OSP were commissioned by iMAL to design a graphic identity for the exhibition NaturArchy: Towards a Natural Contract, taking place in Brussels, from the 25.05 till 29.09.2024.

As the exhibition is comprised of art/science collaborations on the theme of nature, we began with an intention to experiment with pen plotters and bio inks. The bio inks were previously used in a 2018 collaboration between OSP and María Boto Ordonez, a scientist working at the Laboratorium.

For a report on the process, please see this post on the OSP blog.

Series of workshops using the language Metapost to collectively draw a font. Metapost is an open source programming language which allows to draw glyphs by their skeleton or "ductus". The digital or physical pen tracing the skeleton defines the final shape of the glyph. During the workshops a penplotter drew snapshots of the font under construction.

• Metapost workshop meta repository; tools and infrastructure
• Metahoguet, 2016
• Metapost with ANRT, 2020

Drawing curved is a collection of texts and images concerned with digital curvature. It seeks to understand when a curve starts to be tangible, or what might give a sense that they can or can't be handled. What makes a curve smooth? When does it seem appropriate to interrupt it?

Colorlab is research based project in collaboration and initiated by Maria Boto Ordonez. Maria is a scientist, see http://laboratorium.bio. In research between art and science, we experiment on a playground drawn by living color and a plotter. We use a set of color based on living organism like algues produced by Maria in her laboratorium at Kask, Gent.

Up-pen-down was performed by OSP at Balsamine Theater as a part of Saison des Cultures Numériques 2017. This performance was the first public moment of a research focused on that which is between digital type design and bodies. Letters and movements, dance notation and programming, digital codes and coded physical gestures, plotters and body parts interacted with each other and blured the distinction between choreographic and digital practices.

A catalog of case-stories from the parctice of lay-out, even if this practice is sometimes imaginary. The stories were selected after many discussions, workshops and brainstorms because they are each in their own way an invitation to rethink lay-out from scratch. A facsimile can be found here on our gitlab.