All posts tagged: Books

22nd Century Writing in the Making: The Future Library

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What will we read in 100 years? Probably nothing, if they don’t come up with a solution to the natural consequence of ageing. Of course there are these timeless classics that will endure the passing of time and people will revel forever, something that Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Dickens, Austen, Poe or Kafka can tell you a thing or two about. We don’t even know if picking up a book in its traditional form and paper shape is going to be a thing in the 22nd century, but at least there is a bunch of new works that will most certainly hit the bookshops (or whatever people go to these days). Two years ago, Scottish artist Katie Paterson launched her much-noticed project ‘Future Library’ that gives us a tiny glimpse into the future of reading: A forest of 1000 trees was planted in Oslo’s Nordmarka Forest to supply the paper for an anthology of 100 books, to be unveiled in 2114. With every passing year, an author is selected by Paterson to produce a work of …

On The Bookshelf: Made For Skate

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Rowley XLT, Koston 4, TNT, Chief, Reynolds 3, DVS CT, the list goes on and on. Well, what probably sounds like a lot of gibberish to some is only a small fraction of the compadres that kept my feet safe day in day out on my trips down the city streets and to the local park, joined me jumping down stairs and handrails or enduring pool and miniramp sessions since I started skateboarding back in ‘01. It’s hard to describe why I still remember this so vividly, but let’s put it this way: My weapons of choice – the piles of broken wood and the mass of shredded footwear – had as much of a story to tell as it might’ve been this soft toy from your early childhood, the first football jersey that made its way under the Christmas tree or even the first band shirt you bought ages ago. There is an emotional value, a form of identification and dissociation that so often goes without saying. ‘The worn down soles, the frazzled laces. You made …

Artist Conversations: Q&A with Mark Boardman

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I love geometry, colour, depth and simplicity when it comes to illustrations – have a look at these or these. Yet simple textural designs, storytelling & dense atmospheres don’t always go hand in hand. My newest interview partner got all bases covered, though. Mark Boardman is a Bristol-based illustrator who divides his work between editorial and advertising commissions as well as his many exciting freelance projects. I dropped him a line and had a chat about the perks of working with various media, the influence of literature, scouting locations on google.maps and yeah, heavy metal. Hi Mark! What have you been up to lately? At the moment I’m working on a lot of new portfolio pieces. I’m trying to push myself technically while putting together a collection of work that’s attractive to prospective clients. Often if I’m left to my own devices I’ll end up producing illustrations that don’t have a great deal of commercial value so it’s good for me to refocus on commercial subject matter every now and again. You were shifting from traditional oil painting …

On The Bookshelf: Our Time by Cat Garcia

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‘The underpinnings of genius are always invisible: no matter how hard you look, you can never see the strings.’ This sentence instantly caught my eye when I flicked through the intro of ‘Our Time’ and is probably one of the most canny and truthful statements about perceiving and valuing creativity I’ve read in a long time. London-based photographer Cat Garcia released this heavy bible of creative inspiration already a year ago and after vanishing entirely from my mind, I couldn’t be happier that my better half remembered and caught me unaware with it for my last birthday! And even though I’ve only finished reading through maybe 50% of its content, it’s due time to feature this beautiful thing on my bookshelf. For ‘Our Time’, Garcia set out to portray Britain’s 60 most creative people over the course of one year, following them into their homes and studios, observing their daily work routine, the process of designing and crafting, then again encountering and carving out the human being itself, detached from the artist’s persona. Printed on tactile, uncoated paper, her wonderful, classy and predominantly b/w photographs …