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STRATA: LESSONS IN LATENCY

Mukul is a graphic designer and architect whose practice rests on the belief that the visual infrastructure of a society is a reliable indicator of the values and desires that influence the social and the political.

CONTENTS

Introduction
︎︎︎Abstract
︎︎︎Essay: Out of Field
︎︎︎Relevant Vocabulary

Section 01: Learning to See 
︎︎︎Reified Realities
︎︎︎On Photography
︎︎︎The Breaking Habits Project
︎︎︎Atlas

Section 02: Learning to Mediate
︎︎︎Interview—Rebecca Lieberman
︎︎︎Eco’s Chamber
︎︎︎Designing for the Dialectic
︎︎︎Mythologies

Section 03: Learning to Represent
︎︎︎The Reverse Colonial Project
︎︎︎Conformex
︎︎︎Visiting Designers 2020
︎︎︎Post Narrative
︎︎︎Kashmir: Metadata of a Conflict

︎︎︎Go to the Book 
 ︎︎︎Index
Mark

S02/ SIMPLE MYTHOLOGIES

Simple Mythologies / 2019
A motion poster series capturing some of the prevailing political myths of our time.
Year: Fall 2018

Typology: Video

Size: 1280 x 720 px
Tools: Adobe After Effects, Cinema 4D


Typefaces: Akzidenz Grotesk Extended by Berthold Type Foundry 


A motion poster series capturing some of the prevailing political myths of our time.

BARTHES AT THE BARBER’S

          It is said that when the French cultural theorist Roland Barthes walked into a local barber shop in Paris in 1955, he was given a copy of the Paris Match magazine to read as he waited for his turn. On the cover, he noticed, was a young black soldier in French uniform saluting what seemed to be the French tricolor outside the frame.
        Barthes found the image to be powerful because it symbolized something far beyond the stern countenance of a young soldier. Eschewing any explicit denotations of Frenchness or militariness, the genius of the image was to connote the greatness of the French empire, where all her citizens, regardless of race, served under her flag. The boy was used as a signifier, and unstinting imperial devotion was what he signified.
        The Paris Match cover, to Barthes, was a sophisticated example of a myth. Simply put, a myth was an idea or concept that was naturalized—made to look unquestionably obvious and inherent to the human condition—to serve the interests of the ruling class. An example of a myth, as given by Barthes, was the promotion of wine in France as the drink of the proletariat; a great equalizer that was life-giving and pure, completely avoiding the harmful health effects of the drink.
        Similarly, we find ourselves in a world inundated by myths propaganda engines. Take for example the 30th anniversary of Nike’s Just Do It campaign.


Simple Mythologies / 2018 Overstimulation: Can something be both ubiquitous and invisible at the same time? To Umberto Eco, the Italian philosopher, sometimes invisibility is precisely contingent on ubiquity. And nothing today illustrates this theory better than the news.






Simple Mythologies / 2018 Aesthetics and Warfare: This poster is centered around a crosshair like assemblage of two images—one of Obama and the other of Trump—that breaches the frame of the poster, much like a drone, before plummeting out of view. War in the 21st century is an enterprise obscured by remote warfare technology and political charisma. With drone operators in Nevada being able to administer strikes in northern Pakistan, all one needs is a charismatic politician to further




Simple Mythologies / 2018 Three Movements: This poster derives its meaning from three simultaneous movements. As the yellow gun points towards the soldier, the word “Terrorism” is legible and when it is pointed away from the soldier, “Justice” is made legible.
Mark

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