Ontogeny and Abstraction is a research-based project that emerges from the practical and conceptual trajectory of Algorithmic Cultural Vandalism (ACV), extending its concerns into a more systematic investigation of early graphic behavior, abstraction, and the conditions of symbolic emergence. The project is currently being developed as a Master’s thesis in Design and Computation, under the supervision of Daniel Hromada and Marc Pfaff, and situates itself at the intersection of design research, image theory, cognitive science, and computational practice.

The core hypothesis of the research challenges a widespread assumption: that representation precedes abstraction. Drawing on empirical and theoretical work in pictorial ontogeny and developmental psychology, the project argues instead that abstraction is primary, and that representational meaning emerges from pre-figurative, non-representational graphic operations such as scribbling, repetition, variation, and spatial organization. Early drawings are approached not as failed depictions, but as operative systems that already exhibit rule-based behavior, internal coherence, and proto-diagrammatic structure.

On a theoretical level, the research engages with image theory, cognitive linguistics, and philosophy of language to examine how meaning arises from material interaction rather than symbolic intention. It draws on studies of early picture genesis, visual thinking, and image schemas, positioning children’s drawings and abstract marks as proto-linguistic systems rather than expressive byproducts or preparatory stages toward representation. This reframing situates early graphic activity within broader debates on embodiment, cognition, and the emergence of symbolic order.

On a practical level, the project develops a computational framework that operationalizes these insights. A curated dataset of early drawings is analyzed and classified according to morphological, perceptual, and relational criteria, deliberately excluding figurative or culturally specific representations. Based on this taxonomy, a recognition system is implemented that does not aim to identify depicted objects, but to detect structural behaviors and formal configurations across drawings.

This system is extended into an interactive setup that allows users to engage directly with the research through a digital writing device. Rather than functioning as a tool for representation or annotation, the device is used as a space for open-ended, meditative scribbling, foregrounding gesture, rhythm, and formal emergence. The interaction serves both as an experimental interface and as a conceptual demonstration of the thesis: that abstract graphic activity operates as a cognitive system in its own right, preceding language, depiction, and symbolic encoding.

Ontogeny and Abstraction ultimately proposes that abstraction is not a secondary cultural refinement, but a foundational cognitive operation, one that can be critically examined and experimentally activated through design, computation, and situated graphic practice.