Circles of Universal Language: a conversation with Teresa Fernández-Pello

Interview
Object
Research

Dutch Design Week 2024: together we explore how to create meaningful connections in ever-evolving Eindhoven

11.10.2024

The exhibition ‘Circles of Universal Language’ is presented by the municipality of Eindhoven in collaboration with Dutch Invertuals during Dutch Design Week 2024. This exhibition showcases ten designers who demonstrate the power of universal language in creating meaningful encounters. Through bi-weekly meetings, conversations, observations, and research, each designer contributes their unique perspective and approach.

241019-Dutch_Invertuals-Gemeente_Eindhoven-CoUL-015

We speak with Teresa about her ‘Silicon Plaza’ project. Teresa Fernández-Pello invites residents to interact and explore this open space inspired by scaled microchip patterns. Residents are invited to walk, sit, play, dig in the sand and meet one another.

“Mystery and play are both universal experiences that join people together. I would like my design to encourage people to think of them as two forces that should always go together.”

Teresa Fernández-Pello

Teresa Fernández-Pello integrates digital design, fabrication, electronic technologies, and video art to explore the intricate relationship between technological advancement and mysticism in today’s rapidly evolving society.

Can you elaborate on your ‘Silicon Plaza’ installation and how it aims to create meaningful encounters in Eindhoven?

The scaled-up microchip patterns in ‘Silicon Plaza’ are thought to form an open, public space where people can freely interact, walk, sit, play, and meet, while also creating a space for reflection and thought.

Within this space, visitors encounter a hidden foundation of our contemporary reality—the very technologies that underpin daily life in the city, transcending age, gender, and place of origin. Yet, they experience this encounter as a mystery, seen from an unconventional perspective that challenges common assumptions about our high-tech world and its trajectory.

Could you elaborate on your creative process, as well as the design and material choices you made? What inspired the design, and how do these patterns encourage residents to connect in Eindhoven?

I stretched the designs, materials, and fabrication techniques found in historical microchips to the scale of human architecture, transforming them into ornamental and spatial constructions. When examined at a human scale, these chip designs echo to me, ancient cultures and universal symbols. There’s something ancient and universal within their designs that make them feel as though they could belong to many different civilisations—yet they also seem to emerge from an unknown, deeply mysterious place.

I wanted my design to embrace and express this ambiguity and to present microchips as mysteries open to interpretation. It was also important for me to highlight the resemblance of the drawings found in these microchips with ancient, universal symbols and architectures.

What do you hope audiences will take away from their experience? Additionally, how do you envision your design transforming the way residents of Eindhoven experience their city, both now and in the future?

Mystery and play are both universal experiences that join people together. I would like my design to encourage people to think of them as two forces that should always go together. Especially in these times of rapid and profound challenges, the ability to embrace mystery and uncertainty as arenas for exploration and play becomes remarkably valuable.

“Cultivating attitudes of curiosity, experimentation, and wonder counters the risks posed by rigid and extreme ideas, which often disconnect us from our surroundings and render us more vulnerable to these challanges.”

Teresa Fernández-Pello

I believe this idea resonates especially well with Eindhoven’s progressive identity and continuous transformation, which lies in the city’s unique blend of high-tech innovation and cutting-edge creative design industries.

In a way my concept does a very similar exercise, looking at a very high-tech object—the microchip—through an artistic perspective: drawings, materiality, symbolism, shape, scale and general aesthetics. This is to me a bit of a re-interpretation of what the city does constantly: striking a balance between pushing technological innovation and reflecting and interacting with these innovations through design and artistic lenses. Re-thinking what these mean on a human and daily life scale.

Was there a specific insight from the process that particularly impacted you or shifted your perspective?

I’m really fascinated by the resemblances between microchip circuitry and ancient symbols and designs. The intricate patterns of microchips, purely functional and logical to a computer, transform into myriad symbols depending on the viewer’s memories and experiences. What might appear to be a simple circuit to some can evoke symbols, maps, or even abstract art to others.

“What strikes me most about this connection is how it raises questions about what we define as intelligence today and whether our experiences can truly be reduced to data and logic, as is so often assumed.”

Teresa Fernández-Pello

This realisation leads me to see contemporary technologies as reflections of universal and ancient human principles—an accumulation and repetition of age-old patterns. What strikes me most about this connection is how it raises questions about what we define as intelligence today and whether our experiences can truly be reduced to data and logic, as is so often assumed.