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ArtBOOK: The Other Side

Item date(s): 2016

Susan Woolf


Medium: Paper
Size: See Note #1 below
Edition: Unique

Type: Sculptural book

Place publication: Johannesburg
Publisher: The artist
Exhibition 2017

Reference note:
ArtBOOK: The Other Side presents as a 3D installation of suspended pages with embossed gestures. Pages hang from hangers on a horizontal rail. 15 pages hover above the glass table.

#1: L 2m x H 1mx W 0.6. Horizontal rod H 2m (Adjustable, depending on space and ceiling height in display area). Collapses into wood/glass box: 300mm x 330mm x H 50mm.

Prints and paper all fit into the inside of the box. Paper 280mm x 305mm per page folded. Length 15m opened out. Prints 275mm x 305mm.

#2: When a gestural or spoken language, is coded as image or text, it becomes increasingly succinct and readable to a person who is blind. The meanings of things in the intangible 'shadow, language, letters and codes' are subtle components of this delicate 'concertina' art book where shadow and light render visible the graphic embossed images of the Taxi hand signification language for people who are blind.

This 3D installation of suspended pages may potentially expand to 15m. Embossed images of gestures from the blind shape language are in relief on the pages that unfold and are suspended from a horizontal rail. 15 pages of 64, complete the installation. It is otherwise housed in a white wooden box with a glass lid. Generated in Illustrator and they are laser printed on wet paper at Artists Proof Studio.

Two laser prints in relief titled Short Hands present the total shape language contained in the ArtBOOK. A second coded text, which is more playful than practical, is part of the bottom of the two relief artworks. The 'Hieroglyphic like' symbols are written descriptions of gestures. The codes describe the components of a gesture and the direction the hand may be moving and may be adapted to be used in relief on a keyboard.

#3: See article link to this work below

Materials: Paper, wood, glass, gut, cardboard, acetate, hangers, metal clips, aluminium rod on a glass table

Themes: Meanings in the intangible, shadow, language, letters and codes



Exhibition notes:
‘Booknesses: Contemporary South African Artist's Books’.

FADA Gallery, University of Johannesburg.

Curated by David Paton and Eugene Hon.

24 March - 5 May 2017



Ref: DP/17087

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