not only rival companies copied DOCOMO’s idea, but companies outside Japan wanted to incorporate them into their platforms. However, they depended on Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit group that acts like the United Nations but for text standards across computers. After Unicode recognised the emojis, they rapidly were spread to the world through Apple and Android.

Emoticons can be considered a revolution on our electronic communication since they made it possible for us to show emotions that words and punctuations couldn’t. More than that, they made it possible to two people that would’t understand each other through a writing system or a speaking language. It is the new global language.

Almost 6000 years ago, human beings were looking for a way to communicate their complex thoughts. It took centuries for us to transition between images to then images with fonems, to finally words and the alphabet. Today, we are on the opposite road: we keep looking for ways to communicate in a more succinct way. In a world that every minute counts, every words counts too, and they are not really effective in some cases. So, Emojis came as the perfect solution to this problem.

And since the idea of my project is to try to make a global language, it is essencial to understand what led to the invention of the emojis and what keep them successful, once they are the most near we have to a global language.

Bibliography

Baer, D. (2015) Emoticons have basically saved human communication. [Online] Business Insider. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/emoji-were-invented-33-years-ago-heres-why-theyre-so-crucial-today-2015-9 [Accessed 21th March 2019]

OpenMind (2017) Emoji, the New Global Language?. [Online] Available at: https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/technology/digital-world/emoji-the-new-global-language

[Accessed 21th March 2019].

Pardes, A. (2018) The Wired Guide to Emoji. [Online] Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/guide-emoji [Accessed 28th March 2019].

Wilkinson, R. (2015) The Father of the Emoticon Chases His Great White Whale. [Online] Available at: https://narratively.com/the-father-of-the-emoticon-chases-his-great-white-whale [Accessed 28th March 2019].

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In 2015, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year was ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji (😂), as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood and preoccupations of 2015.

According to Casper Grathwohl, the President of the Dictionaries Division, “Emojis have been a staple of teen texting culture of years, but it was really over the last 12 months that we saw Moche culture explode into the mainstream whether it’s Hilary Clinton asking for feedback on her campaign in three emojis or the political debates we have had over the skin tones of smiley faces”.

The ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ was the emoji selected because it was the top sent in the world. SwiftKey reports that 😂 made up 20% of all emojis used in United Kingdom in 2015, and 17% in the United States.

Emojis have been recognised as a language by Unicode Consortium in 2010, but it seems that it was only between 2014 and 2015 that they were really incorporated in the way we communicate. There is no division between emojis and written language anymore. It is all the same. (If even Hilary Clinton is using, then everyone should be too).

Even though emojis may be one of the fastest growing form of language of all time, it is interesting to see that, just like every other language, it took time for it to be natural for us to use. Maybe there was some resistance with the contrast between words and emojis because, for the first time, the old language didn’t have to be replaced by the new one; both words and emojis can complement each other (and act on their own as well).

Also, another thing that caught my attention was that, for the first time, the definition of word went further than letters together. It may seem strange, but if we look into the definition of ‘word’ in English by Oxford Dictionaries, it is not specified that a word has to have letters; it just have to be an element of speech or writing. So, is the social convention of the concept ‘word’ as a set of letters together that makes us forget all the possibilities that a word can be, including an emoji.

Bibliography

O'Donoghue, J.J. (2016) Emoji: The evolution of emoticons. [Online] Available at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2016/09/17/digital/emoji-evolution-emoticons/#.XJ0GaBNKjMI [Accessed 28th March 2019].

Oxford Dictionaries (n.d.) word | Definition of word in English by Oxford Dictionaries. [Online] Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/word [Accessed 28th March 2019].

Oxford Dictionaries (2015) Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year - Casoer Grathwohl. [Online Video]. November 16th. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivV8x2K_DSU [Accessed: 28th March 2019].

Oxford Dictionaries (2015) Word of the Year 2015. [Online] Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2015 [Accessed 22th March 2019].

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Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year - Casper Grathwohl

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A few years after the launch of emojis outside Japan, a group of friends wondered if it was possible to write whole book using emoji characters. Fred Benenson, one of the members of the group, accepted the challenge. But instead of making a book from scratch, he decided to translate an existing one into emojis. In 2011, he launched Emoji Dick, the translation of Moby Dick.

It is impressive the work that Benenson had to translate every single line of the original book into emojis. However, I found it impossible to read it and understand it. Maybe it is because I see some emojis as a different way than Benenson (or others) or it was the extreme simplification of the ideas of the original text that made me confused.

Reading (or trying to) Emoji Dick made me question to what extent emojis work as an efficient way of communication. Is it true that emojis had its use an huge increase, but it has been working as a complementation of the writing system, not a self sufficient language. So even though emojis is considered a global language, it may not be enough to be the only one…

In order to explore more my question, I am planning to make an experiment where I will try to communicate with a specific person during 24 hours only with emojis to have a better understanding of the difficulties and the advantages of only using emojis.

