(B7) Research Brief: Patrick Thomas

Where I left off:

Maths within a Sudoku (could use of visuals): 

• A standard Sudoku contains 81 cells, in a 9×9 grid, and has 9 boxes, each box being the intersection of the first, middle, or last 3 rows, and the first, middle, or last 3 columns. Each cell may contain a number from one to nine, and each number can only occur once in each row, column, and box.
• The main results are that for the classical Sudoku the number of filled grids is 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960 (6.67×10²¹), which reduces to 5,472,730,538 essentially different groups under the validity preserving transformations. 
• There are 26 types of symmetry.
• A puzzle with a unique solution must have at least 17 clues.

Research Patrick Thomas - Instagram look up, does interesting stuff that lifts graphic imagery from different contexts and uses layering and type, short phrases to create interesting compositions.

Guardian Article:

Scientists have identified Sudoku as a classic meme - a mental virus which spreads from person to person and sweeps across national boundaries. Dr Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, said: 'This puzzle is a fantastic study in memetics. It is using our brains to propagate itself across the world like an infectious virus.'

Dubbed the Rubik's Cube of the 21st century.

No one knows exactly when it started or who devised it, but the oldest copy I can find in our archive is 1979. We called the puzzle Number Place and still do today.'

It's accessible to most people and that's part of the charm. 

Publisher Nikoli made two small improvements to the concept and renamed it Sudoku - in Japanese Su means a number and doku roughly translates as singular or unique.

Green highlight are points of interest in current research but also sections of research that could inform a visual direction for the project.

What's cropping up a number of times throughout my research has been newspapers, they're consistently mentioned when reading about the history of Sudoku as print was how information was distributed only recently has digital media taken over.
- It would make sense to have a physical outcome for the project, may change but currently would be appropriate as a response to research
- Could use newsprint, bulky newsprint for the paper type, relating to research without being too obviously inspired by newspapers. 

PATRICK THOMAS:

Scrapbook / Visual journal documenting my two month residency in Rome in Jan/Feb 2019:

- Formal way of documenting using Filofax but in a way that isn't typical, it has a strong relationship to documentation but is more experimental and creates an interesting reading experience for the audience.

- It feels more personal since the method of documentation is within an object that people use in everyday life. It seems very personal and purposeful with the intent of showcasing thought and feeling. 

- Could be good to think about for A Book A Day (B6) brief, could be a development of the project to contain it all. 

- Screen printing over existing content, I really like this idea, Thomas has developed patterns and printed over newspaper to create a new image. What I thought could be interesting is to take into account the imagery and text already on a newspaper, making it showcase something different without distracting from the content. 

- I really like the gridded design of this work, how the grid exists due to the physical manipulation of the paper. 

- Personally, when I think of grids I think solid, structured, and sometimes boring. However this work is the opposite, the handing of the paper creates a new way of experiencing gridded design. 

- Reminds me of the small plastic sliding square games you would get as a child where you have to organise the squares into the right pattern to create a whole image. 

- Working with different themes throughout history, the difference between then and now and thinking about how weird it is seeing these different figures in relation to each other. Little Mikela and Alan Turing would never normally pop up in a conversation together but they are related under the context of AI and digital technology development. 

Reflecting:

The way Patrick Thomas presents imagery and content is what's so interesting the thinking behind work is demonstrated on the page and allows the audience to interpret it themselves. 
- This could the direction to take the project, showcasing thought and process throughout, not directing the audience with a clear message.
- Have as more of a passion project a way to present and document exploration.