Moticos
Moticos – a fully realized nothing containing accidental meaning.
I felt compelled to make this piece after being exposed to several new ideas in quick succession.
While exploring the blogging phenomenon, which was all new to me, I discovered the power of cascading style sheets (CSS). I was especially interesting in using style sheets to control the background images of elements, rather than using the traditional method of inserting images directly as content.
On my new job I was exposed to XML and XML style sheet transformations (XSLT) as a technique to convert basic data elements into content for the web. I immediately saw that combining XSLT with CSS would be an elegant way to convert raw data into something beautiful on the screen.
At the same time I was playing around with Zaadz, a social networking website. Zaadz had pages where members listed books they owned. These lists were communicated by displaying book cover images. These web pages of colorful images, of identical dimensions, were beautiful. And meaningful. Seeing books by the Dalai Lama next to books by Thoreau had implications about the owner. I thought the next logical step was to do the same thing for movies that the member enjoyed.
Everything came together when I saw How to Draw a Bunny, a documentary about collage artist Ray Johnson. I would make a collage of books covers, movie posters, and quotes I thought were interesting. Instead of canvas and paint, I would use programming and digital images, a medium I am more comfortable with. The name “Moticos” is a tribute to Ray.
Then I took it one step further by making it interactive. As you move the mouse over the collage, related image components rise to the top. This allows you to see how it was constructed, which I thought was interesting. Since I was exposing the construction technique, I thought I might as well add a layer for the actual code itself. Well designed code is a beautiful thing to me. Even if you step back where you can’t read the actual lines, I still see a certain elegance in it.
Finally, I realized this collection of things I liked, was actually a self portrait of sorts. So, I added a self portrait image layer from a photograph I had taken of myself a few years earlier.
