Carpets
Interdisciplinary Project
This project has started with a visit to Cyprus Folk Art Museum in Nicosia. There my attention was drawn by a variety of cypriot baskets made with coloured straps of materials.
Although invented for storage they were often used as decorations: put on shelves or hanged on walls. In this way, cypriot baskets reminded me of Soviet wall carpets that I had witnessed being a kid. Firstly thought to protect inhabitants from cold the carpets soon were adapted as an interior embellishment.
Basket weaving is determined by a step-by-step / thread-by-thread approach where an image evolves gradually within an invisible “grid”. Similar image making process is found in ASCII art where picture is shaped by symbols typed one after another.
Below: Yoshi Sodeoka. ASCII Rock [video], 2003. sodeoka.com
Inspired, I have created a series of images that through the approach refer to both baskets and ASCII arts but on their own appear as voices of contemporary world. Various Google emoji serve as building units within a “grid” determined by a mobile device texting area.
The final visuals allow multiple translations as the artwork can be considered in different scales: firstly, each emoji has its own message within the topic, then, all the emojies together create a narrative/story and, finally, different emogies in set form a colourful visual ornament that depicts a topic in an abstract way.
I am calling these emoji compositions "carpets" - feel free to hang one on a wall!
