Recent Projects of the Macrosyntherid Research Group

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MICA Graphic Design Senior Show 2013 degree project

Ever since I have been consciously capable of intellectual thinking, I have had a deep interest in systems—understanding, organizing, developing and adapting them. Everything from legos to mathematics to social/cultural cognition. Although the basic initial idea has been expanded on, it is in the general, continuous vein of thought about systems that I naturally happened on this project idea.

The basic overarching idea is to take an inanimate, inorganic object and to personify, classify and describe it and all of its variations (“species,” if you will) as a taxonomic family of biological organisms. The research of three objects in total would be headed by a fake organization called the Macrosyntherid Research Group (MRG), with its own logo and identity. A research journal of three sections, each with its own flavor yet cohesive as a series, was written and designed to introduce the MRG's research. Here is the group's mission statement:

The human race has achieved great feats in the world of science. Yet, even with our advanced brains and brilliant minds, there is much we fail to understand, or more importantly, much for which we have only scratched the surface. It appears we simply do not know what is going on within even common everyday "objects."

The Macrosyntherid Research Group (MRG) was formed in 2012 when its founder was using a hairbrush to straighten out her hair and began thinking about the way a hairbrush or comb eliminates waste materials and redistributes oil throughout hair. What facilitates this process? Could there be a well-oiled mechanism or an intricate interaction going on within that is invisible to the naked eye? Just as it was revealed that there is a world of microsyntherids such as the bread clip (Occulupanid), found to be a parasitoid generally feeding on bagged pastries in supermarkets[1], it turns out there is a vast number of macrosyntherids in existence that we have yet to discover. Once this idea was posited, we had countless inquiries come in about other similar mysteries, from how sound is delivered from a device to the ear via headphones to the way hangers seem to replicate, and sometimes disappear, inside closets[2].

This exhibition, with its scientific yet reader-friendly research journal and accompanying live specimen, is an introduction to the type of research MRG is involved in and an invitation to explore the unlimited possibilities and solutions that can be reached by looking at everyday things at a different scale or from a different perspective.

1 The Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group. (2011, July). What are Occlupanids? Retrieved from http://www.horg.com/horg/?page_id=2

2 Walters, Christian. (1999, October). Where the hell are my socks? Retrieved from http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/90q3/socks.html