The Hexagon

Posted by hexnet ::

“We’re all going to be computers soon. Thank goodness.” – Hans Oberlander

Don Diablo presents The Hexagon Exciting news everyone,

Several weeks ago I was contacted regarding an opportunity for our involvement in promoting an upcoming show of hexagonal import being put together by V Squared Labs for the Dutch DJ Don Diablo. I had of course never heard of either of these outfits before, and was hesitant to wade into artistic and cultural waters so very foreign to my traditional areas of expertise, but nonetheless it struck me as exactly the sort of aesthetic articulation of hexagonal principles that I'd been quite interested in pursuing for some time now, but which I'd hitherto lacked an appropriate outlet to engage in, at least on any meaningful scale. The show, appropriately titled "The Hexagon," involves a hexagonal visual synthesizer—which I'm told carries with it a number of important technical advantages in addition to its obvious aesthetic import—and will be be performed live for the first time at Freshtival on 19 May, in Enschede, The Netherlands. SO MARK YOUR CALENDARS if you're going to be in the Low Countries next weekend for some reason.

Hexagon Project 2011

Posted by hexnet ::

Today would be a good day I think to take a break from not-updating this site to remind everyone that this year's Hexagon Project at Interdependence Day Scranton is currently underway. I hadn't been planning on writing another post about it this year, but of late I received this lovely promotional poster, which I thought at least worth relaying to the wider hexagonal community. In commemoration of this year's festivities, I have also added to the Hexagonal Library a PDF of a presentation by Hexagon Day organizer Beth Burkhauser to the National Art Education Conference, "Global Interdependence and Art Education: Where Hexagons Make the Connection." More musings on the project can also be found in last year's blog post on the subject. In general of course HEXNET.ORG supports all efforts to relate the civic virtues of hexagons to their more familiar geometric ones, as both are clearly manifestations of the same unified underlying reality.

Hexagons that should not be, yet which are

Posted by hexnet ::

Hexagon planet! I have recently been made aware of a contest being held on Kotaku Australia regarding "hexagons that should not be." Apparently inspired by the hex tiling in Civilization V, they are giving away a free copy of the same to whoever most impressively photoshops a hexagonal shape onto an object that is not normally hexagonal. Unfortunately, the contest ends Monday night, so there's very little time to spread word of this to the larger hexagonal community. I wish I'd heard about it sooner. Anyway, samples of submitted work can be found on the following pages, and are most interesting:

[Edit: The winners and runners up can be found here and here, respectively.]

I find it fascinating, obviously, both as a Civ fan (still trying to get 5 running under Wine!) and as a hexagonalist. Creative exercises of this sort, inducing people to think artistically about the roles and potential roles of hexagons in everyday life, are potentially very valuable tools in expanding hexagonal consciousness. It reminds me in some ways of last month's Interdependence Day Hexagon Project—in both cases, the hexagon is explicitly employed not for some incidental aesthetic reasons, but for its very hexagonality itself. This can only be, I think, a positive trend in our society, as we as a species come to terms with the implications of our glorious hexagonal future. I am hoping to see more and more of this sort of thing in the coming years, as hexagons rise to ever greater prominence in the collective human experience, perhaps leading at some point to the formation of an explicitly "hexagonalist" movement in art and design.

Interdependent hexagons

Posted by hexnet ::

Breaking news from the world of HEXAGONS:

While reviewing the hexagonal news this morn, I ran across an article describing some sort of Hexagon Project out of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Looking into it further, I expected to find that—like many hexagon-identified things these days—the "hexagon" was a purely metaphorical branding feature. To my surprise though, it not only involves literal hexagons, but the hexagonal geometry seems to have been deliberately and consciously chosen for very hexagonally-aware reasons. The project's page explains, under the heading "Why a hexagon?":

"The hexagon is a composition of complex relationships, interdependent lines, like bonds of human connection, strengthened in multiples into an infinite network of connections. It maintains its own presence as a shape, symbol of light and life, yet, structurally, destined to be part of a whole—a splendid architectural element, infinitely expandable."