Research Catalog

In visible cities : an artist book

Title: In visible cities : an artist book / by Jean-Pierre Hébert.
Author: Hébert, Jean-Pierre, 1939-
Publication: Isla Vista [California] : Edition Reese, 2012.
Supplementary Content: Artist's description

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request Appointment Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person.	Text	By appointment only	Spencer Coll. Amer. 2012 16-77	Schwarzman Building - Print Collection Room 308

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Description

46 unnumbered pages : 21 color illustrations; 43 cm

Summary

"For this project ... Jean-Pierre Hébert distilled and poeticized a selection of Calvino's narratives. In collaboration with Harry and Sandra Reese, his distillations were then refigured typographically (a la Ilia Zdanevich) and hung on a mesostic, a poetic device like an acrostic but with the vertical phrase in the middle, as famously employed by John Cage. Finally, the mesostics were set within Hébert's series of galactic (or molecular? or musical?) visualizations. These 'computational drawings' are astonishing, the more so for being generated not by Hébert's hand but by his brain. That is, Hébert has written original computer code ... based on his redacted Calvino texts. The code was then run, or 'played,' on an inkjet printer, resulting in dynamic data landscapes that chart both the semantic and the social relationships found in the text ... [Hébert] has written of this process that he is 'pursuing an ideal of beauty and ideal Platonic forms, inspired by my interests in patterns of geometry, mathematics, physics, nature.' These interests owe much to the theories of fluid dynamics, waves and instabilities, nonlinear dynamical systems, and data visualization espoused by the astrophysicist Juri Toomre"--Martin Antonetti, "Collaborative ecosystems," review of In visible cities, in Parenthesis, autumn 2013, no. 25, pages 31-32.
Printed on double leaves. Except for title page and leaf containing colophon and artist's statement, consists of double-page spreads, each usually combining an image and a text. Front and back endleaves are double-page images; free front and back endleaves included in page count.
Illustrations are digitally printed designs from visualizations of information coded by Jean-Pierre Hébert.

Alternative Title

Invisible cities
Diomira, Anastasia, Olivia, Isaura, Sophronia, Octavia, Baucis, Phyllis, Leandra, Clarice, Irene, Thekla, Perinthia, Leonia, Raissa

Subjects

Genre/Form

Artists' books – United States – 21st century.
Typefaces (Type evidence) – Gill Sans Light.
Found poetry.
Visual literature.
Letter-pictures.
Computer art.
Digital art (Visual works)
Computer graphics – United States – 21st century.
Poetry.
Specimens.

Note

Limited edition of 73 copies, signed and numbered by Jean-Pierre Hébert.
Title, subtitle, and statement of responsibility extend over two pages (pages 5-6).
Title on title page is in the form of a mesostic of the following names, which are city names from Italo Calvino's Città invisibili (Invisible cities): Diomira, Anastasia, Olivia, Isaura, Sophronia, Octavia, Baucis, Phyllis, Leandra, Clarice, Irene, Thekla, Perinthia, Leonia, Raissa. Text consists of poems derived from the text of William Weaver's English translation of Città invisibili by locating mesostics for each of these city names in phrases from the corresponding chapter.
"First, the book title as a mesostic line filters and selects proper city names as wing words. Then, city name mesostics assemble each poem from snippets chosen in their order of appearance within each city chapter. Last, fractal timelines animate worlds of lines, colors, and symbols implied by each city character and text properties. Generative poetry composed by ideas translated into code. Deliberate rule breaking through chance or bugs, and digital humor"--Artist's statement (page 44).
"This book is inspired and structured by 'Invisible cities' of Italo Calvino, as translated by William Weaver; the mesostics of John Cage; the galactic tides of Alar and Juri Toomre; the typography of Iliazd; and an original poetic concept by Jean-Pierre Hébert. 73 copies printed from Gill Sans Light composed by Michael and Winifred Bixler, arranged and printed letterpress by Sandra Liddell Reese and Harry Reese. Drawings by Jean-Pierre Hébert printed on Niyodo natural with an Epson Stylus Pro 4800. Handmade paper cover and binding by Sandra Reese"--Colophon.

Binding (note)

Publisher's quarter red cloth and black textured handmade paper boards; front cover is decorated with small circular inlays of colored textured paper. Drum-leaf bound; title page and colophon are double-leaf bound, sewn at the spine between drum-leaf bound pages. Issued in a black cloth-covered clamshell box (45 x 29 x 3 cm), lined in red and orange cloth; front cover and inside of box decorated with small circles of colored textured paper. Red paper title label inlaid in spine of box.

Contents

Diomira -- Anastasia -- Olivia -- Isaura -- Sophronia -- Octavia -- Baucis -- Phyllis -- Leandra -- Clarice -- Irene -- Thekla -- Perinthia -- Leonia -- Raissa.

Call Number

Spencer Coll. Amer. 2012 16-77

OCLC

828928838

Author

Hébert, Jean-Pierre, 1939- book artist.

Title

In visible cities : an artist book / by Jean-Pierre Hébert.

Publisher

Isla Vista [California] : Edition Reese, 2012.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Local Note

Spencer Coll. copy is no. 49/73; signed in pencil by Jean-Pierre Hébert.

Binding

Publisher's quarter red cloth and black textured handmade paper boards; front cover is decorated with small circular inlays of colored textured paper. Drum-leaf bound; title page and colophon are double-leaf bound, sewn at the spine between drum-leaf bound pages. Issued in a black cloth-covered clamshell box (45 x 29 x 3 cm), lined in red and orange cloth; front cover and inside of box decorated with small circles of colored textured paper. Red paper title label inlaid in spine of box.

Connect to:

Artist's description

Place of Publication

United States California Isla Vista.

Added Author

Container of (expression): Calvino, Italo. Città invisibili. Selections. English.

Inspired by: Cage, John. Poems.

Weaver, William, 1923-2013, translator.

Reese, Sandra Liddell, printer, binder.

Reese, Harry, printer.

Bixler, Michael, compositor.

Bixler, Winifred, compositor.

Iliazd, 1894-1975.

Toomre, J. (Juri), 1940-

Toomre, Alar, 1937-

Edition Reese, publisher.

Research Call Number

Spencer Coll. Amer. 2012 16-77

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