Roman Verostko: Flowers of Learning: “Hortus Conclusus”
Artist(s):
Title:
- Flowers of Learning: “Hortus Conclusus”
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 2007
Medium:
- Giclée print
Size:
- 78 inches x 18 inches x 2.5 inches
Category:
Artist Statement:
Seven colorful cyberflowers with quotations from diverse cultures and times are presented as a “hortus conclusus,” anm enclosed garden. The tradition of enclosed gardens has rich meanings in cultures that reach back to pre-history. This “enclosed garden” embraces aspirations symbolized in gardens throughout the world: a paradise of peace and tranquility, the Garden of Eden, a utopia of brotherhood and sisterhood, the place we seek, yet a place of fullness that beckons us to reach ever higher. It celebrates the wide world of learning and culture nurtured at the university – the “Flowers of Learning” that guide us on our journey. The texts embrace diverse cultures. From Homer, we selected a passage quoting Minerva, who “raised her voice aloud and made everyone pause . . ‘Men of Ithaca,’ she cried ‘cease this dreadful war and settle the matter at once without further bloodshed.’” Others include Madame Curie on humanity’s need for both “practical men” and “dreamers,” Lao-tzu on beauty and ugliness, Black Elk on his vision of the “flowering tree to shelter all the children,” Hildegarde’s medieval hymn on “the most noble greening power rooted in the sun,” Shakespeare on the riches of summer earth, and Charles Darwin on the “grandeur of this view of life.” These cyberflowers, achieved with generative procedures, give us a glimpse into a vast hyperspace of form. As a garden of generative form, the permanent installation provides a presence pointing to the emerging biology of machines, a hyperspace bridge in our everyday world.
Technical Information:
The presentation model was scaled from Cruse scans of seven algorithmic plotter drawings measuring 30 x 40 each. The original drawings were installed as a framed mural at Spalding University’s Academic Learning Center in Louisville,
Kentucky in October 2006. Each cyberflower form is accompanied by text arranged without spaces in three columns in a glyph-like format. Each of the glyph-like characters is a letter clothed in linear forms created for this project. Algorithms for creating this alphabet are similar to those used for creating the cyberflower forms. This format invites us to ponder the nature of information formats in preserving and communicating ideas. The alphabet and translations are available at: www.verostko.com/archive/spalding/spalding.html
