SUPERPOSITIONS is a manifesto of sorts. It features 64 images of dice suspended in motion at a point in which they are in motion but have yet to reach a stable outcome. At this point, they can still land on any possible number with an equal probability. At this point, the dice is in superposition. And the point of this book was to illustrate that in fact the most interesting part of design is not always the final output but oftentimes the more unfinished and provocative process pieces that are inevitably produced along the way.
This line of thinking sort of stems from a really influential piece I read by Max Bill in David Reinfurt’s Visual Form class called Continuity and Change. In that piece, argues that gestalt is the continuous evolution and refinement of a form in the pursuit of some true form. In doing so, one produces a constant stream of processes pieces that are always in search of this final true outcome. And the take away from this is that in fact what’s most interesting and what I believe that design is really about, is the process.
The book concludes with a conversation on superposition and time with a student who studies physics at Princeton.
