DYSTORPIA - A study about distortion

Everything started with a simple idea: -What are the limits of legibility?

In this personal project, the aim is to experiment with the distortion of a "sheet of paper" on which a single letter is drawn. I'm interested in testing the limits of the human brain in recognizing patterns and shapes that allow legibility.

This project is still ongoing to this day.
This is DYSTORPIA

At first, this research took place exclusively in my sketchbook. I was filling pages with rectangles resembling the shape of a sheet of paper and was letting my pen go over the pages. It was and still is a really pleasurable exercise.

In the beginning, the idea was to train my brain the pre-visualize images.
For this, I was executing all the drawings "freehand", this was forcing me to think about each line ahead of its existence in order to create the final image.
For those who might not be familiar with the term "freehand drawing"; this is the act of drawing images without a prior pencil sketch. In other words: straight with ink.

After filling some pages of these strange shapes, I came to ask myself how these would look if they were actual objects. A couple of days later at the studio, jigsaw in had, I started to experiment with physically distorted letters and tried to put them in different contexts to trick the viewer's eye.

I was pretty stoked to discover how well these letters were interacting with their surroundings. More than this, I started to think that having them in a physical context was distorting my own perception of space, material and laws of physics.

I had to push the research further!

This first installation of DYSTORPIA made me realize two things:
A. These type composition take a totally other dimension when placed in a physical
environment and really trigger confusion to the view.
B. On top of being visually efficient, I really enjoy the whole process of building
these "trompe l'oeil" installations.

I was so excited with this new discovery and I wanted more of it!
more disorientation of the public, more confusion...

In order to enhance the viewer's confusion, I had to push the boundaries of visual understanding, I had to challenge their brain.

I then wondered:
What if I paint some extra elements directly on the gallery's wall?
Would it to add more depth to the installation?
There was only one way to find out...

LAST WORDS:

After years of research and experiments, I feel that the DYSTORPIA project is still at an early stage of development and has much more potential than what I have discovered so far. Knowing this makes me really excited about its future evolutions and for these reasons, it remains among the most exciting ongoing projects of my career.

I hope that this project presentation will inspire and motivate you to push the limits of your own creations.

And remember:
It all started with a simple wonder and a drawing. :)