A Catalog of Difference is a study of change across material and perceptual environments, be they images or objects, calling attention to those differences which make a difference. Through a series of visualizations this body of work explores formal diagrams that have been meticulously extracted from the gradients of surface curvature and ambient light within their respective environments. The resultant diagrams that make up this catalog are an interrogation into the underlying form of their respective systems. Herein lies a speculation into the role of structured ambient light as a dynamic force, not as artifact, but as having agency within the figuration of objects, environments and images thereof. 

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The catalog is divided into three distinct yet related subsets examining planar ambient light, surface curvature, and spherical ambient light. Each of these groups questions a priority given to form versus its appearance. 

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Architecture, through its representational tools and design workflows, has predominantly favored the former of these distinctions, in turn giving primacy to line and geometry at the expense of intrinsic capacities of energetic phenomena. The work presented here challenges this bias while deliberately paying favor to formal potentials inherent within the energetic realm, specifically those relating to structured ambient light.

Each visualization in the collection can be thought of as a derivative—a study of the rate of change across a given environment and a shorthand of its character. This body of work operates through an informational framework, with a non-geometric attitude towards space and material within. 

The research conducted for this exhibition was undertaken and supported through the Cass Gilbert Visiting Fellowship in the School of Architecture, University of Minnesota and generously funded therein. A Catalog of Difference was originally exhibited from February 2 – April 30, 2017 at the HGA Gallery of the Goldstein Museum of Design.