In last semester’s project, I used p5.js to convert input images into ASCII character images. I experimented with reconstructing illustrations of astronomical instruments in both two- and three-dimensional forms. Initially, I focused on how digital tools reshape the formal qualities of images and on how the process of symbolization reshapes the form of knowledge.
In my conversation with Jazmin Morris, we discussed how knowledge manifests across different media. She reminded me that knowledge is a broad concept encompassing pure rationality, practical knowledge, and technē. The scientific instrument illustrations I used contain these different dimensions, yet in my ASCII-based reconstructions, the distinctions among these types of knowledge became blurred and even erased. This made me realize that my early experiments lacked a critical awareness of how types of knowledge are translated. As a result, I began to consider returning to the original materials and, before processing them, annotating and classifying them based on knowledge dimensions—so that “reconstruction” would no longer be an indiscriminate, automated operation, but rather a selective form of “measurement” guided by a logic of filtering.
Jazmin also recommended Morehshin Allahyari’s Dark Matter, which reconstructs banned everyday objects from Iran through 3D printing, turning them into sculptural digital archives. This form of digital reconstruction not only preserves the forms of suppressed objects but also raises visual questions about power, value, and visibility. This approach prompted me to think further.
Subsequently, in my discussion with the Chinese digital artist Yang Sanji, I gained a deeper understanding of the concept of “defamiliarization.” He described it as a way of disrupting everyday perception through shifts in viewpoint or distortions of language, and introduced me to Kathleen Ryan’s Roman Meal project—where decayed food is reconstructed with precious gemstones, provoking renewed reflection on the relationships among consumption, value, and decay through material contrast.
These discussions made me realize that “defamiliarization” itself is also a reconstruction at the level of perception: it does not merely make the familiar strange, but operates as a re-assignment of meaning through a shift in how we look. In my current practice, ASCII characters still function as visual units lacking inherent semantics; if I were to embed them in context or meaning, could I construct a new kind of “knowledge unit” that fuses rational knowledge with digital logic?
This led to further reflection. The astronomical instruments I selected were sampled and reconstructed through code—in effect, using the logic of tools to “measure” visual information. In retrospect, the scientific instruments in my project are themselves measuring devices; by reconstructing images through code, I transformed observation into a digitized structure, making it a measurement experiment at the visual level. This realization has motivated me to look for other measuring tools and to explore how measurement, on other levels, determines, delimits, and reshapes the boundaries of what is “visible” and “knowable.”
Morehshin Allahyari. (2014). Dark Matter. Available at: https://www.kathleen-ryan.com/2021-kathleenryan [Accessed 10 Nov. 2025].
Kathleen Ryan. (2021). 2021 – Kathleen Ryan. Available at: https://www.kathleen-ryan.com/2021-kathleenryan [Accessed 10 Sep. 2025].