title
Color and Materials Code Script (CMCS)
Artist/Designer
Simon Johnston
Date
2023
type of writing system
Cipher
Based on
English language
references
Crossword puzzles, Acrostics
Color and Materials Code Script (CMCS) showcase a variable personal coding system used to generate works whose subject is language, materiality, and translation. The system is based on square modules and employs a simple transposition code: it borrows the first letter of the color or material of each module of the composition to represent a letter. For example, colors like sage or salmon, or materials like sandpaper or slate, can all stand for the letter S. The artworks mix aspects of monochrome painting, crossword puzzles, hardware store displays, and acrostics, in an expedition to the arcane hinterlands of form and meaning. They are abstract artworks which contain encoded language—a type of modular lingua franca. The intention is for these pieces to function as cohesive visual equations even if the viewer is unaware that language is embedded within them. CMCS is a system that only functions in physical space as the material presence is integral to its logic.
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abjad
abugida
acrophony
acrostic
alphabet
alphasyllabary
asemic writing
automatic writing
boustrophedon
character
character set
cipher
code
conscript
cryptography
encode
experimental
grapheme
glyph
hieroglyph
hieroglyphics
imaginarium
language
letter
letterform
linguistic
logosyllabary
logographic
logogram
nat scirpt
neography
optophonetic
phoneme
phonetic
pictograph
quasi
re-worlding
script
syllabary
syllable
symbol
speculative
torus
versimilitude
writing system
