Astrid Seme, Studio

In reference to the monograph’s title “shift” the layout correlates with four decades of drawings by Swiss artist Silvia Bächli in a formal manner.
Published on occasion of the artist’s solo show at Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany.

Drape this em-dash over your shoulders. Wear it as a swirling proposition, as a ‘joy mark’. Dash around just like Elsa did, for you are now wearing typography.

—(take a breath)

This em-dash is a homage to Dadaist artist and poet Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874 – 1927). Her poems; performances; costumes and lifestyle all made a point of challenging established bourgeois artistic and moral conventions with an unapologetically feminist, proto-punk aesthetic. Elsa’s ‘signature’ in writing was her manic use of em dashes within her poems. In a quick and simple dash, Elsa had found the perfect material for an expansive range of meaning. The em dash is flexible, working as  an appropriation of silence, as acting dissonance, as interruption, as occupying space. The em dash is forceful, able to stamp silence loudly into a page; and when spoken, these punctuation marks seem to function more like performers between words, creating movement and voice within text.

—(take a breath)

Now, with an uncharacteristic flop, the em dash has fallen from the page to become a wearable embodiment of Baroness Elsa’s creative spirit—its fluffy surface brought into being from paper fibers and strands of ink. Having suddenly transformed into a scarf, the em dash oscillates between writing and performance; as it moves through the streets, its intimations are aroused by intention of the wearer.

—(take a breath)

Should you happen to be seen from atop, you will have become a moving line that punctuates space with your lengthy bulge. A figure for dashing, you leave no space on either side. No space between life or art.

The purpose of the em dash is wide-ranging —as an appropriation of silence, as acting dissonance, as interruption, as occupying space.
This anthology zooms into the pointed use of em dashes in the poems of pioneering Dadaist artist, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874 – 1927). Her poems; performances; costumes and life-style all made a point of challenging extremely bourgeois artistic and moral conventions with an unapologetically feminist, proto-punk aesthetic. The reader will find Elsa’s works in conversation with the likes of well-known dashers such as Gertrude Stein, Laurence Sterne, Heinrich von Kleist or the queen of dashing herself Emily Dickinson.
Juxtaposed to Elsa’s expressive handwritten dashes the book connects her biography with the history and the stylistic usage of em dashes within the realms of bibliography, book history, literature, sociology and typography.

Fabian Fink’s way of working moves fluently between sculpture, applied arts and furniture design. His catalog “Eva” is a nonchalant sequence of his art works combined with personal moments. Thus the book gives space to relationships, friends or travels and indicates that this private framework is an important and indispensable part of the artist’s practice. Each photography is accompanied by an index-like flow of words navigating through this private cosmos and introduce the readers to Eva, Hannah, Ida, Jakob, Katrin or Tomash.

Visual identity for halfway, an architectural research program by Christian Teckert, Christina Nägele and Heidi Pretterhofer in Vienna. halfway manifests as a three-part series of case studies, which build up a consecutive discourse and platform to debate contemporary urban questions.

This publication is an anticipating monograph of Stefan Reiterer’s future paintings. By this means, it reverses the production of a catalogue: Instead of documenting old works, it shows 75 templates, that the artist might paint in the future. These templates have their origin in existing paintings which were first 3D scanned and afterwards digitally distorted and transformed. This continues and extends Reiterer’s painting practice that deals with representation of space and its manipulative potential.

This single-page website, designed for Chilean artist Martín La Roche Contreras, is established within the fertile space between two parallel worlds: Imagery and Words. While a one-pager might initially appear to be finite in its possibilities, this website utilises the potential infinity of digital material to push associations between word and image beyond a simple 1:1 relationship. A single passage runs throughout the page, and hover states are used to activate specific images to lure the user in to explore further and discover major slide shows featuring Martín’s works. What results is not simply a series of binary associations, but instead constellations intended to illustrate important movements within Contreras’ work.

Exhibition graphics showcasing 18 artists’ books at Steiermärkische Landesbibliothek Joanneum Viertel Graz. Posters are carrying just the informations needed but offering otherwise “blank” sheets of paper to the artist Marlene Hausegger to draw on. Designed to be quickly installed in any orientation the posters are forming ‘wall pieces’ and thus acting also as a signage throughout the museum.

