This week, I chose to experiment with 2 different materials… Books, and leaves.

( This post focuses mostly on books )

Since the introduction to this project, Jonathan Callan’s work called out to me. I liked the way he used books more for their form than for their content. On his website, he states: “Most people will rarely think of a book as an object, the words within are regarded as far more important than the form without” (J. Callan website).

It made me realise: every time I used a book as a material, I focused my attention on its meaning, on its content, and neglected its form. I considered the form as something that contains a treasure. I had to take good care of it.

Last year, as I worked with books, I realised they were too precious to me to be ripped apart. I had to buy new copies, that were not from my personal collection to complete my project.

As you can see (more or less) on these pictures, the shape of the book is left untouched, what was taken out resulted only in its content.

This time would be different.

I chose to use a book I got from the Re-useHub last year: The National Scottish Dictionnary – letter H – and decided to give Richard Serra’s list a chance.

And so I dropped,

I cut,

I rolled,

I dismantled,

I wrapped,

and I splashed. (ish)

I filmed myself performing a few of these, to keep a record and to allow me to use the footage as a material in itself.

I was in the studios, empty as always, and had lots of fun. I edited a short video of my experimentation that I called “Always Sanitize Your Books. You never know who touched them before you”.

The resolution looks very bad but I hope its okay 🙁

The extraordinary object… Week 3 / Capucine Leclere / Art Practice 2 by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0