Abadyl Partitur

The history of the Abadyl Partitur

Building a world

Even if the intention was not the establishment of a so called great narrative, inspiration has been retrieved from the art of novel writing and its practice in constructing worlds. In “Postscript to the Name of the Rose”, Umberto Eco writes on the generative logic he has adopted, a logic both limiting and expanding creativity. The fundamental parameters guide what can and what cannot be included in a fictional but historically plausible universe. A detective story in mediaeval settings requires shrewd index-construing and an advanced enough semiotics, this being developed by Roger Bacon and the Ockhamists – thus it must be no earlier than the 12th century. To work out the reference to the blood at the second trumpet blow of the Apocalypse, a pig must be slain – pigs were only slaughtered during winter, but since Michele of Cesena already in December is in Avignon, the story must occur in November etc. In The City of Abadyl we have chosen to focus more on the generative itself in this logic; that is to say, it is not about parameters resulting in a watertight consistent universe, but the main interest is in what can be generated from a large number of predetermined parameters.

Comprehensive parameters: 16, 7, 100 plus “keywords”

The locations constituting the starting point are sixteen in number, and were initially held apart. But as the reference bulk was collected and travels increased, the idea emerged of uniting these enclaves into a connected city. As joining infrastructure a series of sixteen Formula One- tracks was chosen, piled on top of each other to a joint figure. Hence aiming to expose architecture and cityscape to extreme strain (= life, unpredictability).
To subsequently fill the city with objects and create a disposition, a system was installed, a scale classification by the following:

Scale 1-7 theory

Environment: to display an area that contains an accumulation of objects. For example: houses, trees, stars, grains of sand, molecules.
Building: to display an object that has an outer shell that can be entered and is made by a human hand
Room: to show off in a room you can be in. An artificial staging where it is possible to exclude the upper scales.
Object, eg: table: an object that is on the same scale as the body, but in nature on a field biologist’s level, the scale can be slightly larger.
Objects, eg: bottle: this includes all objects that can be placed on a table.
Objects, eg text: this includes all objects that you can read from an arm’s distance.
One idea: this includes all abstract, philosophical and scientific notions of the world, true and false.

In the various quarters of the city 100 objects would be found, each devised in a way that constituted an elegant description and was manifesting the aspects of their very own district. In this way we happened to examine our original objects once again, when we were depicting them in every detail. To be very thorough in investigating its form, visualises other layers in the object and creates conditions for both deconstruction and new narratives. To force out its meaning by depicting/modelling – to sort of philosophize from the street up.

Characters, keywords:

In each quarter focus is set on a certain individual, a destiny. Each of these characters is equipped with a keyword list, features which she/he will be exposed to and relate to.

The first partitur drew in 1997 to define 16 exits/entrences for characters I a fictitious city

Second Partitur to define the seven scales, working with the idea that each parts size also defined how many of that scales object proportional could be present in the world/city.

Third Partitur try to define how and were the 100 objects could be distributed, also in which direction they belong North, east, south, and west and when in the year they appear, Fall, winter, summer and spring

Forth partitur consists of two opposing forces in which structure objects can appear

Image of the final structure Mobela – A made for the fieldasy exhibition at Galleri Skanes Konst 2003

The Fifth partitur all 100 objects laid out inside of the Mobela – A structure

The sixth partitur were “storypaths” appear for the first time

The seventh partitur all above combined

The eight partitur all above combined the seven scales are accentuated

The ninth partitur show the 100 objects 2007

The tenth partitur develops the story path idea to be the base of the drawing that will decide the colors of each object

The 11th partitur works with 16 pencils that enter the partitur. Each round each color moves one step in any direction and try to avoid crossing the path of another color. This is played until all of the cells are colored and that each color must not cross colors more than 3 times 2008