Peepshows of a different sort

an 18th century rarekiek or peep show box

Piranesi's view of the Piazza del Popolo, and (below) the peepshow illuminated nighttime view

I came upon the startling and thoroughly engrossing Early Visual Media a while back. An exploratorium of "Early Vintage Visual Media Archeology" and veritable online cabinet of curiosities, it comprises forays into magic lanterns, optical toys, early cinema, fairground art, as well as related and not-so related fields ("Prestidigitation, Conjuring Arts, Illusions, Magic, Physique Amusante, l' Escamotage... etc.")

The site is dizzying and disorienting: phrases that appear linked are not, images that seem static are animated, recursive links lead to blind alleys and others lead to yet deeper immersion into someone's scholarly obsession. That someone is Belgian autodidact and independent academic Thomas Weynants whose delightful trains of thought meander and cross in a trail of foreign-inflected English and polylingual expressions ("Jules Richard was passionated by women. He build his own 'folie'").

Shown here, a sampling of Weynant's introduction to the Peepshow Box (also referred to as the boite optique, rarekiek, and "raree show" and not to be confused with the Zograscope...) — a 17th and 18th century optical illusion viewer for engravings. Figures mounted on overlapping slides or back-mounted silhouettes were combined with the engravings to evoke an illusion of depth and perspective. Night views were pierced along appropriate details such as lanterns, windows, stars and fireworks, and backed with colored transparent paper. With light from four interior candles, the rarekiek conjured enchanting jewel-box scenes, presumably when it didnt cause alarming jewel-box conflagrations.

screen gems

Normally I try to stay away from posts that simply showcase some nice things with a link— but in this case I don't know what more curatorial added-value I can impart. Herewith, a delicious, if spotty, collection of movie title stills engagingly catalogued and displayed by a (Belgian?) web designer named Christian Annyas— a breathtaking resource of type inspiration.

type distortion

Graphis cover by Eberhard Rensch, 1965

advertisement for fruit essences, 1962
(funny how sterile, unfruitlike and German it is. Geschmack!)

brochure cover by Ivan Chermayeff, 1960advertisement for a Milan-based printer, 1964type studies, above and below, 1994 by me

I found a couple old Graphis magazines (very serious Swiss "bastion of excellence in design" since 1944) at my local flea market for a couple bucks apiece. This one, from 1965, was a gem. The issue featured an article about Geigy, the legendary Swiss chemical/pharmaceutical company whose brilliant and prescient attention to all things graphic was influential and, well, very Swiss (more in a future post). In addition, it also included samples from "the most ambitious typographic exhibition ever staged" Typomundus 20, which opened in New York, October 1965. There are many examples of stretched, distorted and generally groovy manipulated type, much of it reminding me of film effects in tv or old film (you know, the "hippy party scene with the wild cavorting dancers" effect, or the "you are getting very sleepy" waves). Of course this makes sense with the times: psychedelia, Op Art, and experimentation of many kinds.

I started thinking about how all this was done back in the old analog days, before you could choose a warp or fisheye filter and be done with it. This Graphis cover, by someone named Eberhard Rensch, is described as "a typographic composition that was then photographed through glass structures." How crafty it all was and had to be. Designers were ripping and pasting together images of type or developing type on acetate film, twisting and crunching it and then rephotographing, or manipulating things on stat cameras . (In a recent lecture I went to about book jacket design at Knopf Chip Kidd and Barbara de Wilde went on and on about the stat camera; it seemed to be the magic box of tricks for all their early work.)

I rooted through my old design sample folders to find these sketches I'd done (15 years ago!) Now Photoshop was around then, it debuted in 1990, but I think we just didnt have it at my office or maybe I was afraid of it. At the time I was doing a poster and brochure/checklist for an exhibit of mid-19th century railroad documentary photography called "Tracking the West." I set the title in ITC Machine and played with a printout on the xerox, moving it slightly as the light scanned. I liked the ghostly ephemeral "tracks shifting in the sand" idea but I didnt end up using it as the rationale didnt seem right: they were talking, in part, about railroad tracks!

an insider's view of cattle country*

Fat Mouth, 2008

Reindeer Vivification, 2008

Rashers. 2004

Kiss the Fat, 2005

Down the Primrose Path, 2003

I am dazzled by the old-master skill of Victoria Reynolds' paintings of meat of all kinds: oily swells of viscera, marbled swathes, and dappled and flecked prepared luncheon loaves. Like hellish Dutch still lifes her meticulously rendered slabs and piles of raw flesh mesmerize—when they don't induce a gag-reflex. I find the top piece particularly compelling, bringing out the grotesquerie of baroque and Rococo ornament. The disquieting excess of the carved decoration echoes in the whorls and folds of the meat... .

