People will spout about impermanence of digital records, but books are really fragile, too. Alexis Arnold from San Francisco wanted to illustrate that with her project The Crystallized Book: collecting books and growing Borax crystals on them. Books range from literature classics to magazines, and there’s even a mysterious and arcane tome called “Linux: The Complete Manual”.
Georgia Russell is a Scottish artist who slashes, cuts and dissects printed matter, transforming books, music scores, maps, newspapers and photographs into patterned abstractions that leave a resemblance of the original but transport it to another time and place where everything is fragmented, and always in flux.
American photographer Thomas Allen constructs witty and clever dioramas using figures cut from the covers of old pulp paperbacks. Using salacious pulp art drawing’s of the ’40s and ’50s that covered books such as ” I Married a Dead Man” and ” Marihuana Girl’, Allen constructs one set of pictures up close while obscuring another, and in the process creates a different context. Each piece is given a brand new storyline, though never quite strays from their cheeky origins.
The agency Van Wanter Etcetera collaborated with Souverein to create the “Written Portraits” series of 3D author to promote literature and autobiographies in Holland. The series of artworks was produced to promote Dutch Book Week this year.
Jill Olsen (R) has her picture taken inside a giant cocoon, from the “Falling Skies” TV series, during the 2014 Comic-Con International Convention in San Diego, California July 24, 2014. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Reuters)
A woman dressed up as a zombie takes part in a zombie walk in the Gaslamp Quarter during the Comic Con International convention in San Diego, California July 13, 2012. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
A man dressed as Ironman takes a seat in the cafeteria on the second day of the London Super Comic Convention at the ExCel centre in east London, on March 15, 2015. (Photo by Justin Tallis/AFP Photo)