inarticulate divides

a study of audiovisual dimensions through abstraction

Cinematography was my first love — it started me on the path to studying design — and, these projects were a chance to properly reengage with audiovisual production, which was a joy in itself.

Inarticulate Divides is based on two cities described in Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Maurilia and Fedora. I took to the existential themes of these chapters — neither city sees itself honestly because they are focused only on Maurilia’s past and Fedora’s unachievable ideas of the future. Reflecting from that, my short is a synthesis between abstraction and storytelling. The causal relationship between my recordings and their origin is broken, twisted, remade, as distant and indistinct voices lend only their cadence to the scene. The composition is a journey, from discord with Fedora’s passive idealism to being coaxed into conformity with Maurilia’s nostalgia.

The short developed from experimental investigations with durational media; exaggerating and refining my findings into stop-motion footage with live-action shots.

Stories Beyond Words

Do journalistic ethics apply to the role of designer? This series of projects connects design and journalism through their acts of selecting, prioritizing, coloring, and cutting information, and reconciles the two influences in my work.

From discussions evolved the photo and type series, Portrait of a Journalist, which later sparked works of design-as-journalism. 

I left years ago is a companion to the Portrait of a Journalist. It was resolved out of studies on indicating speech, cadence, volume, tone and quavering through typography.

My Whole Life was resolved out of studies in using typography to say more than the literal words that are typed out. It gave me the chance to eschew the tendencies of the writer and editor in me. I forced myself to set aside legibility for its own sake, in favor of more succinct visual grammar, and the prose is intentionally left representing the raw, stream-of-consciousness style of the original. These are both things I have a strong aversion to, and My Whole Life was an opportunity to be uncomfortable.