Christian Kosmas Mayer’s work focuses on critical exploration of archiving and conserving as deliberate acts that create history. The artist book explores the theme of conservation both as a natural and as an artificial process of archiving. The collected images were consequently separated from their captions and arranged as a vertical stream within the book’s narrative. To enhance the archival sources special focus is put on the reproduction: images are printed in full color but with an erratic metallic silver feature.

The website’s fluid text- and image-slideshow creates a spatial notion of the architect’s practice simply by alignment. While the top menu fades with the natural scrolling behaviour the hiding ‘base’ offers an in depth overview of Hirschvogel’s projects and essays. Special focus is put on a high degree of legibility of Hirschvogel’s research texts with sticky images to their respective text sections.
The design of various stationery templates allows in-house printing with a high degree of flexibility.

As part of the ongoing collaboration with the artist residency program Kulturakademie Tarabya, I’ve worked on their bilingual annual book [eighteen/nineteen]. Divided into three sections the book opens with essays on the German Turkish cultural relations followed by 24 artist contributions spanning across different genres including literature, visual arts, music and performance printed in full color with two spot colours. The book closes with a record of events printed on a bright blue paper stock.
The cover follows the graphic identity I’ve created for Kulturakademie Tarabya with bitmapped imagery of shoreline of the Bosphorus capturing four different cover versions.

The Tarabya Cultural Academy in Turkey is an artist residency programme initiated by the Federal Government of Germany. Tarabya itself is a magical place located on the shoreline of the Bosphorus strait near Istanbul. In an attempt to capture and communicate the atmosphere of its location, the website opens with randomised configured imagery of Tarabya that melts away with the loading of the site’s opening page. Furthermore, subtle animations and transitions on each page reflect the color shades of the Bosphorus as it changes, allowing the website to subtly shift its appearance from visit to visit. Fluidity and user-specific navigations are at the center of this website’s design. This is achieved through expanding menus as well as headers that are either visible or hidden, depending on the user’s device.
The visual identity and its manual includes a wide range of templates allowing in-house teams and local Turkish graphic designers to design communications with a high degree of flexibility. The consultancy is still ongoing.

“Past forward” is a record created by the artist duo kozek hörlonski (Peter Kozek + Thomas Hörl) in order to mark the celebration of 100 years of the Kunstverein Baden and its members. The vinyl’s jacket is produced from the same card stock used in the Kunstverein’s archives, stemming from the notion that the record will itself go on to form a part of the museum’s long history. I was intrigued by the thought that when the record is filed within the archive, it would blend in effortlessly with the rest of the objects, artefacts or texts that represent the previous 100 years of the museum’s work. This is, in material form, an acknowledgement of the past that has come to inform the record’s creation. The cover makes use of the typeface Akzidenz Grotesk—in reminiscence of its progressive past, which at the same time pointed to a neutral future. This seemed to be an ideal fit for the record’s title, in mirroring its own unique position in relation to posterity.

In 1994, American artist Barbara Kruger exhibited a German version of one of her large scale political wall-texts for the exhibition entitled “World morality” at Kunsthalle Basel (CH). 23 years later, German artist Doris Lasch and I were invited to participate in the exhibition entitled “Exposed Exhibitions”—to be held at the same location. For our contribution, we worked with the only known installation shot of Kruger’s 1994 work to be found within the Kunsthalle’s archive.
We re-scaled this photograph into what would have been original size of Kruger’s installed text piece, and fragmented the image into individual pages. The reverse sides of each of these pages offered up a window to link Kruger’s presentation to events and discussions of the present day. Pages carrying fragments of Kruger’s installed work are blacked out on their reverse sides. Pages carrying architectural fragments from the installation shot reveal on their reverse images of the same piece installed at Art Basel in 2017. The first exhibition was rarely documented, while the same work presented at Art Basel 23 years later became a hotspot for selfie-makers and Instagrammers. By acknowledging this, the publication connects two moments in time and perhaps poses some questions about how ways of exhibiting, receiving and documenting contemporary art have evolved over the past few decades. These page fragments were initially bound into a publication, and subsequently installed within the space to reference our own process of planning and laying out the publication’s content.

The Fine Art and Design Library of Bergen University holds a monthly series of public one-evening events. It serves as a platform that encourages ideas and discussions around concepts of ‘library’, ‘archive’ and ‘book’ as well as on the conventions of the presentation, reception and discussion of art.