About

This site, plevy.fr, is designed and maintained by Pierre Lévy. Here,hHe presents his work and his experiences. This site is also an experiment, that of design through irregularity.

To understand what is at stake with this notion - irregularity - let us start with the notion of perfection, as Yanagi Soetsu does. He describes it as a closure since there is nothing more to change. It is static and final, with no horizon of possible transformation. The end of history. The absence of freedom. It is opposed by imperfection, which invites change, and thus a form of freedom. But Yanagi is not satisfied with this form of freedom, which is in fact the obligation of imperfection, itself posed in opposition to perfection. He then invites us to go beyond this dichotomy asserting that what he calls "true beauty" (奇数の美 - kisuunobi) is in a non-dualistic totality - We are reflecting here about a Buddhist thought -. He then suggests that this beauty emerges from what he calls irregularity (歪み - yugami), when imperfection is identified with perfection and "something unexplained" (不定形 - futeikei) remains. Yanagi puts it this way: "The love of the irregular is a sign of a fundamental quest for freedom".

Only perfection and imperfection can be programmable. Irregularity can only be provoked. For this, I use a script and a little bit of css. The script is muuri. It distributes the frames according to the size of the window (viewpoint). The css consists in changing the size of these frames according to the nature and quantity of the content, and sometimes according to the size of the window. Thus, I cannot predict how the information will be displayed on the screen and this impossibility of prediction is not due to a random variable in the algorithm. It is a combination of a number of elements over which neither the designer nor the user has complete control. It is therefore not the "power of the self", i.e. the power of individuals, that is at work alone. It is also the 'power beyond (the self)' that allows for irregularity, and therefore uncontrol, choice and freedom.

This site is the result of two powers, the 'power of the self' and the 'power beyond'. This is how it is irregular and how it celebrates technical freedom.