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Joshua Wilder Oakley, California State University, United StatesAbstract
This practice-led case study examines recursive making as a non-linear model of iteration in design. While design discourse often treats iteration as refinement toward a resolved artifact, Palimpsest: a multi-layered record reframes making as structured through repetition, material alteration, and accumulation rather than linear improvement, hypothesizing that repetition under fixed conditions produces divergence rather than convergence. Across more than fifty weekly sessions over four semesters, twenty-seven source images underwent repeated cycles of fixed reproduction settings and controlled material interventions—such as tearing, stapling, painting, and saturation—followed by re-capture. Both analog and digital states were archived without curation. When legibility across the set reached sustained abstraction, a system-wide intervention was initiated: an earlier iteration was reintroduced through multiple exposure, projection, or scanning across all twenty-seven images. Comparative analysis tracked shifts in legibility, divergence under identical conditions, and the effects of accumulated material history on subsequent outputs. This process shows that in recursive making, repetition under fixed conditions does not produce consistency. As material history accumulated, outputs diverged, legibility shifted non-linearly, and prior forms returned only in altered states. Meaning was generated through comparison across iterations, with earlier versions materially influencing subsequent production rather than remaining static records. These findings intervene in contemporary models of design that equate repetition with refinement and closure. By demonstrating that recursive making generates relational knowledge through accumulation rather than progression, this study calls for reconsideration of how process, archive, and duration are evaluated within design inquiry.
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Conference: PCAH2026Stream: Aesthetics and Design
This paper is part of the PCAH2026 Conference Proceedings (View)
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