Kenerative

Kenerative considers how a visual language can move between an inherited surface and a computational one. Developed through Orkhan Mammadov’s study of Shipibo-Konibo kené, the project follows relationships between a main pathway, its surrounding lines, and the finer structures that occupy the spaces between them. The image emerges through successive decisions: framing, division, connection, and infill.

A common grammar holds the series together. Within that grammar, twelve compositional families establish different arrangements of fields, motifs, and borders. Changes in proportion, density, color, and repetition give each composition its particular rhythm. Some images concentrate around a central form; others distribute attention across a lattice or a sequence of bands. Seen together, the works invite comparison between structures that recur and details that depart from them.

Each work opens as a finished, silent image, allowing the eye to trace its pathways freely. An optional drawing sequence reveals the composition at a chosen pace, while independently controlled synthesized sound adds another way of experiencing its duration. The underlying composition remains the same.

Kené remains a living practice of the Shipibo-Konibo people. Kenerative presents the artist’s computational interpretation of his research into that practice. Its cultural context belongs alongside the images: the people who sustain the tradition, the materials through which it is transmitted, and the distinction between a contemporary generative artwork and the knowledge that informed it.

The project developed through the artist’s study of kené in museum and gallery collections, cultural documentation, textiles and ceramics. This research informed a written compositional grammar and a procedural drawing system.

Kené is a living practice of the Shipibo-Konibo people. The project presents the artist’s computational interpretation of his research, with its cultural context considered alongside the images.