a few weeks ago Haz posted about the exquisite hand-cut paper sculptures of Bianca Chang – today I came across a video of stopmotion builds of various pieces for a recent paper festival in Sydney:
Bianca Chang – Recent Works, June 2011 from Bianca Chang on Vimeo.
Stop-motion builds and photos of recent works created for Sydney’s A4 Paper Festival 31st May – 5th June presented by the Paper Convention. All photos by Jacob Ring.
A collection of 36 short stories by Saki (Hector Hugh Munro), each an individual eBook, the tales in Beasts and Super-Beasts deal 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?
Check it out here.
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.
Read them on Diffusion.
Having developed a keen interest in photography over the last couple years and an on going ‘passion for fashion’ I thought what a great way to combine the two with publishing. Having been at Proboscis for just over six months now, I have become more familiar with publishing than I was before. Therefore what a great way to mix my two favourite interests with publishing and Proboscis.
Over the weeks I will spend some time looking out for any nifty and unusual ways of presenting look books, portfolio’s and even CV’s in areas from fashion and photography to illustration and interior design.
Be sure to come back to read up on the exciting things I find – ‘I’m bringing some style to publishing.’ 🙂
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.
Whilst searching for new and unusual publishing methods, I came across something which is definitely inventive in producing invitations, by www.burning-house.com. I have previously blogged about using Bookleteer as an method to produce invites to weddings, birthdays, baby showers and so on. However I came across the ‘DIY wedding invitation wheel’ which I think is a marvellous, playful creation.
Just like Bookleteer, this is another great way to make something and personalise it, then have them printed and can also be kept as a keepsake, just like eBooks and StoryCubes.
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.
Download, make and read Deep City on Diffusion.
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.
