Art and Science - Flat Earth Book

At the end of the Art and Science module I inexplicably decided I wanted to screenprint a 12-page, 2-colour book of evidence and bind and emboss the cover to be a part of the installation...

I trawled through a lot of old books published on the Flat Earth Society website as well as looking at Twitter for a modern perspective on the Flat Earth. I liked the idea that writing something down and printed it made it more official and with this in mind I made separations for the screenprinted book combining text and diagrams from the research I'd been doing and the handwritten quotes from Twitter. I like the idea of taking a quotation out of quotation marks making it into my own words.

I chose to use green ink for the writing as a reference to the journalistic joke about the green-ink brigade - possibly too obscure a joke but never mind.

Screenprinting the book was easier than I expected - I thought it would be a nightmare as it's double sided so had to be lined up accurately but it came out well. I wanted it to be properly bound so it looked official so I used binding cloth and used gold leaf for the title on the cover (I eventually decided against embossing as I was running out of time). It was my first time using binding cloth and gold leaf so I'm proud of the finished I achieved.

Art and Science - Flat Earth Project

This semester has been a bit different as I've been doing an elective module - Art and Science - alongside my core illustration work which has made a nice change. It took me a while to get into it as there was no brief for the module which was initially intimidating for me as a designer, however now I'm really enjoying the freedom that's given me.

Initially I did quite a lot of research. I spoke with a couple of scientists - a biochemist working on sleeping sickness and a physicist who specialises in ultrafast photonics.

I enjoyed talking about physics as I loved it at school but I didn't want to do anything too serious for the project. I went to see the Turner Prize exhibition in Glasgow and was inspired by Bonnie Camplin's installation. I liked the idea of finding evidence for something and that people can prove anything if they omit certain facts and highlight others. This sparked a memory of an article I'd read years ago about the Flat Earth Society who are basically just a group of people who believe the earth is flat. I started looking into flat earth theory and thinking about how you could go about proving it.

I spoke to David (the physicist I had had an initial conversation with) about it and obviously he was pretty flabbergasted at the whole idea and really struggled with how he would go about finding evidence for the flat earth. I then recorded him and his friend Adam (another physicist) discussing how to prove that the earth was flat.

I considered what visual evidence you could use in support of flat earth theory - most of it pretty simple - for example, everyone is standing up, water is level etc (flat earth believers don't believe in gravity). I started working on some acetone transfers with screen prints using photos I'd found in encyclopedias and my own scribbly diagrams and writing.

I decided I wanted to create an installation of flat earth theory incorporating the recorded conversation with my prints and objects. As the final exhibition for the module would be in the life sciences building which isn't an ideal space I decided to create a wooden structure which I would be free to paint and stick things onto so I didn't have to compromise my idea.

scale model

X Project

Finally back at art school for my 2nd year. We were launched in right away with a one week project using the brief from the annual Tapirulan illustration competition. The theme this year was "X". I focussed on the idea of the unknown and that we know more about outer space than we do about the deep sea, which appealed to me as both fascinate me.

I started thinking about the similarities between the deep sea and outer space and the humans that explore them - both are inhospitable, alien environments, humans are buoyant in these settings, and deep sea divers and astronauts are somewhat similar aesthetically as well as in terms of what they do. I started playing around with pictures of divers from a book I have and making them look like they were in space through painting and collage.

I found a picture in an old encyclopaedia which I found interesting, it was a diagram of Ptolemy's geocentric model of the universe. I thought that tied in nicely with the unknown, as it made me reflect on advances in our knowledge, and also the fact that in several hundred years our theories for the universe may look outdated and ridiculous too. I also liked the concentric circle design and decided to include it in some collages.

I liked the concentric circles and how they tied in with motion capture photos of stars, shoals of fish and so on. I toyed with the idea of coral looking like planets/moons and the holes looking like craters.

I continued to make collages in this vein. I particularly like the one below right, with the bell jar as a metaphor for the universe and the diver as a metaphor for "God".

I briefly digressed into the bell jar idea, and also into the idea of the Bermuda triangle which wasn't so successful. The timescale of this project was definitely a struggle for me as it was difficult to resolve such a short project.

Next week I'm going to try screen-printing some of the images I made and hopefully bring the project to a close.