‘Polycentric Truthes’: An Artist Talk with Tristan Al-Haddad, Library Artist-in-Residence

Join the Georgia Tech Library Thursday, March 14 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Scholars Event Network Theater, located on Price Gilbert's first floor, for ‘Polycentric Truthes’: An Artist Talk with Tristan Al-Haddad, Library Artist-in-Residence.

Al-Haddad will discuss his residency at the Library working with students, faculty, and staff to create a massive installation on the north façade of Price Gilbert. Lunch will be provided.

Al-Haddad and students transformed Galileo’s seminal text, Dialogue Concerning Two Chief Systems of the World – Day 1, into an expressive diagram titled “Polycentric Truthes.” The piece attempts to capture both the arguments of the text, as well as the deep structure of rhetorical world-making present in Galileo’s time -- and in our contemporary society of constructed realities.

Working with robotics Ph.D. candidate Gerry Chen, the team transformed the text into sketch, sketch into composition, composition into code, and code into matter. This was accomplished using Chen’s cable-driven, Human Style Painting Robot in conjunction with a custom designed and 3D-printed robotic end-effector capable of wet brush painting.

The installation was realized over a six-week period in early 2024 as a digitally co-constructed work.

To hear Al-Haddad and Chen discuss the work on Lost in the Stacks, the only Research Library Rock n' Roll radio show, click here.