Homoheliotropism, noun, protologism:
from the genus Homo – to which all human beings belong; and Heliotropism: 1. the directional growth of a plant in response to sunlight. 2. The tendency of an animal to move towards light.
2021, wood, metal, perspex, sound, electronics, data and grief
dimensions variable, floor space 2m2, H:230cm

Awarded First Class Honours for the BA (hons) Interaction Design, The Glasgow School of Art
GSA digital Showcase

Shown at Routing, Glasgow University Wildlife Park from 4th to 9th June, with performances on 4th and 8th June.

Shown at The Art of Outdoor, Billboard Campaign by The Glasgow School of Art in association with Ocean Outdoor (21-27 June 2021)
20 billboards across Glasgow, Paisley, Airdrie and Wishaw, Scotland 



To Arlette and Gisele

This monument to my late grandmothers crystallises a geographical and topographical constant to situate visceral experiences and spontaneous motor relationships within our bodies. It is a landmark to the hyper-sensitivity of the imperception, acting as an incentive to regain or take consciousness of our environment, our body and act to redefine our interpersonal relationships. For the narrative we chose to own or fabricate is intimately shaped by the conditions of the space we inhabit.
I would like to be(.)  not here, but this border layer of the ether:
where ground, ceiling, left and right meet but never touch.
For I envisage the serene anxiety and the deafening silence of a land without land nor temporality (;)
to apprehend the fractures of continua that leave their immediate past and features
to die(,) in the abruptness with which I am teared away from them.





The focus of my attention had been to meet the Sun at the horizon. While I stumbled on the disappointing inability to reach him, this logged heliotrope itinerary through the streets of Glasgow was filling the intrinsically volatile leap of the ether by materialising a silver lining within the architecture, within the city itself, separating light and shade by giving its outline with my body. For each road intersection walked by, a unique three-word-identifier was collected with the help of the geocode application what3words, each representing a physical square of 3m2 with a tangible spatial coordinate. Each grouping of words was paired to three distinct voices, as though three people were walking down the streets. Each change of cardinal direction rearranged the order of words in the (person’s) voice they were attributed. Quiet Sand Suffer provides a ‘diacritical’ reading of the particular and intrinsically fluid spatiotemporal outlines of this other (u)topia it informs. This three-part poem computationally worded appears as a prayer to the pulling force(s), an ode to the sun, tinted of computational naturalism.
/

quiet lines,
strut device,
freed(,) gaps
closes divisions

defeat ritual
rising,
gather issued life

even sound,
minus bonds

spring,
reveal aspect lines

giving burn,
hands swaps
cried-bride pitch,
blunt layers
decide, choice.











//

sand news,
scare remain wake-march

drape body,
remit forms,
count darker frame,
brave unity area

human dates,
feared almost,
corner gazed arrow
dwell island fields

fast, people-matter juices(,)
fuzzy sheets shaped

///

suffer stacks goes: hopes minus bells
froze alone often: leans bright exchanges
damage heave blaze: little vibrates, palms curve
enter hurls dust: lease inner lovely truth
amused light, broad, caged: forget odds(‘) space




As a body intermediating architectural and celestial spatiality, I ought to interconnect the geographical coordinates to the sun’s direct action. In other words, physically interpolating both the geographical coordinates, and these with the sun’s gamut of (recorded) positions.

Seeking to quantify the cyclical and ephemeral light emission that is inducing the apparition, disappearance, and variations within the heterotopia, and to determine the corporal meeting point where harmony appears, I fabricated and installed two solargraphs: a fix and a mobile, an analog and a digital, on my balcony and to travel inside my bag. I developed and programmed an autonomous and weatherproof digital solagraph, with a battery life capable to record a full twelve-hour-sun-cycle. Hosted inside a clear food container, the micro-computer (Raspberry Pi 3B+) stores the sun’s course data over the horizon, effectively capturing the brightest pixel’s coordinates on the video feed over time. This pixel detection at the core of the technology constitutes a fertile ground for further detection of (sky’s) objects, such as vapour trails, birds or other particles and fragments. After recording, the datasets for each three phases of the cycle – sunrise, daytime, sunset – were then verified and cleaned to process. First rendered to vector lines, they were pen plotted on drawing paper – allowing size and placement calibration – and tracing paper for the interplay of opacity as mockup for both physical installation and material selection for future paper publication. These lines were finally laser engraved on clear transparent acrylic, allowing the spectator to superpose the natural background or the other prints to the observed dataset. The material is a further reminder of the transparent spatial layer we inhabit – that is delimited by the horizon that surrounds us –, our scalp tingled by the sun or the laser beam, like walking under high voltage electrical wires. Their slim but rigid profile offers the possibility for double sided free standing mounting while remaining weatherproof.

