Symbols

Universal values
Sense of belonging
Collective action

A legitimate government derives from the consent of the governed.

“Given a multitude of rational beings requiring universal laws for their preservation, but each of whom is secretly inclined to exempt himself from them, to establish a constitution in such a way that, although their private intentions conflict, they check each other, with the result that their public conduct is the same as if they had no such intentions.” – Immanuel Kant

Urban design
Boundary afterthoughts
Perceived distinction

In the city, pedestrians are squeezed into narrow and often dangerous spaces.

“If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.” – Katharine Hepburn

Diner
Air conditioned
Quality food

A marker of passing time.

“Everybody knows that once you passed it, you can’t go back.” – Claire Cook

Rusted neon sign
Shaped like a hanger
Boulevard Cleaners

This sign is a residual symbol of a business that is no longer in operation.

“No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words.” – Roger Zelazny

Virginia 1969
Welc
Minicraft

All perspectives are heavily influenced by taste, individual preference, and underlying emotions.

“You only ever stop being better at what you do when you consider yourself a master and think that there’s nothing left to learn.” – Nicco Valenzuela

Choice reminder
Focus on the light
A way out

We are conscious beings always interpreting our experiences.

“There’s a whole lot of nothin’ that goes on in this world / But even nothin’ got nothin’ on me.” – Tom Petty

Utilitarian object
Vast network
Beyond itself

The subjective experience is just as real, if not more real, than the objective reality of the sign itself.

“Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.” – William Blake

Wooden statue
Bear presiding
Over a shelf

Our experience of the world is the primary reality; independent of a perceiving mind, objects hold no inherent existence.

“For absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that is to say, without the mind of any spirit, involves a manifest contradiction.” – George Berkeley

Transcendental
Vase of flowers
Lived experience

We are not simply passive observers, but rather interpreting participants.

“The world is not, then, simply there; it is there for me, for us, as a field of experience and action.” – Edmund Husserl

Looking with impunity
Omniscient perspective
On a wall

As we encounter the image, our intentional consciousness brings forth the various elements that constitute our experience of it.

“The world is not something that we simply encounter; it is something that we constitute through our intentional acts.” – Edmund Husserl