Page 331 - cairo Beinnale 13
P. 331
ro Binnale 13th 2019Orbits of the Orient … and of the Occident
Reflection on Geography & on History: Orient
Early civilizations, where agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, arts, architecture and state bu-
reaucracy were discovered and established in organized form. Mesopotamia and Egypt start,
followed by the Greeks then the Romans; a time where the Orient and the Occident blended,
sharing knowledge and skills, and taking first steps towards scientific and philosophical think-
ing, a sustainable ongoing and progressive research, an integral component of the thought
process for today’s Occident, abandoned for centuries by the collective mindset of inhabitants
of the Orient. All history and all culture is only a pattern of non-linear phenomena.
Reflection on Gaming, on Origins & on Time: Chess
A game that is ancient, old, modern and contemporary all at once; claimed to India and Per-
sia, a part of a continent –Asia – that is one of many models of the Orient, around 600 AD.
Origins of board games are found within “Senet”, the ancient Egyptian game that dates back
–probably—to 3000 BC. The gaming concept of “safe” warfare –killing only the “Shah” /
King / Monarch on a gaming board-- is communicated through chess to Arabo-Islamic An-
dalus Europe in the mediaeval times. Overlapping non-linear times and language play the
game, till Josef Hartwig designs the Bauhaus Chess based on geometrical abstracted lines in
1923, and moved the game back to the “Senet” concept design.
Reflection on a Century and on Design: Bauhaus 1919
A school, a mindset and –almost—a belief; the physical school survived sheer 14 years, yet
the impact on art, architecture, design, education, philosophy is undeniable. For the first
time since organized history the artistic, the architectural and the artisanal are given same
stature. The school and the mindset still reign the creative industry since the Bauhaus in-
ception in 1919, despite occasional or continual harassment by the politics of the century.
The Orbital Chess Game 1919: Orbits never end where they start
In a chess game, a defeated King –unlike his perished armies – is the sole survivor on the
board, till his own demise; and a game thus ends, despite the standing “Shah”/ King. A game
built on strategy, anticipation, prediction and an endless multiplicity of probabilities, gives
equal chances for beginnings to both parties.
In my Orbital Chess Game, the army parts are a hybrid of the game’s concepts across time.
The pieces are carefully designed and produced –as the standard game dictates– in two
colors, each army is allocated two one of the two competing players: one from the South-Ori-
ent playing with “Senet”-inspired game parts that I specifically crafted to previously-non-ex-
istent novel forms of what I think would be the chess game that emphasizes and insinuates
the notion of power; while the other player represents the North-Occident playing with a
Joseph Hartwig’s Bauhaus-design pieces.
Players are seated in a temporary virtual mind combat that has ill-defined rules of engage-
ment, on specifically designed and crafted seats, play to ambiguous laws of winning and
losing. On the walls hang scepters and forms from ancient to modern monarchies symbolic
emblems, crowns and similarly inspired forms. Questions around zones of power and of
influence, and about the nature of the winner and the reasons behind an anticipated victory
continue to arise. The designed codes of power embedded within the pieces (like scepters
and crowns) are juxtaposed with the helplessness of the players, who symbolize in their
speechless duel the rise and fall of ideologies, empires, economies, wealth and power, al-
ways within closed rooms with closed circuit televised duels, where millions seem to follow,
hail and cheer banal moves –across time–, with shape-shifting or different players, who
always demonstrate the same helplessness. The room is occasionally engulfed in sounds of
stadium cheering, signifying a multiplicity of possibilities, where values of chess, soccer or
anything and everything else entertain a hungry audience or another.
329
Reflection on Geography & on History: Orient
Early civilizations, where agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, arts, architecture and state bu-
reaucracy were discovered and established in organized form. Mesopotamia and Egypt start,
followed by the Greeks then the Romans; a time where the Orient and the Occident blended,
sharing knowledge and skills, and taking first steps towards scientific and philosophical think-
ing, a sustainable ongoing and progressive research, an integral component of the thought
process for today’s Occident, abandoned for centuries by the collective mindset of inhabitants
of the Orient. All history and all culture is only a pattern of non-linear phenomena.
Reflection on Gaming, on Origins & on Time: Chess
A game that is ancient, old, modern and contemporary all at once; claimed to India and Per-
sia, a part of a continent –Asia – that is one of many models of the Orient, around 600 AD.
Origins of board games are found within “Senet”, the ancient Egyptian game that dates back
–probably—to 3000 BC. The gaming concept of “safe” warfare –killing only the “Shah” /
King / Monarch on a gaming board-- is communicated through chess to Arabo-Islamic An-
dalus Europe in the mediaeval times. Overlapping non-linear times and language play the
game, till Josef Hartwig designs the Bauhaus Chess based on geometrical abstracted lines in
1923, and moved the game back to the “Senet” concept design.
Reflection on a Century and on Design: Bauhaus 1919
A school, a mindset and –almost—a belief; the physical school survived sheer 14 years, yet
the impact on art, architecture, design, education, philosophy is undeniable. For the first
time since organized history the artistic, the architectural and the artisanal are given same
stature. The school and the mindset still reign the creative industry since the Bauhaus in-
ception in 1919, despite occasional or continual harassment by the politics of the century.
The Orbital Chess Game 1919: Orbits never end where they start
In a chess game, a defeated King –unlike his perished armies – is the sole survivor on the
board, till his own demise; and a game thus ends, despite the standing “Shah”/ King. A game
built on strategy, anticipation, prediction and an endless multiplicity of probabilities, gives
equal chances for beginnings to both parties.
In my Orbital Chess Game, the army parts are a hybrid of the game’s concepts across time.
The pieces are carefully designed and produced –as the standard game dictates– in two
colors, each army is allocated two one of the two competing players: one from the South-Ori-
ent playing with “Senet”-inspired game parts that I specifically crafted to previously-non-ex-
istent novel forms of what I think would be the chess game that emphasizes and insinuates
the notion of power; while the other player represents the North-Occident playing with a
Joseph Hartwig’s Bauhaus-design pieces.
Players are seated in a temporary virtual mind combat that has ill-defined rules of engage-
ment, on specifically designed and crafted seats, play to ambiguous laws of winning and
losing. On the walls hang scepters and forms from ancient to modern monarchies symbolic
emblems, crowns and similarly inspired forms. Questions around zones of power and of
influence, and about the nature of the winner and the reasons behind an anticipated victory
continue to arise. The designed codes of power embedded within the pieces (like scepters
and crowns) are juxtaposed with the helplessness of the players, who symbolize in their
speechless duel the rise and fall of ideologies, empires, economies, wealth and power, al-
ways within closed rooms with closed circuit televised duels, where millions seem to follow,
hail and cheer banal moves –across time–, with shape-shifting or different players, who
always demonstrate the same helplessness. The room is occasionally engulfed in sounds of
stadium cheering, signifying a multiplicity of possibilities, where values of chess, soccer or
anything and everything else entertain a hungry audience or another.
329
