Weeks 1 and 2 have been a whirlwind in terms of both narrowing and expanding on my idea. I am taking this week to draw the boundaries around this specific execution of some specific portion of my ideas to show something at the end of the summer session. I’m also feeling some regret from not doing enough documentation throughout this process, and am hoping to better map that out now and lose less versions of ideas to return to later. 

The two seeds that guided my Spring term research were Islamic prayer beads and the 99 Names of Allah children’s pocketbook. I wrote about these most succinctly here. The significance of these to my current work has morphed. 

What has remained relevant from these inspirations: 

  • The power of the prayer beads came from the ability for repetition to construct meaning, and the space between the beads or utterances being opportunities to reframe meaning and reenter
  • The analog nature of them and the ability for them to be a simple and easy touchpoint for repetitive chanting and meaning-making feels salient
  • The pocketbook feels special in its handheld, close nature
  • And the 99 Names of Allah are relevant as the content of that because while they are contained by the number 99 and contained in the book, they are a non-exhaustive list of Allah’s attributes and symbolize an infiniteness in attributions of the Divine and the self 
  • An individual approaches these things alone and leaves these things alone. Even if they are in a group, they are the only person interacting with and touching the object. The object itself lends itself to being a contemplative and generative thing with one user. This feels important to uphold, with my thinking around self as a hub for knowledge construction and finisher of partial or imagined archives. 

Two newer inspirations that stemmed from this research feel central to what I am trying to convey through my thesis “installation”.

Allah-hu: 

    1. What is it? 
      1. Allah-hu is a Sufi chant that directly translates to “Allah is” 
      2. It is often followed by one of the 99 names of Allah. Allah-hu-Akbar = God is Great 
      3. In Sufi chanting, it is often followed by Allah-hu-Haqq (God is Truth). Every three Allah-hus lead to a Haqq: Allah-hu, Allah-hu, Allah-hu-Haqq, and repeat. 
    2. How does it connect to what I am trying to create?
      1. The “hu” is exaggerated and elongated in Sufi chanting. The space between God and the attribute of God is the elongated “hu” 
      2. Generally during a Sufi chanting circle, the speed of the chanting increases with time. As the chanting continues, Allah-hu, Allah-hu, Allah-hu often morphs into hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, just the connective fiber between self and attribute. 
      3. Through repetition, the self and what it is connected to are lost, and just the breathwork remains present and audible. 
      4. The space between things as a hub for creation and generation is deeply connected to the synaptic transmission and storytelling research I have been doing throughout this program. It feels like a natural extension of these inspirations. 

Arabic text, itself: 

    1. What is it? 
      1. Arabic is a language. It is the language the Qur’an and subsequently The 99 Names of Allah were revealed in. More info here 
    2. How does it connect to what I am trying to create?
      1. Arabic characters connect together when being written. The shape of many letters is different when it is written alone compared to when it is written in a word or next to another letter.
      2. The way the letter shifts is not consistent regardless of what it is connected to and where. The position of it in the word impacts how it is rendered. 
      3. Duals of Arabic letters are hubs for something being transformed from what is around it. The connective nature and articulation is different from the solo one. And the connector of the two mirrors a similar metaphor to the Allah-hu work, maybe inversed. 

User Testing 

I wanted to test one version of 2) – How might the union of Arabic characters producing a different form support a further building, where the combination of something with something else allows for another thing to be formed? 

Light and what is illuminated is special in a lot of faith traditions (Let there be light, Light Upon Light, etc). I wanted to think through the ways that light would interact with Arabic text to add another dimension to understanding or seeing something in its connections that is not present without that. 

I wrote combinations of Arabic letters onto transparencies with sharpies. Again, these combinations of letters look different than individual letters. I brought those into user testing along with a slide projector that shines light on the transparencies and reflects them onto a wall. I positioned it so that the combinations of letters were on a table next to the slide projector, and the light was projected onto a white board. 

I gave the testers the following instructions verbally: 

In Arabic, letters connect in different configurations depending on what comes before and what comes after them. The letter looks different alone than it does in a word or when combined with other letters. The shape of the letter shifts simply through being inspired by its counterpart and position.

Here, you see several pairs of Arabic letters in front of you. Your task is to illuminate them with the light of the projector to hopefully see another connection through their unions. 

Take the letter combinations and place them on the slide projector in various configurations. You can use as many or as few as you would like, but use at least 2 letter pairs. 

What do you see in them? What objects or shapes do the combinations of letter pairs construct? Do the combinations of the combinations lead to another desire to combine?

Use your imagination to complete the partial drawings on the whiteboard if you feel inclined to add to them. 

Vince: 

Very much so followed what I thought would happen (letters are combined OR NOT but through seeing them large they are turned into other drawings) 

Judy:

Didn’t feel compelled to draw at all! Combining letters on the slide projector intuitively to create longer string of connection is what she did. She also just went in the order that she picked them up, didn’t skip any. 

Alice: 

Did a combination of the above, gave more advice and feedback throughout. 

All three of my testers created really different things and engaged with the letters differently. They posed some valuable questions and considerations as I move forward: 

  • Make instructions more technical and specific 
  • Is this the final form? How do participants move thru experiments and between – What instructions exist in general in the exhibition? 
  • How would this shift for various degrees of fluency with Arabic script? (None of them had familiarity, they were just shapes to them)  
  • Script feels sacred, I feel like I’m doing something wrong 
  • Mirror image is what is seen on the board 
  • Can people save a copy of their work in some way?
  • Are the transparencies in an order – are they on a cloth, are they on a table, etc? 
  • When people draw will they have to remove it themselves?
  • Digital smartboard vibe – could you bring back iterations – draw your own or choose to leave part of it?