Texte und Zeichnungen einer künstlerisch forschenden Exploration metaphysischer Themen in Zeiten von maschinellem Lernen

Texte und Zeichnungen einer künstlerisch forschenden Exploration metaphysischer Themen in Zeiten von maschinellem Lernen (“Texts and drawings of an artistic exploratory exploration of metaphysical themes in times of machine learning”) is my final thesis at the Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin.

Inspired by “Wenn die Sterne verlöschen”, the German version of Isaac Asimov's science fiction short story “The Last Question”, I have been experimenting with topics such as immortality, infinity, post- and transhumanism, artificial intelligence, the human body, cosmology and spirituality.

My two-part book is a foreign text collection, paired with my own notes, thoughts and drawings. With content that I have discovered, searched for, found, collected and sorted; stories, theories, essays, visions etc. from science, sci-fi, philosophy and art.

The work has nothing to do with theory or science, rather it is about an orientation towards the poetic, towards an artistic strategy and production. A personal confrontation with the present, with a view to the past and the future. The texts and the drawings are intended to attempt to open up new spaces of thought in their concatenation and to provide access to my thought structure, my universe.

In order to make it clear which contents are mine and which are foreign material, I have decided to use a color coding. So all “personal” contents, i.e. my notes, thoughts, awards and drawings are designed in the color blue — inspired by the infinite.

In my book every text is individually designed. Here, too, I have “quoted” and made the quotation the design principle. This way, the reader will always know when a new text begins or which text boxes belong together. In the best case the reading is linear, but there is also the possibility to read the texts crosswise.

The publication features 71 different fonts in total. Eight of them are shown in the included images, see the captions. The fonts that were used but aren’t depicted here are Akkurat, Aquinas, Arnhem, AT Apoc, AT Oroban, Azzurro, Beatrice Display, Big Caslon, Blazenburg, Brown, Century Schoolbook, Century Schoolbook Monospaced, Chap, Circular, Cirka, Courier Prime, Dia, Digestive, Druk Wide, Elastik D, Favorit, Five Years Later, Futura, Galapagos, Gotham, Gräbenbach, Grafier, GT Amerika, GT Pressura, GT Sectra, GT Walsheim, GT Super, Happy Times At The IKOB, Helvetica, IBM Plex Mono, ITC Franklin Gothic, Lausanne, Lexicon, Lucida Grande, Lyon, Lyyra, Meriva, Mineral, NB Architekt Neue, NB Grotesk, Neue Machina, Nitti Grotesk, Noe, Pensum, Rando, Sang Bleu King, Saol, Scto Grotesk, Serifbabe, Suisse Int’l, Suisse Int’l Mono, Suisse Works, Terminal Grotesk, Times New Roman, Tiny, Value Serif, Whyte, and ZXX.

In the second part of the book there are 112 drawings, where I have illustrated 112 terms from the texts. The respective terms are colored in the texts. The respective figure number is usually close to the term and can be looked up parallel in the drawings book. They are abstract illustrations of some of the most interesting keywords from the texts. Thus the drawings have helped me to better understand the contents of my selected texts. However, they are not a scientific representation but a personal interpretation. In addition, I had the drawings analyzed by an artificial intelligence.

I have used very durable materials in my entire design and the book format is also based on the infinite number sequence of Fibonacci, namely in a ratio of 1:1.618. The paper has a high durability as it is wood-free, there is thread stitching — the most durable way to bind a book.

Around the two books there is a transparent rubber and they are vacuum packed together. It was also a conscious decision to design the book as a raw book block without cover. It should draw attention to the incompleteness and incompleteness. To draw attention to the fragile personal.

All in all, my project is an investigative activity, which when and then confirms or redefines my views on the relationship between man and the universe and man and machine. In addition, overarching associations also arise. My attitude is fundamentally characterized by curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, which is not lacking in an appropriate skepticism towards the thematic complexity, but which always ventures out into new branches.