I have had a bit of an obsession with Thomas More's Utopia for years now. The text is wonderful, and parts of it have a real poignancy in the modern world. More wrote the book back in 1516 and, for anyone who hasn't read it, it largely comprises of a conversation between More and a traveller, Raphael Hythloday, who has just returned from the island of Utopia.
Almost every made up name in the book is a pun or reference, so Hythloday is a Greek compound meaning expert in nonsense and Utopia is derived from the Greek prefix ou-, meaning not, and topos, meaning place. No-place or nowhere. Utopia doesn't exist. And so computer generated imagery feels like the perfect vehicle to explore Utopia, and 2016 felt like an apt time to start this series as a means of reflecting on the political atmosphere in the UK and Europe.
The image above is the first from the series and is based on the portion of text copied below:
...entry into the bay, occasioned by rocks on the one hand and shallows on the other, is very dangerous. In the middle of it there is one single rock which appears above water, and may, therefore, easily be avoided; and on the top of it there is a tower, in which a garrison is kept; the other rocks lie under water, and are very dangerous. The channel is known only to the natives; so that if any stranger should enter into the bay without one of their pilots he would run great danger of shipwreck.
It is my intention to finally exhibit the series, although it will take a little while to reach that point.