Ptyx

How can 3D modelling become a tool to investigate and embody language, its etymologies and rhythms? In ‘Ptyx’, based on the poem written by Stéphane Mallarmé in 1868, Marie Hugny investigates the underlying structure and meaning of language in a digital walkthrough, where space becomes a metatextual environment, freed from the mute collection of written words. The 3D world develops a fictional landscape based on places, sounds and artefacts from the poem’s etymologies. Here, the nonsensical word ‘ptyx’ becomes the main symbol of the hermeneutic of the poem. It represents the construction of realities where words are meanings and ornaments. Thus, the process of modelling becomes a medium for dissecting language, communicating the origins of words, and mapping a non-existing realm.