Fundamental Mechanics is a contemporary interpretation of 16th and 17th century mystical emblem books, in the form of ultra-short animations that translate emoji, graphic elements and .gif stickers into alchemical and esoteric symbolism.

The series (72 chapters in total) was made using the Instagram stories feature on a mobile phone (a second-hand iPhone 5 and a second-hand iPhone 6s), while I was researching 16th-century visual culture for the design of The Three Motions of Loom tapestries.

The project explored the artistic possibilities of this type of consumer technology, but also provided an effective method of producing animations beyond my usual time-consuming productions.

At first, I used existing .gif stickers – GIF animations with a transparent background – that are available to most social media users. These graphics are pulled from an aggregating website, GIPHY, which allows artists, content creators, brands, and designers to create accounts to upload their .gifs and stickers.

Dissatisfied with the limitations of the available sticker vocabulary, I signed myself up for a Giphy artist account to which I uploaded stickers of my own design for me – or anyone else for that matter – to use in the series.

The GIPHY account turned into a project in itself when it accumulated an astonishing amount of views – 195,000,000 – in less than a year. 

The series was made between March 16, 2019 and April 17, 2020. A year later, the series turned out to be a perfect as non-fungible collectible tokens, and it was minted – as .gifs – on the platform Hic et Nunc (now defunct) between April 10 and August 6, 2021. Visit the entire series here.

Most of the original ‘miniatures’ are collected in an album in my Instagram highlights.

For both the tapestires design and Fundamental Mechanics, I used the popular ‘online pinboard’ Pinterest to collect relevant images and works. It took a while before the algorithm understood that I was less interested in ‘home design ideas’ but rather looking for obscure 16th century art, but eventually it started to work with me.

Below, a print using the Fundamental Mechanics visual language, on display with, amongst other things, a 16th century emblem book printed in Antwerp by Plantin (courtesy Demian books).

Above, a detail from one of the tapestries, showing the relation between Fundamental Mechanics and The Three Motions of Loom.

Below, a work by Robert Fludd (Utriusque Cosmi, 1617-1621, image via The Public Domain Review).