Amerindian Typography Specimens
Title: Amerindian Typography Specimens
Technique: Generative art projection
Duration: Undefined (Real-time generative process)
Software: Processing
Output Format: Interactive / Real-time generative visuals
Display Mode: Fullscreen (Multi-screen support using SPAN)
Resolution: Relative (multi-screen setup)
Year: 2023
Amerindian Typographic Specimens is a Generative Art projection presented as part of the Mapping Festival (Audiovisual & Divergent Electronics Festival), an event celebrated yearly in Geneva, Switzerland. The work, projected on a 360° screen in the Syllepse of immersive experiences in the United Nations Garden, explores the fusion between visual elements of Amerindian cultures and contemporary technologies, creating a different visual experience. The indigenous-futuristic music of the duo Papaya Tropical accompanies the installation, intensifying the atmosphere and generating an immersive environment for the audience.
The project is based on preliminary research of visual codes and symbologies belonging to the cultures Kuna or Guna (Colombia and Panama), Calima (Colombia), and Maya (distributed in Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador). These cultural elements have been reinterpreted and transformed into generative typographic forms through the use of integrated development environment Processing, which allows the creation of visual compositions based on creative programming. Additionally, the use of a MIDI keyboard allows the characters to react in real time to the music, which generates a synchronic process between sound, image, and sound waves, intensifying the visual experience.
The structure of the code developed in Processing has been built with the following libraries:
These libraries allow the manipulation of typographic forms and their integration with visual and sound patterns that interact in real time, creating an immersive and different experience for each viewer. The work was supported by public and private entities of the Canton of Geneva, as well as HEAD - Genève, Haute école d'art et de design, who collaborated in its realization.
Acknowledgments
HEAD - Genève, Haute école d'art et de design
Damien Bais & Nicolas Baldran
Musical Credits
Musical composition: Shivaldamán
Artist: Papaya Tropical Music
Year: 2022
Recording: Live session at Papaya Tropical Studio
To learn more about the artist and his work, visit: Papaya Tropical Music
This generative artistic process establishes a dialogue between tradition and technology, exploring how ancestral visual forms can be reinterpreted through algorithms. The typographies, based on Amerindian symbols, are projected in an immersive environment that evolves according to the rules defined in the programming language, creating a visual interaction in constant transformation. The 360° screen projection amplifies this experience, allowing the characters to unfold in shapes that vary between geometric and organic, evoking both the precision of ritual patterns and the fluidity of digital landscapes.
In addition to typographic forms, sound waves are overlayed on top of the visual composition, establishing a link between the auditive and the graphic. These waves, which respond continuously to sound stimuli, amplify the visual experience by creating a dynamic flow over the projected characters, connecting the rhythm of the sound with the visual structure. The use of P3D technology allows these forms to unfold widely, involving the viewer in a multi-sensory interaction.
Each iteration of the code generates a new form of dialogue between the visual and the sound, making the architectural space an extension of this creative process. Here, the synchrony between forms and sound waves transforms the environment into an immersive experience, where the traditional and the contemporary coexist in an organic flow.
