Book selected: Johan Heinrich Füssli, Catalogue, Kunsthaus Zurich
New Title: Füssli Reassembled
My initial idea was to make shifu paper yarn in the Japanese tradition from the book I received since this was a process I was researching and fascinated by. I liked the notion of the original text hidden within the shifu yarn. I hoped to weave the resultant yarn as weft on a string warp creating new sheets of textile. Unfortunately the paper of the old catalogue was not appropriate for the technique and I used several pages in experiments before accepting that my idea wouldn't work as hoped.
I simplified the process by mechanically shredding the remaining pages, illustrations cut vertically and text pages cut horizontally. The strips were then randomly selected and woven loosely by hand, 9 warp strips by 9 weft strips, into new 'pages'. The weave was left deliberately uneven. Glue secured the edge pieces. Lengths of 2 to 5 pages were joined by plastic tags. Hollow pieces of aluminium were stuck to the top edge of the lengths of pages. hanging screens were made by threading monofilament through the hollow tubes.
The screens were hung in varying combinations in different places as available domestically. I wanted to see the effect of light and shadows on the work. One location was in a darkened garage with the screens hung in 2 parallel rows approx 60 cms apart then lit by a slide projector beam. This created very dense patterns of light and shadows which were photographed. I also projected slides of the original book illustrations, taken prior to shredding, onto the screens because I liked the idea of the old on the new surface and the light and shadow effects it would produce.
The variations of hanging methods, combinations and forms of lighting are vast. I only tried a few partly due to constraints of space. This explanation and some photographs of results are held in a folder made from the original cover of the book.
email : wendy@schemingmind.com
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