There’s another symbolic value to the O and the 1 beyond the nature of the digital translation of content and interpretation. O, the curved enclosure — is, in sequence etymologically — from Sanskrit — the sunya; Arabic, sifr; Medieval Latin, ciphra; the cipher, the nothing, the void, the unknown. 1 the first stroke, the one from the Greek — oiné, to the Latin unus. It all goes from there.
When the Wachowski brothers talked to me about this idea of a scrolling alphabet field, the numbered veil of reality — shifting, the exploration began with conventional coding interpretations of the numbers: 1 / 0. But as it advanced, it became another thing, another new language that was a kind of sino / anglo interpretation. There was more to that. We extended that thinking to a grouping of monograms and new alphabets to advance the idea of a new digital language of reality, shifting between what is seen, what is held, what is known. And unknown. So it’s really not ones and zeros, it’s more. It’s a composite between the O. And the 1.
The nature of the Matrix shapeshifting typography — and logotype — is about that, it’s disassembling; it’s shifting between worlds. The green field was about trying to develop – at that time — a unique intimation of another world, another reality; it was a monitor screen into that scrolling layered multi-verse of character on character on character, each creating their own universe. That coloration, too, evolved — beginning with a purple / steel field, for the marketing; then greenglow — which was part of the scrolling alphabet field(s) — in the evolution of the Reloaded…and finally — the Revolutions.