Synesthetic Pentagonal Rococo

Pentagons are symbolic of the five senses. In this artwork, the empty space in the middle of the pentagonal form is a metaphoric space for the unified senses experienced in moments of bliss: synesthesia. Pentagonal forms appear frequently in flowers and other plant growth. We recognize its beauty, but find it exceptionally difficult to use because our minds are so accustomed to working with right angles and equilateral triangles. The pentagon is deceivingly simple, but when pen touches paper, we get lost in the complexities that it creates. Our brains compute the 72 degree angle observationally, but miscalculate from a production perspective. Pentagons in Ancient Greece were symbols of mutual recognition and wellbeing. This forms an interesting parallel with the word Namaste, a salutation of the divine within, an important theme which runs through much of Mueo’s artworks. Rococo adds abundance and more decorative form to the already decorative Baroque style. In this artwork, a decorative flourish animates and duplicates in a pentagonal-radial form. These decorative shapes used to be ubiquitous in architecture and furniture, but have nearly entirely disappeared in parts of the west. A tour through cyrillic and arabic language instagram reveals however, that these forms are very much alive and well in Iran and Russia, as symbols of sophistication and beauty. NeoBaroque picks up where Baroque (and Rococo) left off, with the added benefit of expressing the physically impossible with digital graphics. In addition to leaving the rules of physicality behind, the structure of religious hegemony has been removed from the NeoBaroque, and replaced in this work with a sense of unmediated connection to the infinite. This artwork has been digitally created for a digital world. It is indigenous to the digital landscape; representations as a physical piece are duplicates of the original digital. The video is a 1200x1200 x 20 second seamless loop, intended for display on a square screen.