"After the last book was sealed into a storage vacuum, the last librarians on earth were given the honorable task of guarding mankind’s most delicate treasures. Thankfully we of the future had been training our librarians in combat techniques as cataloging books became much more difficult."Cartoon and post titled In the Age of Digital Libraries by Jeremy Hitchcock at “Welcome to the Future” (WTTF.org)Click on image to enlargeThanks to Library Stuff for the lead
Thomas Pynchon in Lights. The San Jose Semaphore is Solved
Ben Rubin's San Jose Semaphore is a "multi-sensory kinetic artwork that illuminates the San Jose skyline with the transmission of a coded message""Each wheel of the Semaphore can assume four distinct positions: vertical, horizontal, and left and right-leaning diagonal; together, the four wheels have a vocabulary of 256 possible combinations. The San Jose Semaphore transmits its message at a steady rate; its four wheels turn to new positions every 7.2 seconds."The installation occupies the top floors of Adobe's headquarters in San Jose. The piece is based on the semaphore telegraphs of the 18th century.The challenge: To crack the code.It took...
The BookMan: Your Personal Bookshelf
Our friends at Any Amount of Books in London have come up with this beauty.It is designed by East Anglian artist Kazmierz Szmauz.The Bookman holds about 100 books it is 70" high by 45" wide and is made from Mahogany, although other woods can be used. Each bookcase is signed by the artist.Cost: $1700Here are the other two models that are available:Gotta love it.
Can We Heal?: A Book of Steel by Janet Goldner
Can We Heal?2000Steel4.5 x 10 x 5 feetA 5 -page hinged steel book born out of Goldner's trip to Poland and the Ukraine to visit her grandparent's birthplace. The work contains the phrase "Can we heal from the wounds of our tortured history? Lithuanians, Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, Everyone." in both Lithuanian and English. The piece lives in Europas Parkas an amazing outdoor sculpture museum in Lithuania.She also has a series of small scale steel books that "have pages that are hinged together and movable; the pages read independently--but also as an overall image when the book is closed."Also of...
The Book That Didn’t Get Built
It would have been something to behold. In 2004 Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn was invited to create a piece for the Walker Art Center 'Walker Without Walls' series.His idea: To build a 50 foot replica of the book A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.Inside the giant book there would be a library of philosophy books, room for all the things necessary to print a daily newspaper, and a meeting and exhibition space. Outside there would be a cafe.The installation was tentatively titled The Road-Side Giant Book Project and was scheduled to...