February 2012

Welcome to the world of Baku Maeda, Japanese illustrator turned ribbon-or, who transforms otherwise lifeless strands of fabric into creatures, great yet small.

The World of Ribbonesia is Maeda's new book; it depicts his precisely folded animal sculptures, and the environs they inhabit. With each creation he engages the power of suggestion - not only to achieve the effect of certain animals - but more importantly, to succeed in the gestural pursuit of specificity.

Gestural pursuit of specificity? Let's think about it: Using least restrictive input to produce desired outcome. As with drawing, painting, sound and word, efficiently expended efforts can result in creative perfection.

Maeda attains a quality in each critter that is most elusive to many makers. Viewers know the piece above is a dog. The know because the title tells them, and because they recognize for themselves that the object is dog-like. Dog-like is an intriguing way to be in the aesthetic world; trust the title and your impression, and a dog it is. But inspect closely to know with certainty that it is a dog and nothing else, and the form melts into ribbon, and ribbon alone.

Many thanks to Spoon & Tamago and Pattern Pulp for the inspiration!

Alright, okay, in fairness to the all-mighty, all-trendy Karim Rashid, Blend, which he designed, is marketed as a storage unit rather than a bookcase. However, the unit's depth is only a few inches greater than Furniturea's Bookcase series, and as such, is deemed appropriate for Rural Modern's bookworm series.

Blend is a case made from undulating leaves of MDF. Its facade (complex) suggests waves or fins or folds of fabric, while the interior shelving (simple) is functional without affect.

Open shelving, especially open shelving for books, is designed with its contents in mind. What will eventually be displayed is to be in competition or harmony with the case itself. Spines of books may communicate, on behalf of their owners, important (or aspirational) truths about the people who live there. Their interests, their systems of belief, their appreciation for art, or devotions to particular writers. Too, inferences can be drawn from what is absent, and guests may make conclusions based on what isn't as much as on what is.

To many the idea of enclosed book storage is silly. What is the purpose of concealing such objects? And yet, the popularization of tablet computers and e-readers threatens the relevance and cache of 3-dimensional books. The shift to volumeless volumes may instigate a shift in taste for storage at home. For in the past, your life was as open as the titles on display in your study, whereas now you're more likely to be a username and password away from such revelations.

To resume last week's thread on modern bookcases, Rural Modern is pleased to devote Wednesday to Horm's Sendai Shelving, designed by Toyo Ito.

Made from turned wood, mirror finish aluminum, and MDF, Sendai achieves the enviable design status of deceptive simplicity. Lacking nothing, and yet barely there, it is hologramesque in character, bearing varied appearance by way of angle, distance, and imagination. It is a functional object that first assumes face, and reveals purpose second.

Viewers explore what Sendai could be before acknowledging what it is - not because they don't recognize its function - but because opportunities for association are many, and we're otherwise starved for such chances. Shelving and symmetry, shelving and perpendicularity, and shelving and banality - are rote couplings that isolate practicality from whimsicality, as if the two are mutually detrimental.

What Furniturea enthusiasts understand is that function and whimsy are stronger together than they are apart. Sendai evokes crane legs; warp & weft; stalk and reflection; fractured streams of light - all while performing its literal and intended purpose: To store your stuff.

Your belongings - properly stored - become part of Sendai's face. Your books, transported... Your books, on display... Your books, hidden in plain sight.

For more on Horm, click here. For more on Toyo It, here.

It's unpleasant to imagine a world without the printed word. Specifically, a world without discretely bound collections of printed texts, also known as books, sounds unfortunate, even cynical. Arguments for digital media exist in the ether of more-ism, where it is not enough to have a book, but rather to call upon all books without investment, attachment or prior knowledge.

It is the difference between reading Wednesday's New York Times - the actual paper edition - and Wednesday's NYT - the virtual edition - where the paper version is a contained, finite and bracketed account of one day's news, and it's virtual fraternal twin uses one day's news as a portal field for readers to access everything from the illusion of one thing.

When it comes to books, many of us harbor fond feelings for the old-fashioned cover/spine/pages approach, while at the same time feel enticed by the convenience of paperless print. Convenience, lest we forget, is often the enemy in disguise, substituting availability for authenticity, and promising everything rather than one thing. The dichotomies of one/any and one/many surface as we make major and minor decisions in daily life. Do I buy this (particular) bookcase or any (generic) bookcase? This (one) novel or the promise of every (all) novels?

Upcoming posts will explore our attachment to paper-based media, and all manners of storing and displaying accumulated texts of the tactile variety.