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Design Category
Environmental graphic design, 2004
Design firm
Scan|The Office of Glen Cummings (New York, New York)
Collection
(2005) AIGA 365: 26
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Books shows should foster discussions about books. I tried to create an environment where people could spend intimate time with the selected books, as well as contemplate the nature of the show they were viewing.
The gallery is organized as a classroom facing a half-wall of video screens. Fifty desks, varied in style and age, each hold one book. Twenty-five screens play a synchronized video of hands flipping pages of an invisible book. This is meant both as a prompt: “Examine the books,” and a taunt: “Do as you are told.” Viewers may read the spatial relationships metaphorically—screen and seats = teacher and students—and arrive at the underlying questions that should be asked of any “best of” presentation: Who says these are the best? And in what way? In the Fifth Avenue window, a video showing every page of every book plays at 15 spreads per second, allowing viewers to see the underlying structures of the books presented inside.