finding patterns
finding connections
During my exploratory research and praxis, I began to notice that my work unfolds in cycles. Not linear sequences, but recurring patterns that seem to surface instinctively, and this was commented upon repeatadly during my tutorials and formative review.
This observation led me to a question.
Am I actively looking for patterns, or are these patterns finding me?
I wanted to understand the logic behind this process, or at least articulate why my thinking moves the way it does. I reached toward
Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus and their concept of the rhizome.
In their formulation, the rhizome is a model of thought in which
any point can connect to any other point at any time (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 7.)
It rejects hierarchy, linearity, and fixed origins. Instead, it proposes a system of thought that spreads, branches, and proliferates in multiple directions simultaneously. This resonated deeply with how i think my own mind operates. My thinking does not move in straight lines. It sprouts, loops, and reconnects. Ideas emerge in multiple directions at once. No idea or memory sits isolated in a dark corner. If Delueze (1966) argues all past layers are active at all times, that just confirms I can access those at any point. I see a something, this visual stimuli crosses line with one of my active layers and patterns emerges. Visual impressions, and conceptual threads intersect unpredictably yet meaningfully. From this perspective,
the patterns I notice are not external objects waiting to be discovered.
They arise from the interaction between my internal “active layers” and the stimuli I encounter. I am not separate from the process of pattern‑making, actually, I am embedded within it.
Realising my thinking is rhizomatic helps to answer my initial question is somewhat less binary way.
The reality sits somewhere in the middle.
Patterns arise through connection, and connection is always already happening.