(Image: found, from collection)
In my last post, after visiting Flat Time House, I had begun to consider the kind of work I wanted to make for the end of elective exhibition.
Starting with the above found image as a starting point, I have begun to develop ideas surrounding the exploration of symbolism and Image/Text hybridity.
After some reading around the subject, I found that the image I had was in fact an Aztec sun-stone, a sacrificial altar founded upon the 260 day Sacred Aztec Calendar (below).
(Image: http://luisnael.wikispaces.com/file/view/AztecCalendar.jpg/134459067/AztecCalendar.jpg)
Each day was ruled by a different god, and each god was represented by a different ideogram. What fascinated me was the way that for some years even the Aztec alphabet was described with mutually agreed symbols, rather than representative letterforms (below).
(Image: http://tomlambert.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/letters31.jpg)
Furthermore, this has transferred into the present day, with highly complicated Data Matrix barcodes, capable of describing complex codes and even images, being deemed 'Aztec Symbols' (below).
(Image: http://www.waveform.ie/_fileUpload/Image/Aztec_Code.JPG)
From this, I have begun to take each of the 20 named symbols found on the Sun-Stone, and merge them into literal data matrix symbols of their description, as in below:
(Image: Author's own)
In this case, inputting the word 'Monkey', to create this symbol:
(Image: Author's own)
This process creates 20 individual 'Aztec Symbol' barcodes, which, if scanned by a computer would create the exact word to represent it, a kind of symbolism for the 21st Century?
I like how through this process, the Image/Text relationship becomes fully circular: an initial symbol creates the explanatory Text, from which a new image is created, one that is fully representative of the word, with no space for Artistic editorship.
My only decisions now lie with how to display/represent this information and process in an exhibition situation, or whether any explanation would be needed? I think it may be sufficient to have a barcode with the word underneath, although it would run the risk of viewer alienation/disengagement.