Whilst perusing Etsy for interesting zines, I was taken aback by the amazing False Dictotomy by illustrator Junyi Wu, filled with sombre, yet beautiful black and white artwork, paired with scrawled passages from the work of poet Emily Dickinson. The pen and ink illustrations of flora are set against sparse white backgrounds that highlight their delicate intricacy, occasionally clouded by expressionistic smudges. Junyi describes False Dictotomy as “journal-like” – the handwritten excerpts, complete with mistakes and ink blots, adds to this feel and gives the artwork, despite its still-life subject matter, an emotional intensity that is captivating.
A collection of 36 short stories by Saki (Hector Hugh Munro), each an individual eBook, the tales in Beasts and Super-Beastsdeal mainly with “the presence or role of an animal and its relationship to the humans in the narrative, acutely dissecting their foibles and pretensions” (an exquisite summary by Giles there). They’re in a similar vein to Aesop’s Fables, albeit shifting the focus from the characteristics of animals as analogies for the noble ways people should behave, to the sharp satire of existing human behavior. First published in 1914, two years before Saki’s death, they can now be freely published, re-printed and read due to the expiration of copyright – generally 70 years after the author’s death in the United Kingdom. In this manner, older texts that might otherwise remain undiscovered by contemporary readers, can be openly enjoyed and shared through modern distribution models and publishing platforms like bookleteer and Diffusion.
Courtesy of FastCoDesign, I came across this cleverly designed photo album, a corner of which doubles as a stand, allowing it to balance upright in a striking pose. The unusual, dynamic design of “The Whole Story” encourages people to pick it up and leaf through, physically engaging with snapshot memories of their lives and others. Despite the stonking price tag, it’s designer Debra Folz’s intention is admirable; to change our current cursory engagement with digital photography (albeit the range of interactive iPad / iPhone photo albums and similar gadgets) and the way images are shared – placing them into the hands of friends and family has more emotional resonance than simply e-mailing or posting links, surely?
An offshoot of City As Material, Sketches In The City is an occasional series of observational expeditions in various locations across the capital. Mandy, Radhika and I sketch, take photographs and write poems and prose to form a collaborative eBook with underlying themes. Focusing mainly on people and interactions in public places – places that shape, and are in turn shaped, by the people in them – we’ve produced two books so far, and are working on a third.
Sketches In The City was our first attempt, created as a result of visiting the busy Victoria and Waterloo train stations – places which reveal an interesting insight of the human character when bored or stressed. Highlighting the material we collected on the day, this tidy scrapbook was an playful experiment with little interpretation or narrative, letting us take the time to view hectic environments from a different perspective than usual and refine our creative processes.
Sketches In The City: British Museum showcases the unique architecture and exhibits in the British Museum, looking at how visitors observe and interact with them and one another, as well as their grasp on the intangible knowledge that exists amongst that which we can see and touch.
Unusually for an online zine, Holy Ghost, “a platform for artists across the world to show their work”, have also released three print volumes of art and photography by their various contributors. It’s interesting that a collective that initially started with an online medium (generally chosen as an alternative to print for whatever reasons), decided to go down the paper-based route as well – highlighting the still present value and popularity of printed publications. Holy Ghost also occasionally host work in gallery and project spaces, so it would be fair to say they’ve effectively become curators as well. Unfortunately, it seems the print zines have all sold out, but you can still take a peek at their shop here.
As part of the City As Material series, after being our special guest for the Underside event and helping to co-ordinate the resulting collaborative eBook, Layered, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino was asked to produce an individual effort. She created Deep City, an attempt to “extract the individual elements we see in cities over and over again, to help me develop some sort of vocabulary for the cities I know and love, building blocks that make them all melt into one another”. Containing striking photographs of streetscapes, skylines and various nooks and crannies, accompanied by Alexandra’s thoughts and observations, Deep City is an ode to the cities we live in and their commonalities that we discover over time.
I bring you another paper based marvel. Bianca Chang has crafted these 3-D paper sculptures of letters, laying subtly different HAND-CUT sheets on top of each other – no laser cutting or 3-D printing here. They have a marvelous depth that draws the eye in and around the texture created by the layering effect, which almost resembles reams of spun yarn – albeit knitted by M.C Escher.
A series of four eBooks created by Giles Lane, “Fragments towards an anarchaeology of Belo Horizonte” showcases photographs taken during walks around the city, as part of the arte.mov festival and symposium in 2009. The books focus on certain features of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, such as its Street Art, the Corners of the city, and it’s Waves (waveforms in Brazilian design). Giles describes them as a “very cursory engagement with Belo Horizonte, its people and life. However, the patterns discerned and organised into thematic eBooks perhaps give a taste or hint of what could be revealed in a deeper anarchaeology” – peculiar niches of the city that might have otherwise been taken for granted, are collected as a body of evidence that highlights their significance, as in Waves. They show some extraordinary examples of Belo’s elaborate architecture and graffiti – download, make and see for yourself here.
Andersen M Studio has created this amazing stop motion animation for Star Alliance airlines, using boarding passes that transform into a intricate paper representation of their destination, through some nifty cutting and creasing.
They’ve also animated scenes from Maurice Gee’s novel, Going West, using the actual pages from the book. This one beggars belief.
These remind me of Karen Martin’s previous posts that featured similar concepts, particularly pieces by Yuken Terya and Brian Dettmer. Oh, what humble paper is capable of.
A recently published Diffusion Highlight, The Thetford Travelling Menagerie by Lisa Hirmer and Andrew Hunter of Dodolab, is one of the few eBooks so far to use the A5 landscape format, the end result being particularly striking and accomplished. It stands out amongst the Proboscis bookshelves, aided in part, by the lovely illustration on its cover – a procession of silhouetted creatures in all manner of shapes and sizes.
“The goal of The Thetford Travelling Menagerie is to use stories and images of local animals (past and present, real and imagined) to inspire people in the community to share their perceptions of Thetford today. Our stories and images of animals are offered to trigger memories and tales, a menagerie of beasts to conjure up stories of Thetford, its history of change and its current state of flux. What belongs, what’s been lost, what keeps people away, and what draws them in? What can we learn and share about migration, displacement, settlement and change from the creatures and natural world around us?”
It would be great to see more eBooks taking advantage of this larger format – it allows for greater design and really lends the publication a sense of value. It’s perfect for landscape photography, perhaps even for mini coffee table books if using high quality paper and a capable printer, or the Publish and Print On Demand service.