Literal etched pathways of (homo)heliotrope movements, this heterotopia solely exists as a by-product of its performative, computational and poetic layering, offering new approaches and instances to apprehend the geographic-volume, the corporal-humanist and the material-plastic.



I believe that the very fundament and health of our intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships rests on the poetic and analytic observation of our environment. Where trauma appears, the study of space and power interaction at play enables us to own our narrative, invariably leading to a wider acceptation and inclusion (of the self and the other). As it requires from us to analyse, deconstruct and modify our very own overarching paradigms, I believe language is the vector of these changes. In shifting purely visual concerns to a sensibility towards spatiality, the project presented attempts a redefinition of 'Visual Arts’ practices into rethinking the medium as a malleable plastic matter in space (weather environmental, architectural, societal or corporal). This 'spatial plasticityoffers an equal space for ambivalent and emerging practices to exist within the contemporary art realm.

This corpus of work explores the agency of the Sun as a form of computation, migratory and spatial occupation, deity and grounding marker of evolution. In analysing its course over the horizon I attempted to delimit a physical space, a complex heterotopia to inhabit: a 'juxtaposition in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible', ‘foreign' or 'contradictory', an ephemeral and 'mythic' space as Michel Foucault theorised in 1967 with Of Other Spaces. This heterotopia is delimited by the movement of my body within the geography and the topography in direct relation to the Sun’s cycle over the horizon. It is a transcendentalist approach to the Sun as a pulling and regulating force, dictating our lives and our noise pollution, that is of awaken society.

The sculpture derives from an object which traditionally marks the tides, that is the alternating gravitational pull of the moon and the sun. This attraction causes the earth to orbit in an oscillating fashion, called nutation. In the context of this research, this Tidal Marker  serves as a tangible fixed terrestrial geographical marker, an object that is to deliver with constance a universal reference point against which to measure notably my own psyche, but also to grieve and pray. To the pole is hung the three recorded phases of the sun’s diurnal cycle - sunrise, daytime, sunset - and the recorded sun-led interaction of my body within the architecture. The four laser cut and engraved acrylic/perspex of (homo)heliotrope movement-lines are attached side-ways with small L-brackets to the central pole.



Imagined as a computation of graphic scores, the poem extracted from the walk was also sung with the voice pitch shifted by each solar dataset. Inspired by Arvo Pärt’s use of harmonic displacement in sacral polyphony, the center note (daytime) is used to derive dissonance while the counter rampings (sunrise and sunset) crossover, splitting harmony to disharmony, fracturing-waves to heterotopic shore. Harmonies and dissonances appear to the hear where they emerged to the eye on the prints: the start and end of the sunrise and sunset sound inverted over time, crossing to unison in their middle point and to perfect octaves at both start and ends; thus, materialising this singular breaking point.

This platform for nature to manifests its agency aims to account for our interaction in the plastic of space, the elasticity of time and their continua, giving an agency to the mapped world in a near deification of the Sun. This enables a situating in space which interrogates the way we inhabit a given place, the way we occupy a space and how these affect us.

These were also performed during the exhibition ‘Routing’ with selected members of the public.  
the louder it is outside my corporal envelope, the quieter it is inside my head; reciprocally, the quieter it gets outside, the louder it becomes inside. Effectively, sound has this ability to suppress my thoughts but the lack of the former also to unravel the latter. When this crossover happens, a decompression occurs – sometimes leading to tinnitus – confusing my body as it is yet to be loud inside my head, although it is not quite loud outside anymore; and reciprocally, it is not yet quiet outside – however getting there exponentially – while inside it is about to explode! At this very precise moment where the pressure drops – in that ‘popping’ in-between – this breaking point starts to fracture the continuum.





The Art of Outdoor, Billboard Campaign by The Glasgow School of Art in association with Ocean Outdoor, 21-27 June 2021




Tidal Marker: wood, metal, perspex, data and grief | Digital Solargraph: Raspberry Pi 3B+, Processing, camera module, screen module, 10Ah power bank, plastic food container, electronic wiring | Prints: Processing, AxiDraw (pen plotter), archival ink on white and transparent paper, OHP/permanent marker pen on acetate | Sound: Lambert Segura (voice), MaxMSP, Processing, OSC, IanniX | Dimensions: variable; sculpture’s floor space 2m2, H:230cm

Credits
Programmation: Cécile Lambert-Segura, with the kind support of Paul Maguire and Jen Sykes | Laser cutting: Flux Laser Studio | Special thanks to: Tom Khubli, Laurent Nunez, Sam Welch and Malin Cederlund

project blog page | Github | all programs, data and media are licensed under Creative Commons [CC BY SA], any derivative must be licensed under the same terms.