Thesis Book Story: Anna Nazo

In the run up to our Thesis Book Project, Design Observer is publishing excerpts and images from thesis projects past.

See Jessica Helfand’s thesis here and Nancy Skolos’ here. Today, Anna Nazo’s 2014 thesis from Central Saint Martins. 

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My thesis project could be described as channeling interdisciplinarity through my passion for future trends and innovative technologies. It resulted in typographic work that functions as fine art. For me, the decision to make a book came naturally in the working progress, as it felt that producing two books (the thesis book and a font catalog) would be the most appropriate way of showing the work. The books were a part of my degree show’s exhibit, together with an actual sculptural installation.

As a result of the work, I was selected to be a speaker at the 2014 Electronic Visualisation + the Arts Research Workshop at the British Computer Society, in London. Another outcome of the project was a digital sculpture, The Garden EPLVLEREPRAETERITORVM (From the Dust of the Past)

It’s been almost a year since my graduation, and I am constantly returning to my thesis. I alter parts of it, reread and rewrite it to understand how I’ve integrated into my current practice. I think it is important sometimes to take a look back on your way to future explorations. My approach was a bit unusual for the course, since it did not fit the existing criteria. I don’t choose a single direction or specialization in my practice, and I don’t separate my life and my practice, so I channeled one into another with all the complexity both have to create a kind of space-time hybrid.

Currently I work with digital sculpture and contemporary technology and materials (3D printing, for example). I focus on the future, space, biomorphic transformations, and the sculptural reconstruction of the human body. The origin of my artistic practice was the process of bionic transformation of typography via vocal transmittance. This study submerged me layer by layer, from vocalized typography to performance, to modification of human skin and eventually to the reconstruction of the core of human “self.”

Multidisciplinarity becomes more and more widespread. Our world is different to linearly developed postmodern world. Our era is characterized by intersectionality, multiplicity, and constant movement. We are always becoming, we always are many things, many times, many places, and many people. I guess I—and my practice in general—are a natural response to the time in which we live now.