Slowly destroying and remaking free newspaper into more valuable surfaces then transform the informations into a new form of text by randomly selecting and relayouting words from the headlines. In the final day, I hand-bind all the process into a manifesto book.
DRAFT 01
How can we find mindfulness in a fast paced ‘world’?
The idea of creating mindful objects out of a fast paced media is interesting to me. I am choosing newspaper that I found everyday on the buses or tubes, collecting it, and trying to make valuable object using them. The technic I use is papermaking process. I torn yesterday’s newspaper and soak them in a jug of water, and make paper pulp using secondhand blender I found online (lol), sift them using an A5 screen, dry them using iron, and tried several times to achieve an evenly-shaped paper.
The variable I use is putting something in the middle of the process: add some torn paper and arrange them randomly, add tea flower, add wool, add onion skin, and add turmeric to achieve another colour. It is quite harder to dry the turmeric-coloured paper, because they are a bit sticky. I also tried to transfer the ink on the newspaper to the hand-made paper using gasoline, lotion, and oil, but I failed multiple times. I have not figured out what works yet. In the last minute, I tried to do something digitally to the handmade paper to achieve the visual that I want
When we make paper, physically, we are slowly creating valuable surface. What happens if we take times in making things that used to be made quickly?
DRAFT 02
If we dig and rebury the informations, would the meaning changed? And what can be read from the traces?
The idea of creating mindful objects out of a fast paced media is interesting to me. I am choosing newspaper that I found everyday on the buses or tubes, collecting it, and trying to make valuable object using them. In this project, I am interested in a papermaking process which need to be tried several times before I achieved an evenly-shaped paper. The variable is ‘to put something in the middle of the process’; torn paper that arranged randomly, tea flower, wool, onion skin, and turmeric and coffee to achieve another colour. When we make paper, physically, we are slowly creating valuable surface.
In printing, I explored two methods of printing; digital and analog*. Five minutes needed to print a complex image using an inkjet printer, while it took five hours to finish a basic paragraph using letterpress technic. What happens if we take times in making things that used to be made quickly? What would happen if we used this process in breaking today’s news? Will news exposure slow down? Who will be affected by a slowing media cycle? What will be the impact in the future if we deconstruct today’s news?
DRAFT 03
Slowly destroying and remaking free newspaper into more valuable surfaces then transform the informations into a new form of text by randomly selecting and relayouting words from the headlines. In the final day, I hand-bind all the process into a manifesto book.
If I done that, would the meaning of deconstructed informations changed? And what can be read from the traces?
To realize the work is to let go of absolute control over the final product. The process is the product. The most important aspects are time, relationship, and change. We search for unexpected but correlative, emergent patterns
(Luna Maurer, Edo Paulus, Jonathan Puckey and Roel Wouters, ‘Conditional Design Manifesto’, Conditional Design Workbook, 2013)
In Conditional Design Workbook, conditions and rules are being made to invite uncertain differences where the result is ‘unpredictable design’. On my project’s planning week, I tried to make ‘rules’ to generate ‘uncertain differences’ graphics from the headlines to be printed on the paper made of newspaper itself. I also got some ‘rules’ from the letterpress technic that I used for printing, that limits my work in term of speed and flexibility. Would the limitation itself made the new form of art that I was not expecting before?
Rules create a framework for design without determining the end results. Rules can be used to generate form as well as organize content. Designing rules and instructions is an intrinsic part of the design process.
(Graphic Design The New Basics, Ellen Lupton and Jennifer C. Phillips, 2008 p232)
Papermaking process ‘set’ the rules that only things with fiber can be made in to paper. Helen, the letterpress technician set the rules for my typeset: 30 picas to work with. Which I can generate into different layouts of text. Book layout process ‘set’ the rules in term which page I can use for this and that. It turns out generated so many layout possibilities.
- Set strict rules
So I tried to make the rules: it has to be done in analog way and let the rules generate the output
- Follow them
For the paper: create them using hand
For the print: print them using letterpress
For the layout: I set up my process book manually
- Observe the results
Those processes generate so many questions:
What happens if we take times in making things that used to be made quickly? Could those analog processes would be different if I did them digitally? What makes an object valuable, is it the materials or is it the value of creation? What would happen if we used this process in breaking today’s news? Will news exposure slow down? Who will be affected by a slowing media cycle? What will be the impact in the future if we deconstruct today’s news? If we dig and rebury the informations, would the meaning changed? And what can be read from the traces?