3-D SPHERICAL JIGSAW PUZZLES

The Esphera 360 series translate the two-dimensional work of Josephine Wall and Anne Geddes into three-dimensional spherical puzzles. In the process, these seemingly benign novelty items alter the fundamental nature of jigsaw puzzle construction to critique passive notions of progress.

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Typically, a jigsaw puzzle is assembled by the viewer finding common visual motifs – whether it be color, line, represented texture, etc. With each piece, the viewer must constantly reference the original image to identify its possible position. It produces a unique relationship between the viewer-assembler and the jigsaw puzzle’s image. Image consumption is typically based upon immediacy and passivity. But a jigsaw puzzle typically forces one to deeply dissect every detail in the hermeneutic ambulation between fragment and whole. Evolving beyond the two-dimensional conventional jigsaw puzzle structure, the spherical works negate said dynamic between individual and image, pointing to the potential dark side of technological “advancement.” With each new tool of convenience and/or novelty, what is compromised?

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The spherical puzzles’ production process dissociates its audience from the image at hand with its demanded adherence to a linear system where the image printed onto the pieces does not matter in its construction. On the reverse side of each puzzle is a number. The assembler must begin at the pole of the sphere, starting with puzzle piece number 1 and developed in a spiral based upon chronological order. Rather than searching for corresponding visual patterns, the viewer must search for the proceeding numerical stamped onto the back of the work. Being a gravitationally contingent three-dimensional structure, it needs it’s base to hold the whole together. Following the clues on the jigsaw pieces’ underbelly, the average viewer starts at one of the poles, counting up or down. In place of dissecting and engaging with the image at hand, the assembler must focus solely on their prescribed task, following the chronological code until, almost suddenly, while they’ve been preoccupied with focused on finding the next piece of the sequence, the image is whole.

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However, those behind the “Esphera 360” Series acknowledge and provoke the displacement. In terms of construction, editors provide a two-dimensional guide that flattens the sphere into predetermined sections so that, what they term the “advanced level” viewer could hypothetically opt to construct in relation to the image. Typically, at least one plane of the puzzle’s box, most often the back, is dedicated to a short text describing the original image; at the very least the artist’s name and the title of the work are given. Instead, the Esphera 360 works reserve the boxes’ entire backside description space to providing a series of instructions where the alternative modes of construction are written in a severely directional tone. The instruction’s words imply an attempt at reinstating the jigsaw puzzle’s conventional dynamic between viewer and image, but the pursuit delegitimizes itself by simply creating another set of directions to which the assembler must automate their construction. And within all the writing included, the Esphera editors refuse to supply the original works’ basic titles. The prioritization here lies more in the series’ translation of two to three dimensions; the image selected is secondary at best.