Image credit: Levi Hammett, Hind Al Saad, Mohammad Suleiman
Learn how the team at xLab not only redefines Arabic script but also honors the often overlooked contributions of Arab scientists in adapting early computing technologies in this SIGGRAPH 2024 Art Gallery installation, “Preceding Emptiness: Alternative Arabic Typographic Technologies”.
SIGGRAPH: Tell us how you developed “Preceding Emptiness: Alternative Arabic Typographic Technologies”. What challenges did you face?
Levi Hammett (LH), Hind Al Saad (HAS): The project began with research into Arabic typographic history of the 20th century. We were particularly interested in ways that technological developments shaped the language, things like the letterpress, typewriter, dot matrix printers, etc., forced particular formal changes to the language.
We then wanted to design a display system that reimagined this recent history of the language, proposing a speculation of LED display technology that might have been developed in the 1980s with the rise of segmented LED displays, particularly for Latin alphabets.
SIGGRAPH: How does this installation understand the Arabic language? What type of unconventional language display technologies are used?
LH, HAS: Graphically we designed a complete Arabic typeface and formal system based on a hexagonal grid that is able to display the 100+ unique glyphs of the most common Arabic letterforms. The glyphs are saved onto the microcontrollers and are displayed according to a database of words that we wrote for the work.
SIGGRAPH: The words on rotation display the Arabized terms of code that were first developed by Arab scientists. How does this installation pay homage to their work?
LH, HAS: There is not a lot of collective memory left of early attempts at adapting code for languages other than English. By doing the research into the history of Arabic computers, we were able to learn and record some stories of individuals and groups from the Arab region that worked to adapt early computing technology to be used in Arabic.
SIGGRAPH: This installation has been featured in several art exhibitions. What do you hope viewers have taken away from this work? What do you want them to feel?
LH, HAS: We hope that viewers will gain an appreciation for languages and writing systems other than English. These systems continue to be marginalized as the world shrinks and technologies continue to preference the English language and the Latin alphabet. We hope viewers will gain perspective on the often-unintentional colonization of marginalized languages, and by extension, cultures.
SIGGRAPH 2025 Art Gallery submissions are now open! Submit your installation that connects nature and technology today.
Born in a cabin without electricity in the remote mountains of northern California, Levi Hammett developed a deep interest in geographic space together with the concept and process of location. Raised in a blue-collar family he worked as a sign painter and carpenter before pursuing a formal education in design focusing on coding and automation. This background developed into a creative practice that uses computational processes to inform the creation of hybrid design objects incorporating digital technologies that are rooted in traditions of craft. His work includes a series of hand-made Islamic carpets that explore the urban culture of the Arabian Peninsula, a kinetic installation using 40 printers suspended from the ceiling outputting typography and imagery scraped from the web, and a series of digital displays imagining alternative histories of Arabic typography. His work has been acquired by several notable individuals and institutions, including the private collection of Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. His work has been published in print and online collections, distributed as digital applications, and exhibited in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and the United States.In 2019 Levi co-founded xLab, a non-hierarchical research and development studio working to produce electronic art, curricula, and computational tools to extend creative practice. Levi Hammett received his MFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2006.
Hind Al Saad is a graphic designer & computational artist. Her work contemplates and translates Islamic and cultural principles to generate emergent graphical forms and artifacts. Her practice explores the procedural systems of the digital (code), the mechanical (computation), and the physical (printmaking). She holds an MFA in Design from VCUArts Qatar, and taught at the School for Poetic Computation. She was selected for the fifth edition of the Artist-in-Residence program at the Fire Station in Doha, and is part of the art collection in The Ned Doha hotel. She is a research collaborator with xLab—a studio for new making + computation, where she co-curated and co-produced the Language-as-Machine exhibition.
