Totem Construction Kit is a AFK [away from keyboard] Participatory Generative Design Play. It consists of magnetic ‘mood particles’ which assemble together, becoming particular.
Odd symmetries allow emergence of elusive orders which can remain abstract or turn figurative.
The project foregrounds the problematic nature of 'forever materials',rare earth minerals and gold in relation to play: what normaly remains hidden under the surface of our daily digital lives is used as a medium.
The play is available in my new online shop!
Play:
The more we play the less we fight. Instead of a common sense notion, that play is 'spending time', we insist, that through engaging in here-and-now it is actually the most effective, immediate and available method of 'making time'. While playing we are in the middle of the Event. Preferably ogether and away from the screen.
Totem and Authentication:
Borrowed from the Ojibwe language, Totem refers to an object unifying behaviours and relationship within and between societal groups expressing a force larger than any individual.
The ancient greek tradition of fracturing one object present at a gathering and distributing pieces between the participants is one of the oldest forms of authentication.
TCK taps into both thus establishing a collective play, pieces of which can be taken by the participants to be reassembled at the next gathering. Can the emerging order be repeated?
Saturation:
TCK is an inversion of feature detection: it is a set of abstract features, which can assemble into a thing.
An experiment in multi-scale pattern generation, inviting attention travelling within imaginary third dimension or immersive depth while the puzzles stay anchored in one plane. This depth is established by the informational density allowed by both computational design process and precision manufacturing.
It unfolds with attention detecting features at different scales.
Cultural Heritage:
TCK borrows, pays tribute to and humbly develops further numerous pattern making techniques and inspiration sources. The geometric principle discovered by Roger Penrose is used to achieve aperiodic tiling and resulting odd symmetries. Similarities to the works stemming from Wiener Werkstātte and Koloman Moser in particular are intentional together with numerous other associations, including traditional, indigenous and alien.
Attention [Deficit]:
TCK consists of growing number of 'mood particles'. They are designed very rapidly, in the 'spare time' between other, longer projects. They constitute a kind of notation, a record of a gesture, manifesting themselves as relationships between abstract features. They are as well a form of ADD auto-therapy allowing almost instant gratification and expanding the project's complexity step by step, sequentially.
Sustainability:
TCK proposes an alternative to generally accepted 'sustainable design' strategies: instead of insisting on visibly renewable materials, it instead taps into one of the most optimized industrial process available today: printed circuit board manufacturing.
The decission to work with the 'forever materials' brings with it a set of responsibilities: what is worth preserving, what remains as a geological strata long after the culture ceases to exist, what is the value of play.