n°44 — A conundrum: the visual communication of neuroscience. Author: James Langdon

Author: James Langdon
20 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK+1 PMS
15th February 2023
ISBN: 979-10-95991-42-7
ISSN: 2558-2062

7,00€

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Neuroscience is a visual science. Our understanding of the brain’s biology originates in the beautiful and pioneering images of neurons and dendrites produced by Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Camillo Golgi in the late nineteenth century. In recent decades neuroscience has embraced computational imaging. We have witnessed dynamic images of living brains produced by fMRI, and intricate, colourful representations of “neutral connectomics” that promise ultimately to reveal the ‘wiring diagram’ of the human brain. Such images are not merely the documentation of scientific work, they are themselves primary sites of research. The images are the science.

          And yet the interaction of neuroscience with mainstream visual culture tends toward the simplistic and the amateurish. Science communication seems to regard graphic design and art direction sceptically, preferring to contextualise its technical images with a collage of cartoons, internet memes, and generic high-tech stock photography. The emerging neurotechnology industry, by contrast, adopts the visual language of corporate “big tech”. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Neuralink project presents its experimental neural implant technology as if it were an innocent commercial appliance.

          These observations are urgent. Inevitably neuroscience will soon yield opportunities for technologically augmenting the human brain that could further entrench inequality and stratification in our society. This text is not a call for more friendly interdisciplinary collaboration between graphic design and neuroscience, but a pointed critical assessment of the visual literacy of one field from the perspective of another.

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n°03 — A monograph: Recollected Work by Mevis & van Deursen. Author: Étienne Hervy

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Author: Étienne Hervy.
20 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
22th November 2017
ISBN: 979-10-95991-04-5
ISSN: 2558-2062

In 2006, the publisher Artimo entrusted Linda van Deursen and Armand Mevis with the editorial direction and the Graphic Design of their own monograph, Recollected Works. Joined by Paul Elliman in writing the texts, the two Graphic Designers responded with an approach similar to that which they adopt when they accompany other artists and photographers in the creation of books whose relevance has largely contributed to the studio’s reputation. Mevis and van Deursen propose to the reader to experience their work in operation, rather than simply contenting themselves with the reproduction of the work presented as artworks in themselves. Rather than the nostalgia for a more or less formalized organization of their previous projects, the two Graphic Designers look at their previous work as the material for an autonomous project from which this book will emerge.

Such a choice directly raises the question of the constitution and transmission of a culture inherent to Graphic Design, whether it isspecifically aimed at designers or else at a much wider audience. How to transmit the issues and points of quality of a discipline itself dedicated to transmission? One must above all recognize the capacity of this eminently visual field to confront appearances.

Our study of this work will obviously reference a corpus of monographs and publications made by Graphic Designers (Christophe Jacquet, Joost Grootens, M/M (Paris), Karel Martens, Experimental Jetset, Wolgang Weingart, etc.) while at the same time looking more widely at the forms currently adopted for the transmission of Graphic Design (exhibitions, conferences, etc.). Beyond the issues discussed and the questions raised by Recollected Works, it is a matter of both pulling on the thread of the work of Mevis and van Deursen (does a continuity exist between the editorial design of Why Mister, Why? for Geert van Kesteren or the Library Of The Museum Museum of Contemporary African Art for Meschac Gaba, and the identity of the Stedelijk Museum?) and questioning the pertinence of a discourse specific to Graphic Design.

n°29 — Girls, the Troopers of Dance. Aesthetization of Politics and Manipulation of Entertainment. Author: Alexandra Midal

7,00€

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Author: Alexandra Midal
32 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, Black & White
17th February 2021
ISBN: 979-10-95991-18-2
ISSN: 2558-2062

The British origins of synchronized dancing—invented in 1880 by John Tiller in a cotton mill—were quickly forgotten in Berlin, where periodicals established themselves as the expression of standardization and American capitalism. The famous Tiller Girls had become the modern figure of the “New Woman”, performing in shows attracting more than four million spectators each year. A seduced Hitler asked for his own troupe: the Hiller Girls. Face to face, both periodicals look like strictly indistinguishable replicas, apart from their opposite messages.

          Synchronized dancing revealed the democratic and fascist forms given to the political discourse of the Weimar Republic when the NSDAP seized power. Between the power of forms and forms of power, amid the destruction of cities, decrees banishing the use of Fraktur, and the destruction of degenerate art, those dance shows, undoubtedly because of their popularity, showed that National Socialism was using insidious and invisible strategies to empty forms of their content only to maintain their appearance intact, thus revealing a shadow practice that, in the end, turned out to be just as barbaric as world-wide destruction or the burning of books.

n°26 — Production process: Print on Demand. Author: Manon Bruet

7,00€

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Author: Manon Bruet
20 pages, 21 × 29,7 cm, CMYK
4th November 2020
ISBN: 979-10-95991-17-5
ISSN: 2558-2062

In 2008, English Graphic Designer James Goggin ran a two-day workshop with design students at the Hochschule Darmstadt in Germany. The object which resulted gradually took on the appearance of a photo album, a typeface specimen, and a color chart. On the cover, the phrase “Dear Lulu, Please try and print these line, color, pattern, format, texture and typography tests for us” is clearly addressed to the online print platform for which this book was proposed as a test.

Ten years later, the offer has become more diverse and the success of such online platforms is undeniable—indeed the phenomenon has spread well beyond the field of publishing. While some bemoan unfair competition for printers, others, professionals and amateurs, see in it a freedom to print and distribute relatively well finished objects at low cost.

The possibilities of these systems of production, are multiple but nonetheless limited, and this obviously raises the question of a possible standardization of forms and formats. However, when it comes to Print On Demand, it seems that the issue is not so much the materiality of an object (the choice of format, paper or a particular manufacture) but rather the actual existence of this object itself, outside of usual channels of production and distribution.

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