The Cover Story
The title of the project is The Cover Story. The work featured in the project employs printmaking techniques, including book covers etched onto aluminum plates. I create etchings using multi-plate techniques. Then I digitally scan the prints to print out on a self-adhesive film, pasting them onto aluminum plates. In the process, the sizes of the book cover images are significantly enlarged and the colors are desaturated, suggestive of an old book that has lost its vitality. The presentation of this work—laid flat on the floor is reminiscent of a carpet or a mat in a grid—different from the conventional way of displaying a book. Considering how this work is installed, its presentation deviates from the usual way of displaying two-dimensional work, such as a painting, yet it is still very two-dimensional for an installation work.
The goal of this project is to change how we perceive a book. In this body of work, the usual bulk of a thick book has been reduced to just its thin cover image, and instead of being displayed upright on a shelf, the work is displayed flat on the floor. In so doing, I attempt to dismantle the voice of authority inherent in these literary works. The books that we once looked up to on a shelf, we now look down to on the floor.
To me these books represent a source of knowledge and education that influences the public, which is more often than not, taken as truth. The artist as a creator is also conscious of the fact that these truths are the creations of an author. With this body of work, I attempt to investigate the meaning of texts and their generation and reception in relation to the idea of a book in depth.
In addition, I would like to address the fact that since the advent of the digital revolution, the author-oriented way of delivering knowledge has confronted a major change. Upon entering the digital age, in two-way communication, such as Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, likes quickly replaced an authoritative author-centered communication. I seek to keenly recognize these changes in our perception of a book. Thereby I suggest that this age of collective knowledge, in which we live today, calls for a new perspective from which to perceive what a book or texts represent.