For the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale artist Marta Wengorovius teamed with architect Francisco Aires Mateus to produce this little slice of paradise; a reading cabin for one. The simple wood structure is fit for one person, holds one bookshelf and has a raised seating area and that's it. It is light by a skylight. The artist populated the bookshelf by asking 20 guests to choose three books each for the library. "Sharing this itinerant project creates a community between people who read the books, the guests who chose the books and the people who will read the books wherever the cabin shall...
Future Library: Publication date 2114
Scottish artist Katie Paterson is a patient women. Her current project Future Library will take 100 years to consummate! You heard right; a century from inception to completion. Here's the deal: A forest has been planted in Norway, which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in one hundred years time. Between now and then, one writer every year will contribute a text, with the writings held in trust, unpublished, until 2114. The texts will be held in a specially designed room in the New Public Deichmanske Library in Oslo. Tending the forest and ensuring its...
Holy Robot: Exhibit features robotic rendering of the Torah
"The Creation of the World. Illustrated Manuscripts from the Braginsky Collection," currently on view at the Berlin Jewish Museum features both a robot and a rabbi transcribing the torah. The yet unnamed Torah-writing robot comes to us courtesy of the German artists' group robotlab. The installation is titled"bios [torah]" and: refers to the activity of Torah writing performed in the Jewish tradition by a specially trained scribe, the Sofer. While the Sofer guarantees the sanctity of the Scripture, the installation highlights its industrial reproducibility. It simulates a centuries-old cultural technique that has long since been overtaken by media developments...The installation title refers to an...
The Book Architecture of Thomas Ehgartner
It took 8,000 books for Thomas Ehgartner to complete his 2006 installation "Meaning minus truth conditions"at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Completed for his senior project the piece also included two computer-generated voices that recited content from Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg. For Ehgartner the current state of information overload that permeates much of our waking life becomes the foundation for creating a "limited archive from a infinite whole." and check out his follow up to the above, a facade built with chopped books! View more of Ehgartner's portfolio at ARTDOXA
The British Library: A 10,000 book installation by British-Nigerian artist tackles immigration
As part of this year's HOUSE, Brighton's festival of visual art and domestic space Yinka Shonibare MBE has created The British Library, a 10,000 book installation exploring the impact of immigration on British culture. The work, co-commissioned by HOUSE and the Brighton Festival, makes its home in the confines of the Old Reference Library at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. The books are all bound in Shonibare’s trademark African Dutch wax batik fabric and are housed in the library's original wood bookcases. The exhibit: responds to both sides of the immigration debate, both for and against. Printed in gold foil on the spines...