is nella a book?

RMIT bachelor of design (communication design) 2019 Wot is a Book? studio insights and notes by Nella Wong s3737069

[isnellaabook]

<post studio reading list> 

What Books Mean As Objects

The Thing The Book

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/27/specials/coover-end.html?pagewanted=all

Books As Art Objects

[isnellaabook]

Skin

2019

Book Object & Video Installation

Skin is a video installation projected onto a hand made consumable skin-like material (made with water, glycerine and agar-agar powder), giving a unique materiality to the work. The form of books is ever-changing as we integrate different aspects of print and digital together. That “shed skin” symbolises the culture of printed books that still remain despite the result of technology advancement. 

[isnellaabook]

Skin Video Installation 

[isnellaabook]

Lauren consuming Skin

[isnellaabook]

“Paper is flesh. Screen is metal.” 

References

Post-Digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing Since 1894. (2019). 3rd ed. Onomatopee, p.117.

[isnellaabook]

Skin Animation

Done in After Effects.

[isnellaabook]

Final class reflection

I enjoyed how open and experimental this studio was though it has been quite a roller coaster for me as well. At the last minute I decided to develop an earlier idea (book shedding skin), I think it still works well with the projection video I put together in After Effects (4 colour gradient).

The exhibition in class was great, I got to see all the other works which was cool. 

Thank you Andy.

[isnellaabook]

More Ideas on Presentation

I have spoken to Andy about the issues I had with screen printing, and have decided to go with projection instead.

[isnellaabook]

Screen printing attempt 1 

Went to building 95 with Sam on Thursday to screen print but for some reason it didn’t turn out well, so I would have to try again. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to continue using their facilities as I wasn’t taking screen printing as an elective. 

[isnellaabook]

I tried to make my own edible ink from cornstarch and matcha (for green colouring) but it didn’t work. Oh well. 

[isnellaabook]

Google Earth Engine

Earth Engine combines a multi-petabyte catalog of satellite imagery and geospatial datasets with planetary-scale analysisGoogle capabilities and makes it available for scientists, researchers, and developers to detect changes, map trends, and quantify differences on the Earth's surface.

More:

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/Deforestation 

https://lcluc.umd.edu/hotspot/rond%C3%B4nia%E2%80%99s-deforestation-caused-clearing-along-roads

https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/vbazm4/shocking-maps-show-how-humans-have-reshaped-earth-since-1992

[isnellaabook]

Sorry for the shitty video, I took and edited it on iMovie with my phone.

[isnellaabook]

Presentation Ideas

[isnellaabook]

Test

I went with Sam to her screen printing studio to put emulsion on the screen (that I borrowed from Andy; which he borrowed from Russell). I’m currently waiting for the emulsion to dry, I’ll only be exposing it next week.

I used one of my friend’s existing design to test if it was going to be successful printing on the material because it was so fragile. I think it turned out pretty well ☺

[isnellaabook]

For class today, we discussed various case studies, including thisisamagazine and Badlands Unlimited (sells digital files for $300...). Some of us shared our ideas and I’m glad I did as well, because discussing my project with the rest of the class gave me more ideas on how I could experiment more in terms of the presentation of material. Gaining feedback from them also helped validate my idea. Zoe and Luca tried some of my edible paper (I hope they didn’t get food poisoning).   

[isnellaabook]

This week, while I’m still thinking about post-humanism at the back of my mind, I didn’t want to be stuck in my own head because we’re running out of time.

I spoke to Andy about 2 of the other possible ideas I have, the first one was on the topic of climate change which is what I’ve submitted for the project milestone (as seen in the images above). The second one is a book of curated images of people yawning. Yawning is contagious, so I thought it would be funny if I scraped images online of people yawning in serious situations, that would also make the reader end up yawning as well. 

For my next step, I would be meeting up with Sam soon to attempt to screen print on the material. 

[isnellaabook]

Edible books research - Ben Denzer

(researching on edible books)