The illustration refers to the Krebs cycle, the sequence of reactions by which organisms generate energy; and to previous matrices put forth by designers John Maeda ’89, SM ’89, a former Media Lab professor, and the late Rich Gold—both of which located Art, Science, Design, and Engineering in quadrants with distinct boundaries and specialized missions.
In a JoDS essay accompanying this illustration, Oxman names her own goal: “to establish a tentative, yet holistic, cartography of the interrelation between these domains, where one realm can incite (r)evolution inside another; and where a single individual or project can reside in multiple dominions.” Oxman suggests multiple ways to view the graphic: as a clock, a microscope, a compass, a gyroscope. However the space is navigated, she imagines an output of creative energy—not unlike the output of chemical energy in living cells—resulting from the fluid movement from one realm to another.