Colourful cut-out card illustrations by Eiko Ojala

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Tree of Codes: re-inscription as a generative compositional technique

Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Tree of Codes' (2010) "is actually a kind of interactive paper-sculpture: Foer and his collaborators at Die Keure in Belgium took the pages of another book, Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles, and literally carved a brand new story out of them using a die-cut technique.

According to Foer's publisher Visual Editions, Tree of Codes was turned down by every printer they approached: 'Their stock line [was], 'the book you want to make just cannot be made'.'…

The luscious results, designed by Sara de Bondt, will fly in the face of anyone who says that physical books are passé. Tree of Codes is tactile, interactive, immersive--and it won't ever run out of batteries."

(John Pavlus, Co.Design)

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Addressing contemporary issues through traditional craft practices

"Binding handcrafted books for me is not merely a way of turning back the clock, but a way of addressing contemporary issues, both environmental and social as well as aesthetic."

(Michael O'Brien, Bookbinder)

"A Step Back In Time", short documentary about Oamaru's iconoclastic bookbinder Michael O'Brien. Director: Moss Bowering-Scott, Research: Libby Dallison, Executive Producers: Richard Bell and Steve Bloxham, New Zealand Broadcasting School, CPIT, Uploaded to YouTube on 16 August 2010.

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Verknipte tijden / Distorted times

Fig.1 Gideon van der Stelt (2012). "Verknipte tijden / Distorted times", collage of existing film fragments, released into my paper-folded version of Utrecht. Shot on a 7D and processed in After Effects.

Te Wei's Feelings of Mountains and Waters

"Shan shui qing ('Feelings of Mountains and Waters') finished production in 1988. This water/ink animation was Te Wei's [特伟] fourth and final major production, and is in many ways fittingly so. 'Feelings of Mountains and Waters' is a masterpiece. The film runs slightly under twenty minutes, moving the viewer through an emotional journey cleanly articulated by deep and vivid imagery, wrought with incredible artistic purity.

The film's subject is a young girl, whom ferrying an aging man across a river, generously nurses him to better health after witnessing him collapse on the shoreline. In 'Feelings of Mountains and Waters,' Te Wei uses earthy watercolors and craggy puffs of ink to maneuver hillsides, paths, valleys, and waterfalls. He uses the high-values where the ink ends and the paper begins not as an artifact of the landscape, but as the landscape itself. The watercolor paintings move and flourish, the water and ink are the animation; and the rosy-cheeked girl, through muted conversation with the humble old man, learns to play a plucked, string instrument under the quiet and almost sentient backdrop of the mountainous milieu.

Te Wei served as general director for 'Feelings of Mountains and Waters,' and retired after its completion, at the time well into his seventies. The film deservedly earned multiple awards, including high honors from international film festivals in Montreal and Shanghai. In 1995, the global professional animation community ASIFA honored Te Wei with a Lifetime Achievement Award."

(Aaron H. Bynum, 12th February 2010, p.3, Animation Insider)