” Every good painting shows the seamless transition from process to art.” —Bernard Frize
It is the first time I get to know something about Conditional Design. The idea “the process is the product” indeed shocks me. I’ve never imagined a piece of artwork focusing on the creation process. At first, I am a bit confused. “How can a finished work show the working process to us?”, I ask myself. When viewing some pictures, I gradually understand. We can figure out the process by telling different shapes, colors, and even the order designers place the patterns. Moreover, the content in the picture is far from enough. Besides what we can see, the process also contains the communication between designers, the time they spend, and the decisions they make. And these are what really matter to the Conditional Design.
First, I consider Conditional Design as a more interactive and engaging work. Everyone can take part as long as they follow the rule, which is also called logic. This makes Conditional Design more accessible than other forms of art. Second, it gives people great freedom. In the past, when I wanted to draw something, I would start with a rough draft. Then I would try to complete the drawing by adding more details. As a result, the finished work was not far from the draft. However, the result of Conditional Design is not fixed. Even with the same rule, works vary among different people.
My rules for Conditional Design are as follows:
- There are only four shapes: black, red, green, blue
- Black – Draw a rectangle using black color, then fill it with parallel straight lines.
- Red – Draw a triangle using red color, fill it with red.
- Green – Draw a pentagon using green color, fill it with pentagons from big to small.
- Blue – Draw a hexagon using blue color, fill it with wavy lines.
- All shapes can be irregular.
- All shapes should at least share a line with others.
I get this inspiration from soccer. I like the regular hexagon patterns on the soccer. They share all their lines with others and can still fill the whole soccer. So I am wondering what it will be like if all the patterns are not required to be regular and still share lines with others.
I’ve tried this several times, and I got different results. They are like a colorful net trying to make a connection with each pattern. That’s what I want to convey in the work. As individuals living in the society, we are keep building different relationships with different people depending on different things.