week01

medium/tool to explore: home printer
(Canon Pixma MG6450+Epson XP4155)

I’ve decided to choose this medium because I like print matters + with lockdown last year, I actually ended up relying a lot on my home printer and was really glad to have it – even just to test print my projects. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting this time to see the printer as a creative tool in itself.

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The general idea that I wanted to explore with this medium was to use the printer – and the printer only- to create visuals. In other words, the printer will not be plugged or connected to the laptop while experimenting. It is using only the functions (and misfunctions) of the printer to create.

Reference

Wade Guyton: I’m interested in the way he uses print and printers for purposes other than what they are actually made for – in the sense that he’s gonna print on media that are not meant to be used in a print or fold the paper while printing… he’s exploring new aspects, new possibilities of the printer and it is something I would like to pursue.

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Experiment 01

This lead to a series of different iteration, still trying to challenge the possibilities of the print (also, lol, my first printer broke bc of my experimentation so I had to buy a new one to pursue my work)

Experiments +++

Written response draft 01

feedback:

• think of purpose/functionality
• overlapping+tape > interesting, play with the colours and add complexity // subract and combine // erased and hide part of a image // change the focus of the image – experiments that should be pushed
• put together things that are not supposed to be/ that are not been create to work together
• distortion> challenge the idea that of the printer is to have ‘fidelity’
• most of the experiments work as a set – linked with def 3 of iteration
• think of set of technique + set of material

week02

reflection on the feedback:

written response draft 02

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feedback

• process = re-authoring
• think more consciously about the material > re-authoring + meaning
• tape leftover ++ > making an image with text // have a system to where to put the tape? // create readability for some part? > give glimpse of readability
• nowadays we don’t interpret facts anymore > so interesting to use text from news that have quite a political context
• removing + recombining > the thing removed still exists
• re-authoring > what ios the meaning? how am I re-authering?
• layering: add complexity // erasing get us to look at over details, change the focus
• teasing the viewer

week 03

reflection on the feedback:

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decided to go with my 3rd idea: work on a typoghraphic experiments/ reconstruction of a text using the tape leftover. Think of the ‘page (is) an image‘ , Valéry.

id03: Typographic reconstruction

Here, I would experiment with type and layout, exploring the visibility of the letter more than its legibility. Katherine McCoy explained in her work that expression comes before style and that the form should be treated as a visual language to be seen as well as read, and I would like to follow this concept. Moreover, she talks about the dialogue between the graphic object and the audience -related to the aspect of ‘re-authoring’ as well as the lens of The death of the author– explaining that the layering is key to this exchange. Therefore, ‘the communication is enhanced by deferred meaning, hidden stories and alternative interpretations.‘

In consequence, I would like to pursue this aspect with my new iterations.

The plan is to use newspaper titles and to recreate a text, a new title by using one of the Oulipo exercises: the Abécédaire. With the re-authoring of the title, I want to, first of all, push forward the notion of re-authoring, and in a second part, to enhance the notion of bias and ‘absurdity’ of some of the newspaper, as well as the fact that the story can always be ‘re-written’ to favorite a specific point of view.

Although, I need a system to choose where the tape will be placed. For that, I will decode the grid of the newspaper I am using and place the tape on the sheet of paper following this grid.

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0- Reference

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1- Oulipo/ re-writing headlines

the ‘Abécédaire‘ exercise consists in creating a sentence, a text where the first letter of each word follows the order of the alphabet (A—– B—– C—–…)

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Here, in the type posters, the fragments of tape have been laid out in a wish to create some kind of continuity; meaning that each part has been put to a specific place in order to complete the previous one, to follow one of the lines for example, in order to create a visual that can appear as a whole, where each fragment are connecting to one another.
Moreover, the fragments of tape have been placed in a specific order: the first fragment to be placed on the page is the one at the beginning of the headline and it goes on like this. (see explanatory sketch below).

a few words?

Maybe I have to make it clearer?

What I wanted to achieve with these outcomes can be regrouped in 3 main intends. The first one is to -as explained at the beginning of the brief- use and see the printer as a creative tool, a creative medium by itself, allowing me to produce, re-interpret, re-interrogate, create, re-author, media without the need of using my laptop. The printer is the unique tool.
The second intention is to put forward the absurdity of some of the newspaper headlines, some don’t make so much sense, or they’re not even gonna use a verb or other odd things like this. Moreover, as the laptop was out of the equation, I had to use ‘found materials’ as a base for my work. What’s easier to find than a free newspaper at the entrance of the tube station? I also quite like the so-called ‘political aspect’ of the newspaper and the fact that it is dealing with either important subjects or things that seems completely random and pointless – all of it covered in ads. Therefore, with the double re-authoring of these titles, I tend to show the absurd aspect of their content -using an Oulipo exercise. Moreover, the second re-authoring using the tapes is also a way to imply the random way of choosing the articles within the newspaper.
Third and not least aspect of the project is the use of type for its visual qualities instead of legible. It almost feels that the rest was more of a context excuse, a media I needed to find to be able to explore this aspect of type. Indeed, this follows my practice and the kind of research I want to pursue and how type can be used to its plasticity, its visual aspect, as a shape, a drawing, a visual creation instead of a media. create for pure readability of a text. I want to trigger that with this project. How can the boundaries of type can be pushed using my home printer? How can the basic tools that I have at home (tape, printer, newspaper) can be a part of a bigger research on type and perception?

written response 03

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feedback

• Concerning the content, are they all different?
• What was the reason behind the placement of the tapes?
• It’s interesting to see how some of the text is still legible, after the tape is removed.
• Do you think the visual outcomes deal with bias or how the stories are written in the newspaper?
• The posters aren’t legible, and they don’t need to be as the posters recreate the gibberish and nonsensical headlines that are printed on the newspaper.
• The tape on one of the prints recreate the disgust that you feel while reading such a headline
• Like how the posters resemble a word puzzle.
• It’s intriguing how the type from the original headline shows the emotion of that particular news article.
• What about bringing in images as well with the text? Use the techniques that you used in your previous iterations to add more complexity/layers.
• Reference: Paul Elliman, which also looks at non-verbal suggestions and feels like you are also trying to achieve the same.
• As a process and set of outcomes, it is very successful.

For Further development 

• Pick an action/emotion word from the headline and try to incorporate it in the posters, which will help create a perception.