The concept of my artist book revolves around the visual juxtaposition of TRNG chosen stories from Brandon Stanton’s photography archive: Humans of New York (HONY), with a randomly generated shape from David Terranova’s Random Shape Generator engine.

TRNGs (True Random Number Generator) are used to generate pure, random numbers in which are programmed to select arbitrary documented experiences with a select person(s) from Stanton’s archive. This element of the design is heavily emphasized, heavily mirroring the human experience of meeting individuals.

The randomly generated graphic produced from the shape generator engine represents how one’s appearance and physical traits have little place in the judgement of individuals. The shape is positioned, juxtaposing the text, reminding the audience that what is visible is not always a factor.

Brandon’s documented individual no longer has an appearance attached to them, only a randomly generated shape to represent their physical vessel. This conversion strips age, gender, nationality, and race; leaving them only with Stanton’s documented social interactions with them to represent their presence. Their identity is deconstructed further by masking vocal accents and pitch of voice through the use of using the book as a medium, purifying the documentation by only transmitting narrative.

To an extent, only the content of their character is shown to the audience. The audience will gradually come to a conclusion due to their inability to associate the story with a face, skin color, or physical appearance.

Overall, the purpose of this project is to remind the audience of the invalidity of stereotyping, and to document the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.