Designblog

Not one, but two books this time. I know that the assignment was to take one, but these two belong to each other. One is called “De geschiedenis van de schoonheid” (The history of beauty) the other one is called “ De geschiedenis van de lelijkheid” (The history of ugliness.) I took them because the contrast between those two seemed to be interesting to me. They also look really nice because they are really intended to be together. The really look like a couple. They are both the same size, same thickness, made of the same material, have the same typography and layout. Absolute contrast but still the same in some way. I also looked inside and it is funny that each book on itself is less interesting if you cannot compare it to the other one. They really need each other. And of course there is the old question “what is beauty and what is ugliness?”

700.6-eco-1 and 700.6-eco-2

The intuitive search mixed with subjective yet logical decisions has now became my little tradition. This time, my decision is to find a book concerning New Media. This is my a priori statement:

THE ‘NEW’ TAG + ART = VIDEO

I devote myself to the act of searching.

My eye is now attracted by another eye, stearing at me from the close up picture on the cover of the book. Its grainy texture seem to have a hidden message of not being the normal photo but the film still from the video. The Fast forward title can be associated only with this particular medium ( the era of fast forwarding audio tapes must have been long forgotten by such a contemporary looking eye from the cover). I’ve found the right book. Now, how can I connect it with DESIGN?

1. Subjectively:

• The ‘NEW’ TAG IS A BRIDGE – I like to look for new trends both in art and design.
• My choices are made through the VISUAL ‘ATTRACTION’

2. Objectively:

• The book was intentionally DESIGNED to make the VISUAL ‘ATTRACTION’ even stronger.

Every random opening of the book will attack my eyes with a great number of film images, shoot after the shoot. I’m totally amused. Nothing more exists except for me, the images and the big eye watching me from the cover.

Rietveld Library Code: 708-4 urb1

Again, I see myself wandering around the Rietveld Library being conscious of the way I pick up a book from the shelf. This time I was looking with in the back of head the tag ‘mysterious’. And mystery is what I found.  Interesting is that the book where I found mystery: Statische Fragmente by Hermann Gabler, again (like the second book) didn’t had a title on the cover. Only on the side of it. On the front it had an image of swans, and on the back a brief explanation about the book, by a friend of the writer Dick Higgins. For me, this explanation did not make the book less mysterious. Because when I flipped threw it, I only saw one or two sentences each page. On the left page English, on the right page the same sentence in German. Why this form? Why only one sentence each page? Why the explanation of a friend of the writer on the backside of the book?

Now I am back with some of the tags of my first post: ‘weird’ and ‘funny’, which does have a connection with mystery. The connection I just found in my last book.

Rietveld Acadamy Library: gub 1

First i discovered that the absence of something can be really present for me in its tension. Afterwards I was looking at a books presence in an other way. A presence which is there because the book was not true to it’s own individual format. It was odd.

Now I am standing in front of the library and I’m waiting for a book. I’m waiting for a person who will bring that special book back to the library. It will change from absence to presence  and because of that it will catch my attention. It is Wednesday the 2nd of December, 13.08 h and i saw this book returning to the library – ready to be recognised again.

-DUC- 15

Never thought I could have a talent, but hey, I have one now because I consider my dumbness as a talent. Picking-out-the-least-smart-mind-opening-and-interesting-books-from-the-library.

When is something considered as a talent? Wikipedia says; “Talent is generally considered to be an innate, personal gift possessed by relatively few people. In essence, someone with talent has an aptitude to do certain things”.

I bet my talent past the talent-test.

Walked past the shelf to say hi to all my loser friends. Said hello to all the swindlers in the design section, said howdy to all the dumb books in the art section. All the books of the past four weeks. Met a new friend today. What a library loser. Wasn’t lend for twenty-eight years. I cherish friends like that.

-sok- 2

Does the Grid functions only in terms of putting things in order, or can it do the opposite, as well, in a great resulting way? Can Grids make a Disorder out of order?

The answer is yes and it is clearly proven by Erwin Wurm in his series of “One Minute Sculpture”. His simple drawings are instructions given to the models as a map into the absurd. They force the human body into a state of unnaturalness. Ordinary everyday people –by following them– are placed inside a grid made by this artist. This way they are becoming a sculpture of DISORDER.

Rietveld library code: -wur- 1

There I found myself once again, this time walking with a clear idea in mind.
In this case, more of an idea it was a name. I had began the quest of finding

“The new Anita”. It is Interesting how this name has been taking over my life these past weeks. I even came across a Facebook

application which is called “Anita has the answer of your future, click here!”. How did I manage to –somehow– give this name to the nameless images from forgotten archives.

So what do I know about Anita,
and what is there to know about her anyway…? Personally the name has no connotations. I once had a friend called  Anita when I lived in Mexico but how she is and where she is currently, is unknown. So I do not really know /where /why /how and /who.

As I am searching for faces I come across a few women, still no Anita.

Until, from the side binding of one of the books comes a portrait of a young lady: black and white image, what looks like red lips, tied yet loose hair, skinny bone structure, dark eyes, beautiful girl. Her shirt is loose, exposing her bare shoulders. Something about her strong persuasion turns her into Anita.

Once again I have picked up a book about portraits. This time the book holds a much older image archive from 1903-1917. So what is it that connects these two? Both archives of images contain a variety of portraits. Both seem to have a dominant female as their main attraction. There must be something about this women, something about this name that classifies, orders and places them in different categories.

Anita has truly become a tag and I have become the tagger; I have acquired the power to pick and chose.

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