"Semithings" is a -quite formal- work of composition, shape and color, stirred by language and accumulation.
Conceptually:
I've just recently understood that my work is accumulation. Using cheap pieces to build complex stuff.
The concept of accumulation then made me think of the parallel with communication, how we spread or stack stories made of sentences made of words made of letters.
Also, while words are not the same as the things they name, describe or promise, they're also often MORE than the thing they represent.
Doubly so here, since once they start following my composition rules, they form abstract shapes with some underlying order below them.
And whenever we see abstract images, specially if they have some kind of logic or order, we try to recognize+classify them, comparing to previous experiences.
So, while "Semithings" are neither stick bundles nor anticyclones they could be said to look like such things and that's what our mind goes for.
Aesthetically:
I manipulated the color and light behaviors so the accumulation became one of brushstrokes or stamping. This way, I could better use and explore the "painting, coloring a canvas" gestures that I was after.
To avoid actual words interfering in the reading of the image, I wrote a sub-algorithm to generate artificial alphabets. Not quite asemic writing but something more "solid" that could be engraved on marble obelisks and the like.
It starts with a grid of 12x4 and a set of rules and preferences that draw paths in this grid. The characters, individuals, pieces.
Then each of these paths is improved (actually decayed) to have more of a "written" or personal feel.
I locked the algorithm to variation 22*, meaning all outputs are made of the same (28) pieces, or written in a shared alphabet if you will.
Then I print, deform, flatten, stretch, rotate and scale those 28 bases -following a very loose interpretation of speech bubbles- to generate Semithings.
*my betting number
+++ PRESS "s" to save as png +++
