Imperfection is my ethos. It is an association with the inherent beauty found in life.
Constraint started with the question - "what can I do with a simple shape? How can I break it, bend it, tear it apart, and how could I put the pieces back together again?"
A circle is fairly straightforward - how can it be changed? How can I make it imperfect?
Movement. Noise. Disconnection. Scratch it. Tear it. Tear it down.
Try to break it, and in the process turn it into something different. Create something new and beautiful from something broken.
Add lines for texture. More damage. Some might even call it ugly. Overwhelm with curves, points, squares.
Then - after the seed of the idea had been planted - start adding constraints. Constraints that limited where things could be drawn. Limited what the points, and the lines, and the curves could do and say. Occasionally allow some to bleed through. To go where they weren’t previously allowed, to say the things they wanted to say but were never allowed.
But there has to be more than that. How can I channel more into it? The frustration built up from the never-ending, repeated days sitting in the same shitty old desk chair, doing the same thing over and over again. The anger at the world and the constant barrage of rage salesmen that occupy every turn. The loneliness and isolation of failing relationships, the helplessness that comes with the constant knowing of the ones you can’t save anymore. The overwhelming hollowness we feel as we lose our individuality in the sea of digital consciousness that is endless hyperconnectivity. And those fleeting moments of unexpected happiness that make wading through everything else…okay. It makes it okay. Calm. Kindness even.
Channel that. Channel all of that. Put it into the shapes, the breaking of the things, the twisting and the disconnection. Put it into the palettes, the colors, the limits on what can be used and what cannot. Put it into everything.
And as I threw more and more into the algorithm, opportunities appeared that allowed me to take meaningful things away from it.
To steal away the frustration, the anger, the pain, the loneliness, and sometimes the happiness as well.
I found that as I took away some of those things I was left with the others in return.
The act of “taking away” and “adding more” turned into one and the same.
The unequivocal answer to "what can I do with a simple shape?" was: quite a bit.