AB0Co

I thought it would be interesting to play with the idea of the apparent permanence of the alphabet and language by interpreting them though a temporary and fleeting material.

The alphabet along, with numbers, colours and the sounds that animals make are among the first things we learn as children. This “first” knowledge is very powerful and gives the alphabet the sense that it is unquestionable, definitive and of all time. It feels like a key piece of understanding which is an essential building block of our human experience.

This permanence however is not true, as language is always changing and the alphabet as we know it today has gone through many forms and letter sets. Until the 15thC for example there were three letters which we now no longer use (thorn, edh and yogh) and as late as the 1850’s the Ampersand (&) was considered the 27^th and last letter of the Alphabet.

I thought it would be interesting to take advantage of the bitterly cold weather we’ve having recently to try and show that even something which looks honest, solid and unmovable like the alphabet is only subject to time before it too changes. With the Globalisation of language and the advancement of the digital world with the abbreviations of tweets, sms’ and urls, it is not unbelievable that new letters may be born to help speed our global communication.

Alphabet

Here is a sneak peak at how I've been spending my last week. Standing on the roof in the cold trying to freeze the entire alphabet befrore the thaw kicked in. The images are for Stereohype call for entries for their new book. Few more letter to complete tonight and then the photographying can begin.

HIMP: Sketchbooks Vol 1

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Scottish Posters

St Andrews Day (Yesterday)

I had meant to make something for St Andrews Day yesterday, but Scott and I spent the day at our old uni giving a quick talk to the students. It was weird being back there but it was a lot of fun and hopefully we didn't bore them all to death to much. We also gave them a quick workshop project to carry out in the streets of Glasgow, in which they had to define various "spaces" by means of a set of tag cards. The results were really good, with some very interesting images, which the students then had to present and explain under a strict time limit of 10secs. We'll post the results to our site in the next week or so.

Anyway, the above poster was inspired by seeing the great vintage union jack poster on the Keep Calm and Carry On poster site.

[Text by Annie.]

Central Station

Had a lot of fun at last weeks Central Station Launch. Two days of art and creativeness in Glasgow, with a tour bus on the Saturday and a load of talks and tasty biscuits on the Sunday.

Hopefully there will be more events like that coming up soon. Join up to their site for more info.

Superhuman

Just made this poster for SPID's latest theatrical extravaganza in London. Anyone in the area should take a look. The hardest part of the project was holding the camera far enough away with my left hand to get a good photo of my right arm.

Pigeon Man

As promised many months ago, here is the footage of the pigeon hunter in action.

Be warned that while this may be an edited down version, it is still just a video of a man standing for a long, long time in a park, in the rain, trying to catch a pigeon. Its strangely hypnotic though.

[For those wondering what this is all about click here for the earlier story]