Mural Art and Generative Movements

“Order comes from disorder, courage comes from cowardice, strength springs from weakness… and vice versa.”

Sun Tzu

The concept of entropy was first introduced by Rudolf Clausius in the context of thermodynamics. Since then, a number of authors from every field of intellectual discussion have imported the concept as a metaphor to refer the tensions around disorganization, absurdity, or incoherence from different perspectives.

Departing from the polysemic complexity offered by the notion of entropy, Said Dokins transfer this discussion to the field of art, he proposes a comment on contemporary society, where chaos and disorder are frequently understood as something negative, a calamity we have to deal with. But as emptiness tends to fill up and fullness tends to equal out, everything in the word seeks balance, to level themselves. Confusion and disarray generate new dynamics that constantly redirect the ways we think and act as a collectivity and towards the environment we share.

As we observe the compositional structure of the mural, the tensions between chaos and order become formally evident. A bright and meticulous figure of intertwined concentric calligraphic circles floating on an ocean of apparently opposing forces – from the red warmness to an intense blue-, made out of powerful strokes to create a deep atmosphere in the background. The act of writing is the gesture that articulates these forces; the upstrokes and outstrokes of Said’s calligraphy combine the static and the dynamic energy, the microscopic and macroscopic regimes of molecular and social phenomena, in sum, the persistent movements of the cycle of life. The outcome is hypnotic.

Interactive Calligraphy Mural

The written text conforming the circles was the result of an open call lounged by the artist in his social networks where he asked people to share their chaotic relations with reality. Dokins collected their contributions to weave together the feelings and experiences of each participant, all linked by a virtual connection that became visible through the artist strokes. People could follow the creation progress online and comment while Said inscribed their words or phrases on the wall.

“It was an interactive piece. I launched an open call where people could share their chaotic relationship with reality, so the mural would contain small parts of people who were related through a virtual connection.”

Said Dokins

That way, the work of Street Art overflows the urban space, and the calligraphic tread goes beyond the representations of complementary opposites; the continuity of letters in the circle’s infiniteness, transcending space, suggests the idea that Sun Tzu magnificently expressed: opposites not only balance themselves but create each other.

Entropy invites the viewers to see beyond what we have in front of our eyes and think of ourselves as part of universal cycles, in the permanent rewriting of our own story.