The Science Behind Seeing: Cultural Decoding
An exploration into linguistic conventions, encouraging mental gymnastics and facilitating new ways of seeing, understanding and decoding.
Chapter in collaboration with Henrique J. Paris
Henrique J. Paris, an Angolan transdisciplinary artist.
This collaborative chapter, is a result of my work around ‘Order Processing’.
Learn more about The Science Behind Seeing, here.
Cultural Decoding
A visual exploration into how we perceive, process and comprehend imagery and text, while centering the theme of African heritage & cultural identities in dialogue with the BLM movement, focusing on these cultural and political models to touch on temporal and atemporal notions. Our work aims to bring forward and spark conversations around the key words: decode, order, chaos and perception.
Decoding the graphic. There is order, even in what appears chaotic. You can use the alphabetical key to break down the order of the characters in each graphic. It becomes clear that their positions are in alphabetical columns categorised by rows.
How Did it Become?
By asking the following:
> How do we process visual information?
> Does meaning change with perspective and perception?
> How do we formalise this process to create a formula for reuse?
“These have been some of the questions which marked the starting point of our investigation; Patrick initiated the dialogue through interrogating whether design can manipulate human order processing or if there can be a design which triggers one to have notion of her/his order processing act. This psychologically centred investigation automatically birthed other questions such as: what is order? What is chaos? What is normality?. In Patrick’s approach to me (Henrique) I’ve been given the design which used the ‘BLM’ phrase as an easily identifiable tagline in order to tackle human order processing through using the most basic of grid. Within my field of interest African philosophy the micro question that arose was which order & norm and why?.
“Inviting epistemological and geo-historical rhetorics to follow alongside the ‘Black Lives Matter’ slogan which has emerged in the African diaspora to stress the violence and micro-aggressions inflicted upon the Black bodies in western landscapes. Given such notion of space & location BLM is fundamentally a western political ideology since it refers to the western founded term black - A social identity. The dialogue uplifts a curiosity about the ways this social-political identity can negotiate with African heritage - the ways in which the concept Blackness isn’t capable to reach to pre-colonial forms of knowledge and language; Modern technologies & ancient technologies. How can we visually explore and represent such analogy? “
- Henrique J. Paris
- Henrique J. Paris
Shot by Henrique J. Paris. Designed by Patrick E. Glavee
What do we hope to achieve and learn?
Positive and negative interactions with this project are entirely beneficial and indicative of the mental & cognitive abilities of specific groups, races and genders in the British population.
We would like to investigate an individuals ability to find the pattern within a seemingly chaotic order. These findings will be representative of our ability to understand social and political issues, while encouraging personal development, an open-mindset and a refreshed perspective on life.
We would like to investigate an individuals ability to find the pattern within a seemingly chaotic order. These findings will be representative of our ability to understand social and political issues, while encouraging personal development, an open-mindset and a refreshed perspective on life.
You see? Although the graphic was initially confusing and seemingly chaotic, after adjusting your perspective, or way of seeing, you were able to discern the order amidst the ‘chaos’.
*Note the definition of chaos here differs from that used to explain ‘chaos theory’.
We are defining chaos as: What is not yet known/understood/deciphered; In essence, the unknown.
*Note the definition of chaos here differs from that used to explain ‘chaos theory’.
We are defining chaos as: What is not yet known/understood/deciphered; In essence, the unknown.
Whats next and where do we go from here?
Endeavouring to garner real world interactions means it is beneficial for us to exhibit our work in physical spaces, while observing how the public interact with and perceive the art.
We have just completed a collaboration with @onwheeeels to exhibit a piece on their movable billboard in front of Brixton station on the 12th of June.
I am working to collate my findings from this exploration into an article titled “Agile thinking, in the age of ‘tell, don’t show’”. Thank you for reading! :)