Inspired by popular culture motifs entwined with the horrors of contemporary life, the book was never published except as an online print-on-demand edition of about six copies. Filled with images drawn in a range of styles and media, the work is fully hybrid in language and tone, shifting constantly between the concrete and abstract, minutiae and macro-scale transformations, singular events and broad trends. A few sample sentences make the point: “Camera shy and weary, the new-age benefactor screens the crowd from a cube of plexi mirrored to make him invisible. A predatory scanner swipes the scene, its machine-edge libido seeking talent through a scrim of intangible parameters.” The narrative glue is provided by a single tween who wanders through one impossible scene after another with her dog, always responding with the phrase, “No worries.” Illustrated vividly throughout. Cover painting was from a victim of the Iraq War, done on cardboard in gouache and watercolor.
Johanna Drucker
type: initiating
role:
artist
author
designer
publisher: Druckwerk
dates:
production: 2008-08-01
publication history: This book was never published in an edition and exists only as prototypes and available on Amazon, which was used as the publishing platform.
movement:
experimental narrative
subject:
political art (AAT)
artists' books (LCSH)
themes: Contemporary life.
content form:
illustrated prose.
publication tradition:
artists' book (local)
illustrated book (local)
inspiration: Current events and conditions of contemporary life in the United States.
related works: From Now, Dark Decade
other influences: Dystopic fiction.
manuscript type: texts
location: artist's archive
manuscript type: mockups
location: artist's archive
manuscript type: other
location: artist's archive
note: Paintings and drawings are in the artist's archive.