Outlined in ink and filled with a deep crimson oil paint, the words “PAST STUFF” have been hand-painted on the front cover of the third volume of Ed Ruscha’s Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings by Ruscha. Underscoring this work’s unique quality, traces of the brushstroke are visible in the paint, and the hand-painted letters have wavering borders. A red censor-like block has also been painted over Ruscha’s name on the text’s spine. The goal of the Pen American Center is simple and to be supported at all cost: To defend freedom of expression and to celebrate the literature that such freedom...
chromapoems: Text Visualized
The latest technology to touch the textual world is Chromapoems. Utilizing the software program, Processing, which "promotes software literacy within the visual arts and visual literacy within technology," Lola Migas translates the text from some well known works into radial graphs. Each word is represented as a block within each ring. A group of blocks in a similar hue all belong in the same sentence. The more frequently an uncommon letter is used, the more saturated a block becomes, which in turn affects the hue of the sentence. A new ring signifies a line break. [vimeo width="640" height="300"]http://vimeo.com/111263365[/vimeo] I can't wait for the...
Isabel Barbuzza’s Bookworks
Color Reading Color Reading detail Isabel Barbuzza was born and raised in Argentina and is currently an associate professor at the School of Art and Art History in the University of Iowa. Her interest lies "in the relationships between space, place, objects and materials in contemporary society and how through perception, thought and language we facilitate engaging with the physical world." Her work runs the gamut from artists books to sculpture to installation. Enjoy! Disasters of War based on Goya's "Disaster of War" - love poem blackened out with white numbers indicated disasters of war since Goya's time. The binding...
Plan C: The Book Side of Interstellar
Christopher Nolan's latest film Interstellar is an epic experience. It's length, coming in at just under 3 hours, is a salute to endurance (of both your body and the human race) and a supersonic mediation on time. It is a battle of an earthly dystopia, with planet earth just one generation from being inhabitable, vs. a space utopia, where the survival of the human race is poised to come from the exploration of space. In both worlds the book has a strong presence and it is through books that both worlds communicate with each other. On earth, it is the library in Molly's room....
Paddington Bear Invades London
A run of first edition of Paddington In 1956 Michael Bond, a BBC cameraman, bought a small toy bear left alone on a shelf in a department store in London for his wife Brenda. He named it Paddington after the train station closest to his home. In 1958 Williams Collins published the first Paddington book, A Bear Called Paddington, illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. To date 150 titles have been published ranging from the original novels to board books for babies. Over 35 million books have been sold and Paddington has been translated into over 40 languages. Now comes Paddington the movie and to celebrate its...