Geographies of a Tile
Design Foundations at play, designed and orchestrated with Professor Patrick Phodes, at the College of Architecture, Art + Design at the American University of Sharjah.
Seeing:
At the pivot of all spiritual endeavors (Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism) lies the pursuit of ridding oneself of “the ego”, our constructed identity often referred to in speech as “the Self” or “I”. This pursuit is oftentimes a rigorous process of unlearning: of completely emptying oneself from preconceived ideas about the world in order to unveil the Truth. This operation immediately poses a paradox in environments that are significantly ego-driven. A model of an ultra-modern city coupled with harsh environmental conditions do not allow for much walking. Most movements are constrained to modes of transportation that confine the perception of the city through the eyes – the first and most immediate point of entry – as opposed to through all senses. This inevitably changes the amount of detail we are made aware of, and shifts what is regarded as monumental and/or iconic; what is (or is not) of value. If all messaging one is constantly exposed to signify value in the material Super World (biggest, highest, largest) how does one break out of the mindset that anything which does not fit within this newly, yet profoundly established system of appreciation is automatically categorized as valueless? From a point of view of egolessness, however, one can comfortably announce: I do not know, thus everything and everyone I encounter is of value, for in the process of interaction, I will be learning; it will be teaching me. The dance between learning and unlearning becomes in and of itself of indispensable value.
The challenge the students were presented with in the frame of Seeing was to physically engage with a ceramic tile, exploring different recording methods. Proposed interactions allowed for distinct levels of proximity and duration of engagement: photography, rubbing, and drawing; close, closer, closest; long, longer, longest. Being forced to kneel, to invest in a bodily labor with an “insignificant” tile for long periods of time imposed an intimacy most students did not foresee, slowly deconstructing the arrogance, the assumed knowledge. Success in Seeing, was therefore not measured by formal criteria, but rather by a student’s ability to capture the Truth of their tile so accurately, one could undoubtedly identify it among a hundred others.
Materializing:
At a cellular level, the physical construction of Man is the same. Our biological truths are consistent: a heart is heart, no matter whose chest embraces it, so are the generous branches of nerves running an immaculate system of responses reacting to a multitude of external factors. The human eco-system of bones and flesh making Man alive is identical, a scientific certainty and a biological reminder that microscopically “we are all reducible to something extremely concrete, deeply primal and inordinately gratifying in its sheet reductivism, its pure claim to form.” 1 In the context of this uniform yet incredible gestalt, it becomes clear that it is a combination of genetic lottery and environment that eventually imposes a hierarchy amongst human beings; a long chain of inherited qualities mutating over time under a set of conditions are carried by a subject devoid of choice. Thus, overpowering our biological similarities, making way for unique identities and scars Man has obtained in the daily human struggle.
Similarly, the intended design and production of the ceramic tiles was identical in scale, material, density, etc. The positioning of the tile amongst many others, however arbitrary, dictated specific environmental and natural factors that instigated an array of different physical responses, allowing every tile to evolve into an unrepeatable surface. The students had to analyze the visual identity of their tile, recognizing surface disturbances that specifically define it. These were then classified into hierarchical fields represented by a myriad of textures, line weights, etc. allowing students to scrutinize topologies that set each tile apart from its original species.
