The Visitor It was the winter of 1892, and the county was silent as snow lay thick across the fields. William sat alone in the parlour, beside an oil lamp, flipping through a box of tintypes on the table. It had been a year since Margaret passed,...
The Grace of Gate-Room #5 Ethan Recalls: Tom decided to use Gate-Room #5 for the test. We’ve always had good luck with that space. However, for the test to be successful, it was really about the accessories. As usual, the Totem sat in the centre of the...
Art is like a machine. The artist operates the machine through symbolic language, encoding emotional experiences into visual, auditory, or tactile forms. During this process, art becomes a mirror to the mind's complexities, driving individuals to reflect on their inner worlds. This reflection has the benefit of expanding...
Pause for Reflection The number 11 has a special meaning in the Totem Series: blending mathematical significance and what it represents visually. The number's shape acts as a symbolic puzzle, where the two ones and the space between symbolize the interaction between figure and ground. Conceptually, figure and...
In Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a mysterious black monolith appears at key points in the story. Although its true nature and purpose are left open to interpretation, it is portrayed as profoundly influencing humanity. In the movie, the monolith's enigmatic force challenges human understanding and...
A CREATIVE FICTION: Early 1980s: A dot matrix printer in a university laboratory begins to operate spontaneously, producing an unusual printout. The printout features a series of familiar symbols which eventually combine to reveal an image of an obelisk or totem. The printout becomes known as the 'Totem...
Totemality is based on Plato’s ‘analogy of the sun’, where Plato tries to demonstrate ‘higher truth’ using sunlight as an analogy. The sun, light, how we see and know objects, are meant as a pointer to ‘higher truth’. So, in the analogy, Plato describes the sun...
The Totem visits the Hare, with warm greetings and a warning. All ears, Hare listens well to what the Totem does tell. “The clock is a trap dear friend; time is best left overhead the Hatter instead." Just like that Hare did the act, maddening the...
The ‘fourth wall’, known in film & cinema, is the conceptual barrier separating the fictional world from the real world. The fourth wall 'breaks' when an actor looks directly into the camera, drawing attention to the barrier. When the audience is addressed in this way,...
Art is more than just a visual medium; it is a conduit for ideas to affect emotions. It is also a way to read the world to expand comprehension within human experience. And so artists often create works that interconnect different symbolic meanings. This helps...