Bibliography

Example of how the sentences will be arranged with the Emoji on top of the page and the English sentence at the bottom (2009)[Image] Available at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fred/emoji-dick [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

Melville, H. and Benenson, F. (2010) Emoji Dick; or the Whale. 1st ed. [Online] Available at: http://www.czyborra.com/unicode/emojidick.pdf [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

Popovich, N. (2013) Fred Benenson: the man who translated Moby Dick into Emoji. [Online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/dec/11/fred-benenson-status-update-emoji-dick [Accessed 2nd April 2019].

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Notes from the book:

“Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things”, Paolo Coelho

Modern society seems to be urging to incorporate emojis to put on display a new and “cool” style of writing and communication

Smiley was invented by an American graphic artist called Harvey Ross Ball in 1964 for an insurance company that wanted to put in buttons for its employees in order to increase their morale. (This made me a bit confused about the creation of smiley because my previous research indicated that it was invented in 1982…)

Print Age encouraged and even imposed the exclusive use of alphabetic writing in most message making media and domains of literacy. However, in Internet Age, visual/audio > alphabetic writing

Emoji have both pictographic (direct representation) and logographic (word-replacement) functions

Is the future global language going to be hybrid (picture-phonetic)?

“Writing is not language, but rarely a way of visible marks”.

There are strong archeological and paleontological evidence that shows language as a mental faculty expressed through gesture and pictography. Even though it is indirect, other evidence of the same fact is that infants breather, swallow, and vocalise in ways that are psychologically similar to gorillas and chimps

“Writing is not an arbitrary way for representing vocal speech, but rather a highly adaptive and culturally sensitive tool for encoding information

The transition for the alphabetical writing system was evolutionary, not revolutionary because every alphabet character is the symbolic residue of a stylistic alteration to same earlier pictograph.

Punctuation marks indicate non segmental features of speech

Writing have been perceived to be a semiotic medium through which authoritative or significant messages are expressed. On the other hand, emojis are considered a lower category because is an annotative code used largely in informal communications to add visual annotations to the conceptual content of message.

There are two types of digital communication, asynchronous and synchronous. Asynchronous digital communication occurs when the receiver is not necessarily aware that the message has been sent to him/her (e.g emails, bulletin boards, blogs and chat rooms) while the receiver will access the message in a time delayed fashion and then respond to it. On the other hand, Synchronous digital communication occurs when the receiver is aware of the communication as ongoing one. It requires fast writing so the back-and-forth repartee can be maintained in real time without losing the receiver’s attention

Even though I only managed to read a couple of chapters of this book, Marcel Danesi brought up very interesting points about the evolution of the alphabet writing and how emojis are different from the rest of the languages so far. But the thing that got me most intrigued was when he questioned if the future global language going to be hybrid (picture-phonetic), which is also something that I have been thinking about it. Inspired by that, I decided that the first experiment of my project will be to test if emojis got what it takes to be a hybrid language, in other words, if we could communicate clearly only using emojis.

Bibliography

Danesi, M. (2016) The Semiotics of Emoji: The Rise of Visual Language in the Age of the Internet. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

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Learning to read changes the way you see the world. You realise that the shapes that you see everywhere are actually letters and that they not only have sounds, but also a meaning. That big red hexagonal sign with four white shapes on it turned out to be a stop sign, and the shapes that you saw in the front of your favourite toy store actually were the letters of the store’s name.

After a few months, the act of reading become so natural that you can’t remember the time you didn’t know how. More than that, it becomes impossible not to do it because recognising the letters and connecting them to a meaning and a sound happens way faster than the thought of not doing that.

Even though we are surrounded by letters, I only started to really pay attention to them when I discovered typography. I already knew that each letter could have a different shape depending on which font was is written on, but I didn’t know all the possibilities of it. Knowing about serif, kerning, letter spacing, baseline, aperture, cap-height, stroke, descender, just to mention a few, changed the way I see the world. Reading still is a natural movement, but now I stop every time to pay attention to the types. For example, when I read the stop sign in the streets, I not only recognise the meaning, but I also see that is a monospace sans serif font. So, reading for me turned out to be more than recognising the letters and connecting them to a meaning and a sound; it is also the act of identifying the proprieties of each type.

Just like when we learn to read and we can’t get back to just seeing shapes, learning typography is something that changed the way I see the world. And now, in my part 3 project, I want to do this again.

My aim is to see the universe as if it was made by letters. I’ll be looking for them in everything that surrounds me, such as architecture, objects, shadows, foods, sky, metro lines, nature, monuments, etc. For example, instead of seeing an orange, I want to see it as an ‘O’; or see the Eiffel Tour as a huge ‘A’.

We live in a time where everything happen really fast and we barely pay attention to small details that surround us because we are too busy trying to process all the information that we receive. So by seeing the world in a typographic way, I want to really pay attention to what surround me everyday and give different meanings to them.

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Bauhaus architecture and design from A to Z (2019) [Image] Available at: https://www.ai-architect.com/bauhaus-architecture-and-design-from-a-to-z/ [Accessed 17th March 2019].

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