Paper Ribbon

Rolls of blue paper ribbons sit in my studio. Last year they functioned as the binary code for locating a specific letter on a mat for casting monotype.

A short clip while I was casting type—you can see the roll of blue paper on the monotype caster.

While it is possible for these rolls of blue paper ribbons to be used to recast the monotype from last year, today I see them as beautiful things in-and-of-themselves. 

Beautiful things.

I see them as objects with physical and mechanical limitations. And within limitations, there are endless possibilities.

There are limitations within: his luggage, her house, my day…In the same way that there are limitations within a job case.

Graphite rubbing of job case.

 

Even in the endless digital world there are limitations within a tweet.

 

140 characters.

From these paper ribbons, I burned a series of screens that I have shipped to Utah for [in code] at the College Book Arts Association Conference will be held in Salt Lake City January 2 – 4. 

 

Using information from hashtags on twitter by conference attendees, Denise Bookwalter, Sarah Bryant, Tricia Treacy and I will print a series of collaborative posters. Using this text-based content we will “retweet” a narrative back through social media. This on-site project will be an installation and a collaborative printing experience that extends the dialogue of the College Book Arts Association Conference to a broader audience.

This idea is inspired by our dual interests in limitations of communication in a physical sense in both the digital and the analog worlds. We will spend one day in the printshop at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City (on-site during the conference) working with the text-based content to produce a series of posters. However anyone in the world can use [#printedword #woodtpye #letterpress #shiftlab #cbaa] hash tags to participate in [in code].

[This project has been made possible by a generous donation from Legion Paper, NY and a 2013 Microgrant from Printeresting.org]