Culobocca
“Culobocc ais a nod to the alpha and omega of the body, and our navel-gazing tendency as a species to consider ourselves as universal be-all and end-all”
By Robert Kirkbride
Wouldn’t it be nice if problems were as efficient and simple as the models and metaphors we invent to understand them? As a placeholder for the perfect fuel, Culobocc ais a nod to the alpha and omega of the body, and our navel-gazing tendency as a species to consider ourselves as universal be-all and end-all. The form originated some years ago as a continuous line drawing of an object that could pass through itself, as a vision for how design and research might be mutually replenishing.The sketch evolved into a cryptic map for living, and variations soon followed, including Hornblower and Longnose. Physically, each member of the Culobocca family is composed of a single, continuous surface that is simultaneously interior and exterior, entropy and emergence. Being open-ended rather than self-contained, they invite imaginative recombination and are akin to, yet differentfrom, such enigmatic creatures as the Möbius strip or Klein bottle. Culobocca’s closest living relatives are black holes, quasars, and the ouroboros, that obsessive beast ever chasing its tail, though it may be more accurate to say that Culobocca’s mouth comes out of its tail rather than around it. This is not to say, however, that it is talking out of its ass.