Books
The pieces in this section represent an investigation of what it means to be a "book". The first piece, "Journey", was one of several experiments in form. Although still made from paper and folding, the book takes on a non-linear narrative and interactive structure informed by digital media. "Metamorphosis" and "Semiotic Mutations" both begin to investigate the semiotics of a book and question whether it is the form or the intent that connotes a book. Dictionary takes the semiotic exploration a step further and questions our language structure and how we image it. Dictionary is an interactive online piece that evolves through user submissions.
2004. Website. Created with Macromedia Director.
Dictionary: A Semiotic Experiment
Language is a philosophical system that differs from culture to culture. Each language has words, grammars and constructs that are unique to the way people who use it think, analyze and classify the world. Dictionary: A Semiotic Experiment is an attempt to create an artificial language within an established virtual culture.
"Dictionary" re-visualizes the construct of language. This experiment looks at pictographic, standard and computer languages as a platform for analysis. The rigid structure of computer languages is adopted to create a formulaic grammar that is easily learned and described. The alphabet is constructed from a hybrid ideology from verbal and pictographic languages, where the alphabet visualizes the labial, velar and dental points of articulation for each pronounced sound. "Dictionary" utilizes user-created images as definitions. Opening the experiment to include an international audience magnifies the arbitrary, vague and elusive nature of language and its use. If each individual is allowed to create a word and visual definition from her own experience, the arbitrary and unique thinking patterns from cultures worldwide are forced to co-exist in an artificially unified space, where language as a dysfunctional concept becomes a hyper reality.
2003. Set of Six Flip Books.
Semiotic Mutations
Each flip book explores a historical equivalent of a book, i.e. a place of documentation/record like that of Grecian Vases or the Great Pyramids and its evolution into a developing technology that challenges the necessity of a printed book.
2002. Interactive Book. Mixed Media.
Journey
An experimental interactive book.