* a little dark humor... I was astounded to discover the artist is a native of Texas, with an MFA from the University of Nevada — I was sure she was British. She is represented by the Richard Heller Gallery

Grace notes

Today I happened across an article in the Times about a secret one minute grace period New York commuter rail factors in on all departing schedules. The piece was nothing special, and a good 350 words too long, but having just had a day on Metro North Thursday, it stuck with me. Evidently a unwritten tradition in New York rail going back decades, "gate time" is the extra minute it took for the last passenger through said gate as it closed, to make it to the train. Thus the train I took to New Haven the other day, listed everywhere from departure board to paper schedule as the 10:08 was in actuality parked until 10:09. At least in theory.

While in New Haven I stopped in at the Anchor. I was meeting up with an old friend whom I hadnt sat down with in about 23 years— basically since the days we might have hung out at the Anchor. The city is the same, the bar is the same, literally, and we are the same people. But not. Twenty-three years alternately slip away and intervene again.

Unfortunately I had one eye on the clock because I was cold, tired and didn't want to miss the 6:57 train. All of a sudden it was 6:35, it was raining and I needed a cab. As I was getting frantic my friend says "Dont worry, its bar time." Bar time? Setting the time ahead with a traditional fifteen minute grace period to make sure the bar closes promptly after last call. How did I not know this?

As an aside: I always think it odd how literally the clock is thought of-- as though it were somehow connected to time itself. As though a clock were like a radio tuning in to the time airwaves...

Photo by CarbonNYC

The [Brutally Honest] Language of Flowers

"Your self-love and stupidity excite my pity"

a favorite from

The Language of Flowers
The Floral Offering: A token of affection and esteem;
comprising the language and poetry of flowers
by Henrietta Dumont, 1852

A compendium of definitions and quotes on the Victorian tradition of floriography in which "various flowers and floral arrangements were used to send coded messages, allowing individuals to express feelings which otherwise could not be spoken."

Do with less

After the post about British wartime posters I came across a limited but great collection of American ones at Northwestern University Library. As the site describes it,

these posters represent the government's effort, through art, illustration, and photographs, to pull the American people together in a time of adversity for the country and its population.

The only time in recent era I've felt American people "pulling together" was in the stunned aftermath of 9/11, and in a very different way, in rallying behind Barack Obama. Americans need some commonality to counterbalance the puerile "its a free country I can do what I want" reflex. I fear the country is stuck in polarity and atomizing. As Sophie Munns puts it in a comment here:

there are times for distinct messages to be put to the public reminding us of that working together for the greater good is critical - even though the "greater good scenarios" are immensely complex and global now

Not that posters could accomplish this in 2009 but a creative effort deploying ads and youtube with content created by different independent artists and small design studios might be worthwhile. (I've long thought that someone should do a pro bono ad campaign for fruit aimed at children). Alas, there's so much crap bombarding us perhaps there's no mental bandwidth to absorb civics reminders...
some random thoughts:
"Scrap" is astonishing—why the US gov't appropriated a very European fascist graphic idiom is mysterious but effective.

"United we win" is very poignant.... civil rights still had decades to go

I particularly respond to "Is your trip necessary" and "Do with less" philosophically — I could see these working today: "Leave the car at home: Walk it", and "Do with less" needs to be posted at every Costco, Walmart and Olive Garden Never-Ending Pasta Bowl and Salad bar...

note to self: Eat Greens, Defend Freedom

About two years ago, online, I came across a brilliant reproduction World War II poster sold by a gallery in London. It was silkscreened (pale blue) and I thought I'd made the most fabulous and quirky find. When it arrived friends were immediately impressed and my framer he said he'd never seen something as simple and cool. It said "Keep Calm and Carry On." Not too long after I saw one in a shop downtown, and then in Domino magazine, and... the rest is history.

I still like the poster. It's an oddly comforting voice of reason, it's beautifully spare, and it retains its permanently disquieting provenance: it was created for use in the event that the Germans occupied London. This now-famous poster, produced anonymously within the British Ministry of Information, was never in wide distribution. Some of these others, above, had print runs of up to a million and were plastered all over Britain.

Having experienced (however fleetingly and at arm's length) the apocalyptic frenzy and blind dread of 9/11, I'm barely able to comprehend what London/England went through—for years. Blackouts, nightly bombing raids, destruction of portions of the City, sleeping in subway stations, sending children out of the city, rationing... The stalwart cheeriness of a poster like "And still the railways carry on!" amazes and irritates me. "The city's being reduced to rubble and Panzer tanks will be rolling down the block next week and the government thinks it best to spend money, time and effort on patronizing ephemera!?" is probably what I would have said at the time. Now, though, I'm drawn to the we're-all-in-this-together no-bullshit tone, the chanelling of Churchillian steadfastness.

I sometimes think a series of civic-oriented posters wouldn't be a bad idea today...can we get any anti-high fructose corn syrup campaigns going?