Incomplete Worlds: The Self Imagined / What She Sees
DIGITAL
DIGITAL
Based on a short story I wrote a while ago about a world that was full of incomplete people*. I wanted to imagine what these people really were on the inside; I wanted to fill in their gaps. I fantasized about what these people would do if they had the option to draw themselves into completion. For some reason I thought the usual way of doing it wouldn’t be right. These people wouldn’t know what normal is, so what they would come up with would be a little more imaginative. I also hid an animal in each illustration just as a little secret.
Made for a group exhibit in Japan with the Designers of Asia group.
* Story ---
In a small corner of the world, there existed a place that can only be described as a monument to unfinished promises. From a distance it is indistinguishable from the environment we are all accustomed to, but with each step towards the city there is a perceptible decrease in sound – the fallen leaves that crumbled under your feet no longer crackled, the rustling of the trees reduced to the softest whisper, and the birds flew in an eerie silence which matched the slowly darkening sky.
This city of silence was, in all conceivable definitions, fragmented. Everything was divided into lines that were held in place to create something - a road, a building, a river, a tree - but lacked a part which would render it whole. Even the sky, which only moments earlier held numerous white clouds now only had a series of lines that zigzagged and curved in random formations.
What was most striking however, were the people. Their mouths missed a line to render it a mouth and without one, they could not speak. The lines of their unfinished lips would open and close but no words would come out - no conversations made and no thoughts exchanged. Their eyes and ears suffered from the same imperfection. They walked the streets this way – half-seeing, half-hearing, and unable to create anything of meaning or substance. They remained intact, yet separate - an unfinished masterpiece that became nothing more than shades of what could have been.
However, even in a place such as this, there were those that viewed their situation as nothing more than an unfortunate circumstance. There was a man that had the appearance of being as incomplete as any other, with the very distinct exception that his heart was fully formed. His completed heart made him see the world and himself not as a lost cause, but as someone who is temporarily broken and could be fixed.
Made for a group exhibit in Japan with the Designers of Asia group.
* Story ---
In a small corner of the world, there existed a place that can only be described as a monument to unfinished promises. From a distance it is indistinguishable from the environment we are all accustomed to, but with each step towards the city there is a perceptible decrease in sound – the fallen leaves that crumbled under your feet no longer crackled, the rustling of the trees reduced to the softest whisper, and the birds flew in an eerie silence which matched the slowly darkening sky.
This city of silence was, in all conceivable definitions, fragmented. Everything was divided into lines that were held in place to create something - a road, a building, a river, a tree - but lacked a part which would render it whole. Even the sky, which only moments earlier held numerous white clouds now only had a series of lines that zigzagged and curved in random formations.
What was most striking however, were the people. Their mouths missed a line to render it a mouth and without one, they could not speak. The lines of their unfinished lips would open and close but no words would come out - no conversations made and no thoughts exchanged. Their eyes and ears suffered from the same imperfection. They walked the streets this way – half-seeing, half-hearing, and unable to create anything of meaning or substance. They remained intact, yet separate - an unfinished masterpiece that became nothing more than shades of what could have been.
However, even in a place such as this, there were those that viewed their situation as nothing more than an unfortunate circumstance. There was a man that had the appearance of being as incomplete as any other, with the very distinct exception that his heart was fully formed. His completed heart made him see the world and himself not as a lost cause, but as someone who is temporarily broken and could be fixed.
