Open view
Open view
Detail
Detail
Detail
Thorsten Dennerline
Bennington, Vermont
birdpress.com
Emergent Forms, Volume 4: Dream
2017
Polymer letterpress on Usuyou Gampi paper
30 in set, plus 10 individual copies
28 pages
301 x 331 cm
150.5 x 331 cm
This is part of a four-volume book collaboration between visual artist, Thorsten Dennerline, and dance artist, Susan Sgorbati. The ideas of Emergent Forms grew out of Sgorbati’s work and research in dance on the spontaneous composition of form in complex systems. For example, a flock of birds self-organizing into shifting “V” patterns is an improvisational form. By observing these improvisational forms, she has categorized them and translated them into her choreography. Dream is one of four of these forms selected for the project. This project contains four forms each represented by a “volume”, and each of which is a unique print/object. They are titled Pattern, Memory, Landscape, and Dream. For each volume, Thorsten and Susan worked together in different capacities to create a book or (print object) that was not only a documentation of their dialogue about the forms (and in some ways a choreography), but also a book that could elicit an experience of these individual forms. The finished project will contain all 4 volumes in a box with a short written document or guide to the Forms.
Volume 4: Dream started with a simple drawing; a gestural brush mark that suggested movement of a bird in flight. By drawing on translucent films, this gesture was used as a template to create nine improvisational line drawings that fit inside of the shapes. They were then printed on very thin 15 grams/meter Usuyou Gampi paper so that they could be viewed layered upon one another or individually. Viewing the pages, there is a distinct repeated shape that is variable in its details. Because of the translucency and resultant option of seeing through the pages, the action of turning the pages changes the overall image and creates a movement in the picture space of the book. It repeats but is also variable. The result is a new emerging form, and movement, that is based on but different from the original brush drawing. It is also constantly changing. In observing the entire book, the viewer should experience that the sum as greater than its parts, or a reflection of a complex system.