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inauthentic orientals

Inauthentic Orientals is an exploration into digital representations of the orient through an analysis of doorways. The research questions tendencies from western cultures to mass generalise foreign cultures under umbrella terms such as ‘asian’ or ‘oriental’. 

The archival process acclaims the door as a “traditional element with physical test and iconography” - Rem Koolhaas. Respecting the doors both physical and representational significance, it being both a physical entrance and the absorption or portal into a new space, passage or regime. 

Databases are collected through the repeating of searches (e’.g. oriental door’/‘chinese door’) in different search engines, languages and virtual locations (VPN’s), with the results being data scraped and archived into a directory. 

The results are then fed into a machine learning algorithm, where an image synthesis process calculates new imagery based on the input parameters. The outcome results in two series of images, each representing objective authentic or inauthentic oriental imagery. 

Output imagery is then applied as a 3D relief on 4 archetypical vase profiles. 

2020

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