10 June 2003

Illustrated Invisible Cities Rodcorp went looking for illustrations for Italo's Calvino's Invisible Cities. We didn't find much, so will be making some of our own. Wayne Thiebaud illustrated a limited-run edition by Arion Press. "The artist Wayne Thiebaud contributed 12 drawings, with the idea that the images of cities and objects remain invisible until the reader takes action. To realize this concept, Andrew Hoyem designed the book with the drawings printed on clear plastic in different colors of inks, each matching the color of the following sheet. The images are revealed only when the transparent sheet is turned back onto the preceding page, a white sheet with printed text.". Also: the related Souvenirs of Cities print. (His Hill Hill City (1981) is slightly ICish, and reminiscent of the urban canyons of Brazil.) The Illuminated Italo Calvino project (tantalising, because there aren't any pictures. Nor here) [updated] Not an illustration, but an interesting project by Medialab's Rich Streitmatter-Tran on Impossible/Invisible Forms, which planned to render visually four narrative strands/accounts - those of Calvino, Polo, Khan, the reader. A project that might work better for IC's If On A Winter's Night a Traveller. [Update: R.S-T writes to say the project hasn't made huge leaps forward yet, and suggests Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland as another interesting target] [updated] Binary Bonsai's concepts and renderings for Baucis Lynne Devine, Glasgow School of Art Catherine Rive (slightly ambiguous as to whether it's an illustration of IC or not) Possible illustration in an essay called Utility and Uselessness Something by Martin Lee 11:47:19 PM     comments

Fischli and Weiss considering legal action over Honda cog advert Marketingfix.com cites the story in Creative Review [subscription required] this month. If it had been a song published by a major label instead of a video by some artists, the ad agency would have obtained (or at least discussed obtaining) licenses. Peter Fischli said: Of course we didn't invent the chain reaction and Cog is obviously a different thing, but we did make a film which the creatives of the Honda ad have obviously seen. We feel we should have been consulted about the making of this ad. Previous Cog coverage by Marketingfix is a pretty good summary, includes an amusing discussion about whether it's faked or not. 1:24:08 PM     comments