Data Structure

Since Wednesday 17 June I have been documenting my time with daily diagrams, so far I’ve drawn nearly 16 weeks:  110 days. 

 

Instigated in response to earlier conversations with Manon about weaving work that translates specific data, my pictographs include information on time spent doing, thinking and general being within a 24 hour timeframe.

 

This information is represented in a repeating circular frame segmented into 24 sections. A daily doodle/drawing centred within each circular frame allows my subconscious to have a wander on the page. 

For me the daily practice of drawing is meditative and anchoring in these unstable times, a way to literally draw out thoughts, feelings and ideas from my subconscious quickly and intuitively. Documenting my time gives me some small semblance of control or at least a more concrete idea of my rhythms and patterns. I am trying not to get too caught up in assessing productivity, but it is interesting to see how much time is spent on certain activities in relation to others.

Translating this information into the three dimensional is where I’m at now. On Manon’s suggestion I have been focussing on using branches found during my local walks as existing structures with which to begin. The latest feature painted segments coordinated with the colour coded activity genres depicting the proportion of time spent on certain activities.

LEFT 14.08.20, CENTRE AND RIGHT 15.08.20

 

AN AVERAGE DAY BRANCH BASED ON CALCULATIONS FROM 17/07-15/08.

I am interested in how to record different types of information, emotive and abstract thought alongside logistics. Thinking back to my weaving archive I am reminded of a series of pictographs I was made aware of during a weaving residency in Oaxaca in 2014. The Relaciones Geográficas are a series of documents made in Mexico from 1578-1586  in response to a questionnaire sent by the Spanish Crown requesting local information from the ’New World’ including population, demographics, terrain, vegetation, languages spoken. Made mainly by indigenous inhabitants these documents include unique and beautifully rendered pictographs which combine an indigenous representation of social, physical, and cosmological aspects, with a local response to the information requested. These bi-cultural artifacts, dating from 1578-1586, are now considered a primary source of information about the Spanish Conquest of Middle America.

 

 

I began drawing my daily maps without thinking too much, the circular structure made sense and within a few days I began adding the central drawing, but I can now see parallels with the pictographs i researched in Mexico and my attempt to visually convey internal and external information. Looking back to go forward..a beginning.