Form + material: Exploring repeating patterns in experience<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you are mildly interested in the nagging questions that wake up\u2014usually at 3am \u2014an old, and pretty-well retired, lecturer and graphic designer, then this site is for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The name \u2018hylomorphic\u2019 comes from Aristotle and the tension between form and material. Things are made from stuff\u2014material\u2014but also have a form that might occur in other things made out of different material. I am fascinated by the binary of form\/material, but also of a wealth of other binary oppositions which, though not identical, seem to be of a similar order: form\/meaning (linguistics), signifier\/signified (semiology), design\/content (Abott Miller, 2014), grammar\/lexis (linguistics), plan\/structure (architecture), structure\/substance \u2026 So the essays are not restricted by a precise interpretation of hylomorphism in Aristotelian terms, but are about how repeating patterns (forms) can be found in various manifestations of stuff (whether this is stuff is our experience of physical things out there in the world, or of activities, or concepts, or emotions). In choosing the domain \u2018hylomorphic.org\u2019 I intentionally left other available domains linked to \u2018hylomorphism\u2019 free, to provide spaces for others to pursue more scholarly enquiries into hylomorphism should they wish to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This site is made from essays, and inevitably it is inspired from other writing and designs. Influences that spring to mind are Barthes\u2019 Mythologies<\/em> for example, or more recently the eponymous eatock.com, or Fletcher’s The Art of Looking Sideways<\/em> where very different individual essays or projects combine to make a greater whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To begin with at least, each essay is broken down into three sections. The first problematises our understanding of an idea, object, or thing. The second theorises the issues raised. And the third section relativises the theories that are identified by showing how they can be applied to graphic communication and\/or argumentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The site is an eternal work in progress and will be regularly supplemented and augmented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n