046 Artbook Trilogy 2015/2021  

  Book 1: Thus to Infinity (Homage to Black Square) [PDF]  

  Book 2: Stay Don't Go [PDF]  

  Book 3: Create New Formations [PDF]  

These three books were inspired by a 1977 Fred Sandback book titled "Ten Isometric Drawings for Ten Vertical Constructions". In it, Sandback used the book format to display systematic variations in his minimalist drawings. The works "Thus to Infinity", "Stay Don't Go", and "Create New Formations" explore how the book format can merge structural form with conceptualism.

"Thus to Infinity (Homage to Black Square)", inkjet print on Ingres paper, bound by hand, 6" x 6"

THUS TO INFINITY (HOMAGE TO BLACK SQUARE)

"Thus to Infinity (Homage to Black Square)" features a reduction from high-resolution subjective image space to low-resolution bit of information. The concept is realized also as a large-scale work called The End of Information, see its page for a more thorough account. "Thus to Infinity" finds inspiration in Robert Fludd's 1617 work of mystical cosmology Utriusque Cosmi Historia. In a passage discussing iconography of the infinite, Fludd provides an illustration of a black square, with text in the margins reading Et sic in infinitum, thus to infinity. The illustration precedes Kazimir Malevich's "Black Square" by 300 years. Both provide a way to unpack a universe of information contained within a single bit.

View full pdf here.


Table of contents showing reduction of information in subsequent images from 2048 by 2048 pixels down to 1 by 1, then 0


1024 by 1024 pixel image

"Stay Don't Go", inkjet print on Ingres paper, bound by hand, 6" x 6"

STAY DON'T GO

In 2016 the specialized A.I. known as AlphaGo beat human Go champion Lee Sedol in a series of matches. Contemplating a speculative sci-fi twist to the events, the artist wondered whether AlphaGo had actually achieved consciousness. If so, how would we know? The A.I. was only given a single means of expressing itself – displaying to a screen the coordinates where a human assistant should place the next stone. While playing a game, could an A.I. simultaneously use the mechanics of the game itself to create a language? "Stay Don't Go" explores the possibilities of using a game as language.

Marques Carrington played Go against a computer opponent on boards of varying sizes (9×9, 11×11, 13×13, 19×19), four games on each board. The notated matches were then placed together to allow the emergence of new patterns, forces, networks and attractions between the stones and grids. The rules and strategy of the original game are still present, with other layers of ambiguous symbolic meaning also emerging.

The conclusion of the book features a cipher decoder, which posits one possible way to translate the sequences and arrangements of Go stones into human-readable language. The board becomes an arena for language traveling in all directions.

View full pdf here.


Environment: thirteen × thirteen × 4


Cipher showing translations between sequences of Go stones [G], ternary number representations [T], decimal number representations [D], and alphabetical representations [A]

"Create New Formations", inkjet print on Ingres paper, bound by hand, 6" x 6"

CREATE NEW FORMATIONS

"Create New Formations" remixes structural order to find new, utopian, weightless configurations of past stability. The starting point is a vector drawing of a gothic arch made of stone. This structure succumbs to entropy and is flattened into a lower energy state (a pile). The pages that follow imagine a floating resurrection of these blocks into new formations. They become active nodes in a network, with their own forces of attraction and repulsion.

The work finds inspiration in the theoretical architectural drawings of Lebbeus Woods. One of his most famous works, "Einstein Tomb" (1980), is a cenotaph to Albert Einstein forever floating through space, traveling on a beam of light. Woods was able to develop architecture as a vessel for conceptualism and philosophy. In a similar fashion, "Create New Formations" takes a common architectural formation – the gothic stone arch – and mines it for symbolic meanings.

View full pdf here.


Stabilized by collaborative leaning.


Subjected to forces.


Reduced to pile gestalt.