The Sands of Time 8.4

Works from the Sands of Time series embody a visual history, evolving and changing into a new narrative through our contemporary perspective and use of technology. Pattern, ornament and symmetry were unfortunate casualties of Modernism; although they are very much alive today, our viewpoint of these visual languages has changed forever.

Some of the patterning used in these pieces is very ancient (early 9th century) and I felt it was important to record it by using it within my pieces in the hope that the 'language' as such will continue to live on and evolve.

Combining algorithmic concepts and techniques with what could be considered very traditional motifs is always fascinating for me. The initial (handmade) drawings for these works are turned into computational tree structures on which graph theory algorithms are applied to achieve the depth effect. (Graph theory is used in everything from maps to biology applications.) This produces the ‘eroded’ appearance of the final piece while preserving the integrity of the design. From there, it’s a back and forth between myself and the algorithms. ...It takes dozens of iterations of each piece to arrive at a final result where the details flow perfectly.”

-Julia Ibbini