About DAP

There are some words that touch a chord and resonate with us, sometimes without us even knowing exactly why. We often love certain books and stories because they reach something deep within our hearts, teach us a lesson, or make us reflect. Literature taught me about the human condition, about cultures, about human behaviour, and why we are the way we are.

It is through literature, scriptures, and other stories that I learnt about our puprose, the manual of life, the stressors, the mystery, and why humans struggle with life and how we have always tried to make sense of being born into a world that sometimes feels chaotic and meaningless, and at other times so full of awe and wonder that everything makes sense. From this perspective, the Data Art Project was born, from a deep love of art, literature, and words, as they have always been the channels of commuication and revelations that speak loudest to me, interconnected with the higher power we call the Divine.

This project also emerged because, after completing my PhD, I noticed that literature was slowly disappearing from many universities and colleges. I thought it was such a shame that students today rarely study the works of Northrop Frye, Calderón de la Barca, Borges, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Maimonides, or Saint Teresa of Ávila. These channels of communication and knowledge shape who we are, and it is a great loss not to have them. I thought that one way to revive them might be through an alternative lens, perhaps by combining computational approaches with hands-on methods, we can make them more engaging and relevant to younger audiences, drawing attention to the wisdom they hold across different traditions.

The Data Art Project, or DAP as I sometimes call it, allows data to play a role in revealing alternative views of these texts and invites the imagination to participate in creating visual representations of them. Sometimes, an image can reveal what words cannot. This idea was inspired in part by the Ten Oxherding Pictures, stories accompanied by images that use visual language to illuminate thoughts, reflections, and the many layers of meaning a text can embody. The Ox, as I refer to it for it has become a daily part of my life, is a treasure tht has impacted my life due to its wisdom, and it is this wisdom that I am trying my best to reach and commuicate through creative channels at the intersection of art, humanity, and computation.

I was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in the 1980s. A place dear to my heart. It is the only place that can bring tears to my eyes upon hearing its name or smelling its skin, aside from majestic mountains and the murmur of hidden creeks. For me, Beirut is the birth of my sensory experience. The sound of the butcher chopping some meat next to the shop making sizzling chicken wrapped with round flat bread, some ajo and kabees. The kind of goodness sure to reduce your stress even if it is an ephemeral experience.

There is also the intellectual threads of words and sounds mingling in the breeze of Gods and history. In Beirut, there is beauty, there is chaos, there is wonder, fragments of sadness walking around among laughter and turbulence. This is sacred land. It is the face of the unknown from which many dimensions seek to have a partnership in this dwelling we call Mother Earth.

My journey with art, I am certain, started way before the womb. In the likeness of contraction, we create things in these dark spaces. It is nothingness or emptiness that permits things to happen. I can say for sure, from my recollection that my relationship with art started in Beirut exactly at the age of seven in my parent's home in a neighbourhood called Manara on the fifth floor. My first dinky artwork was a complicated piece of calligraphy in attempt to mimic the work of my father. If I were born in some other place in the world maybe my first work of art would have been a depiciton. ofamango tree.

Where we are born and the circumstance surrounding our birth story impact the way we understand the engineering of the world, its blueprint and plan. We are privy in certain nodes to one part of that blueprint and the types of people that manipulate the intelligence that guide the formation and restoration on earth. What does this mean for me as an artist?

It means that I have a responsibility to speak the truth. What is the truth? It is the wellbeing of humanity. It is the arch that seeks to bring harmony to the world and remind us of what is reality versus what are humans realities. I can only speak the truth with brushstrokes and maybe some words, perhaps also some sculptures and other small things that I consider to be humble representation of God's extraordinary world in hopes that my creations, no matter how mundane, will remind someone why a walk by the river is healing to the soul and why a simple gesture of kindness can mean saving someone's life. Protecting human dignity and God's creation of earth is the heart of all pursuits.

Human art is not dead; it is going through a revival. We are experiencing a renaissance my friends. I hope that my art brings you reflection, joy, and some feelings that evoke a sense of awe and wonder. Each artwork is a thread weaved from the vessels of kowledge, understanding, kindness, wisdom, and love, with the intention to bring meditative moments into your heart, mind, home and work space.

With love,

Zeina

About DAP

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