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Without realizing it, architecture is an unconscious starting point for my interest for the grid.

Being influence by the moderne architecture, I was already seeing it in a very organized and standardized way with codes and grids to follow. The issue of my master's thesis was already there.

As the starting point of my practice in pattern making, I started to be interest with the grid as a whole in mathematical lessons in high school. But I only recently realized that I'm using this grid through the analysis of textile work and my interests.

The grid is for me a creation tool and through my master's thesis I wanted to increase my knowledge on it.

From this point my will was to take an apply arts direction in my research and development because I wanted to stay true to myself.

In my definition of the Grid I associate terms like raster, system, canvas and structure. All those words fit for a standardized conception and refer to the same idea of the grid.

During my research I didn't find a definition which fit to my conception of the grid. 

For me the grid is a tool which can have various shapes and which assist in the conception and more precisely here in the textile design and ornementation. 

The repetition is a basic notion for the grid, for its construction and for its perception.

This definition can be judge to general and vague if we consider all the subtlety of the textile design.

Yet this notion (the grid with my definition) is for me the foundation because it's universal since we can find it in different cultures and temporalities.

I've been feeding myself with pictures (which are resume in my master's thesis) to develop my artistic univers which continuously allude to the grid.

The grid establishes or make us establish rules. With those the notion of the game appear in an other way than the one I'm writing about in my master's thesis (which is the game of the grid as a graphic and constructive element).

To illustrate the distinction between "play" and "unplay", I'm referring to Roger Caillois, who make a difference between "ludus" and "paida" in his book Les jeux et les hommes. I could have refer to Donald Winnicott who make a difference between to notion of the French word "jeu" with to English word "game" and "play" in his book Jeu et réalité.

"Game" echo to "ludus", to regulated and supervised play, to calculation, to a form of discipline. "Play" echo to "paida", to free play, improvisation, typical in the children games.

To continue with Roger Caillois, he say that in different arts (visual, written and music) "there are various legislations, more or less explicit and detailed, which both guide and limit the creator. They are like the rules of the game he is playing." (translate from French).

Therefore the game can be seen in the tension between the liberty and the ties which the grid gives us. Like the designer who work with a design brief and at the same time assert his/her artistic identity.

We can talk here about the Oulipo movement in which the ties become a creation engine. By the way the artists describe themselves like "rats who build themselves the maze which they offer themselves to get out". (translate from French)

There is also two designer we can name ; first, Bruno Munari with his methodology and his using of modules, second, Josef Albers with his Kombinationsschrift (ten modules to create a typography which follows a precise design/build grid.

PDF Available in French upon request.

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