# System Art: Module - Layout and Layers

Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/system-art-module-layout-and-layers
Type: essay / research note
Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤)
Date: 2025-04-15

## Summary

Jeanyoon Choi argues that the grid is only a starting point for composing system art from modules such as agents, profiles or subsystems. He surveys alternatives: unequal and expanding grids, repeated marks after Lee Ufan's From Point, overlapping browser windows, circles, maps, rhizomes, collage, and three-dimensional cylinders, spheres, spirals or panoptic arrangements. He relates these to his works Chronology, ≠ and Ω, and to nested layers across devices, arguing that layout matters because the whole cannot be understood by listing its parts.

## 요약 (Korean)

최정윤은 모듈로 구성된 시스템 아트에서 그리드를 넘어 콜라주, 원형, 지도, 3차원 배치와 디바이스 간 다층 레이어 구성을 탐구하며, Chronology, ≠, Ω 등 자신의 작업과 연결해 레이아웃의 중요성을 논한다.

## Questions this answers

### What layouts besides grids can be used to compose multi-screen system art?

Jeanyoon Choi lists unequal or expanding grids, overlapping browser windows, circular compositions, maps, rhizomatic connections, layered collage, and 3D forms such as cylinders, spheres, spirals and panoptic arrangements.

### How do Jeanyoon Choi's works Chronology, ≠ and Ω relate to layout?

Chronology arranges twelve clocks in twelve configurations, ≠ expands a line into a grid with local and global states, and Ω begins as a cylindrical arrangement that breaks apart when the audience shakes a phone.

Topics: system art, layout, modular composition, grid, collage, multi-device web artwork, system dynamics

References: [Lee Ufan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Ufan), Chronology, ≠ (Not Equal), Ω (Omega), Symphony of Civilisation, [Hannam Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannam_Bridge)

## Full text

When I imagine system art composed of multiple modules, I often begin with a grid. Each square contains an agent, profile, component, or subsystem. It is intuitive and easy to organise. But the grid should be a starting point, not a limit.

Even grids can vary. Units can have unequal sizes, expand unpredictably, or change scale, as in ≠. Repeated marks at different levels suggest another direction, with Lee Ufan's From Point as a reference. Overlapping browser windows can create a more unsettled arrangement. Circular compositions, spatial maps, and rhizomatic connections offer other ways to distribute modules. A collage could place them on different layers, at different scales, allowing a pattern to emerge through apparent disorder.

In three dimensions, the possibilities extend to cubes, cylinders, spheres, hemispheres, spirals, and a panoptic arrangement with its social implications. Layouts could become hyperbolic or deconstructed rather than remain regular containers.

My earlier works already approached these questions. Chronology arranged twelve clocks through twelve configurations, including curved and hyperbolic forms. There could be many more, and the transition between layouts is itself significant. In ≠, a line expands into a grid. Each unit has local states, while the work also has a global condition. Even this modest distinction allows a kind of system dynamics to become visible.

Ω begins with a cylindrical arrangement that breaks apart when the audience shakes a phone. Its composition has two levels: elements organised around a circular row, and rows assembled into a larger structure. I want to explore how deconstruction can be generated algorithmically, how its parameters can remain interactive, and how much of its territory remains unexplored.

For a multi-device web artwork, composition also operates between screens. Modules form a layer; several layers form another; these can be organised again at a larger scale. Conceptually, the chain could even return to the module, although I do not yet know how fully such a circular structure could be realised.

Imagine each device divided into four units, each unit divided into four again. What remains similar within a level, and what changes between levels? How could those differences be designed precisely? A rapidly changing collection of junk websites, drawing on the third movement of Symphony of Civilisation, suggests another experiment in layered composition.

Each module may follow its own mechanism or algorithm. When modules accumulate across layers and devices, a different aesthetic becomes perceptible. This is why layout matters: the whole cannot be understood simply by listing its parts. A collage can be generated systematically while appearing disorderly, or remain orderly while allowing unpredictable local activity.

I think again of the cars crossing Hannam Bridge. Every driver has an individual purpose. Seen from above, their journeys become a flow, a movement of capital, something resembling a living urban organism. Composition lets us move between those scales of perception.

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Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.