The project farbwechsel/color change consists of six books housed in a printed cloth covered clamshell box. Each book is dedicated to a single color. Starting out from classic color theory I placed the colors yellow, green, blue and red between white and black. The project gave me an opportunity to work on the subject of color in different ways. I assigned appropriate topics, texts and pictures to the individual colors, with photography, printing ink and colored papers playing a role. The six books have an identical format (about 17 to 12 inches), but differ in their handling. Some are horizontal, some upright format, one is a concertina.
The grün/green book contains a text passage by Virginia Woolf “To the Lighthouse” (in English/German). I have tried to visualize the topic of dissolved shapes, abstract symbols, the recognition of a letter’s shape and the form of words. All letters were cut individually into two parts so that the fragments of all letters look different. Then the two fragment levels were printed digitally in different shades of green onto two transparent foils. Finally in the bound book they are lying over each other, but the fragments are a bit shifted, so the reader can shift the foils until they converge, thus making the text legible. Practiced readers are able to complete even heavily fragmented letter shapes through cognitive supplementation, while reading.
Inspired by Giuseppe Tornatore’s movie “Cinema Paradiso” I began collecting kiss scenes for the rot/red book. The movie is set in a small catholic village in Italy during the fourties. It is about the history of cinema and movie. And there is this wonderful story about censored kiss scenes. For the red book I took kiss photographs from the television screen. I had to watch many Hollywood movies, until finally I had enough pictures, that means: suitable kisses for the book. My idea was, that in the book all women should kiss all men and all men should kiss all women. The photographs are printed with polymer plates in letterpress using inks in several lipstick colors.
The blau/blue book contains a poem by Hans Arp “Himmelblaue Seelen/Sky-blue souls” (in German) and photographs, which were taken with long exposure times in the aquarium of the Frankfurt zoo. Time exposure captures a phase of time that we normally cannot perceive. Movements are blurred, they dissolve in time. Fish that moved slowly or remained in a position, are more easily recognized in the picture, than those, that were swimming fast. Even though the fish were there and swam through the picture, they can sometimes completely disappear, not leaving any “light”-trace. Their time within the field of view was too short, to form an image on the sensor of my camera. The photographs are printed in offset, the poem in letterpress using transparent ink. So the text gets its color by the underlying photograph. The glossiness of the transparent ink lets you easily read the type face on the photographs.
The schwarz/black book is a concertina (31 feet) printed on both sides. The black-and white photographs were taken while wandering through the city of Frankfurt without looking through the view finder of the camera. Chance as well as the trajectory and bodily movement of the stroller define the picture’s viewpoint. “La Notte/The Night” a text by Giorgio Manganelli gave me the inspiration for the book: “First, we are often asked: which shape said night has, if the appellation shape is even justified for said night, and if this shape, provided there is one, is constant and immovable and finally, if it is measurable. According to the impression of those who busied themselves with this, said night has the shape of a cuboid; …” Said cuboid-shape gave me the idea to print a slightly translucent black letterpress rectangle with a polymer plate onto my offset-printed night photographs. The significantly darker letterpress-black creates a second level on the offset photograph. But the photograph beneath is still visible through the overprint. Manganelli’s text (in Italian and German) appears in some of the black rectangles. The typeface is negative on the polymer plate and seems on the print sometimes lighter, sometimes darker due to the structure of the photograph beneath, shaped by the picture.
Ines von Ketelhodt (Flörsheim, Germany)
tloen-enzyklopaedie.de
farbwechsel: weiß, gelb, grün, blau, rot, schwarz
2011-2013
photography; hand compostion; polymer plates; letterpress, offset and digital printing
Edition of 33
6 books: 56, 88, 64, 32, 60 and 32 pages
41.8 x 59 x 1 cm / 29.4 x 84 x 1.4 cm open
41.8 x 29.4 cm / 29.4 x 41.8 cm closed
The project consists of six books housed in a clamshell box. Each book is dedicated to a single color. Starting out from classic color theory I placed the colors yellow, green, blue and red between white and black. The six books have an identical format (about 17 to 12 inches), but differ in their handling. Some are horizontal, some upright format, one is a concertina. The book titles are always printed to overlap the front cover, spine and back cover.
In Eastern cultures white is the color of mourning and death. The weiß/white book contains photographs and headlines about the tsunami disaster that struck Japan on March 11, 2011. They were taken from international online newspapers and were collected from March 11, 2011 to March 11, 2012. The selection includes many different voices from various countries and languages. The photographs (polymer plates) and the hand set dates (72 point, Block) were printed in letterpress with white ink on white paper. In spite of the different white shades of paper and printing ink, the monochrome white/white print result is difficult to read. (56 pages).
The gelb/yellow book contains a complete chapter by H. C. Artmann tale “The sun was a Green Egg. On the creation of the world and the things in it” (in German). It is about the jealous relationship of sun, moon and a certain thing, as well as the genesis of stars and falling stars. As not more than five or six of the 20 Cicero wooden letters fit into a line, I couldn’t break the lines by dividing words according to syllables. Printed with yellow ink on yellow paper the text at first sight seems more like a pattern, but it is still legible: type face as a vehicle for content and type face as pure shape or texture. (Hand composition and letterpress, 88 pages).
The grün/green book contains a text passage by Virginia Woolf “To the Lighthouse” (in English and German). All letters were cut individually into two parts so that the fragments of all letters look different. Then the two fragment levels were printed digitally in different shades of green onto two transparent foils. Finally in the bound book they are lying over each other, but the fragments are a bit shifted, so the reader can shift the foils until they converge, thus making the text legible. Practiced readers are able to complete even heavily fragmented letter shapes through cognitive supplementation, while reading. (64 pages).
The blau/blue book contains a poem by Hans Arp “Himmelblaue Seelen/Sky-blue souls” (in German) and photographs, which were taken with long exposure times in the aquarium of the Frankfurt zoo. Time exposure captures a phase of time that we normally cannot perceive. Movements are blurred, they dissolve in time. Because of the time exposure, light, time, positions and situations are added together. These layers visualize movements in sequence. (Photos are offset printed, text is letterpress printed, 32 pages).
The rot/red book contains kissing scenes out of Hollywood movies taken from the television screen. New couple combinations are created so that each actress is kissing each actor. The photographs are printed with polymer plates in letterpress using inks in several lipstick colors. (60 pages).
The schwarz/black book contains photographs, which were taken while wandering through the city of Frankfurt. A slightly translucent black letterpress rectangle is printed with polymer plates onto the offset printed night photographs. Text passages by Giorgio Manganelli’s “La Notte/The Night” (in Italian and German) appear in some of the black rectangles. The type face is negative on the polymer plate and seems on the print sometimes lighter, sometimes darker due to the structure of the photograph beneath, shaped by the picture. (Two-sided concertina, about 31 feet, 32 pages).