Another issue of Pegasus is coming up! This time the topic is music, and the mag contains various articles on the subject in relation to all of the nerdy activities we love so much.
There will be a release party at Subscene, Oslo, on the 10th of September with free concerts with such chiptunes-artists as Binärpilot and Year6581!!!!!!
Link to the facebook-event here.
ARKIV (“Archive” in english) is an artist’s book by the Norwegian artist Guttorm Guttormsgaard. The book is a result of the three-year long exhibition project at Guttormsgaard’s studio in Blaker Old Dairy, titled “Obs!m.fl.&m.m.m”. ARKIV is filled with items displayed during the 55 exhibitions, usually from G.G.’s own collection. This collection is the study material of the artist, serving as a continuing source of inspiration as well as representing the artist’s lifelong journey in understanding different materials, cultures, techniques and concepts, which ultimately comes through in the artist’s own work. ARKIV is, however, not a collection of random images, it’s a picture book with a subtle storyline, drawing parallels between materials, cultures and historical periods. It’s a work of art in it’s own right.
I assisted Guttormsgaard in making this book, with my knowledge as a graphic designer. I’ve also taken some of the photos in the book together with Guttormsgaard, but the bulk of the photos are taken by photographer Guri Dahl. The book is really a collection of different printed material held together by a cover with an embossed ARKIV-title, and an elastic band cut from inner tube butyl. Opening the cover reveals several items; two original prints by G.G. on heavy stock, a folded poster, a leporello with an African dream carpet, booklet with the lecture about the project given by Espen Søbye at Blaker Old Dairy, and of course 4 pocket books á 15,5×15,5cm representing the meat of the work. The title ARKIV is visible in the spines of the books when put together. All words, including the lecture, are in both Norwegian and English, all in all the work consists of 701 pages and is therefore priced at 701 kr (118$), 1 kr per page! The book is still available for purchase, through me and a few selected antiquarians in Oslo, however the edition is limited. If you are interested you can send me an e-mail at post (at) thomashansen.no or preferably arkiv (at) obs-osv.com. Click on the images for more, or go to http://www.obs-osv.com for much, much more.
Pegasus is a magazine quarterly published by Hyperion. It’s a non-profit publication and subscribing is free, editions range from 2500 to 8000 copies. Pegasus covers the so called fantastic interests; that is sci-fi, fantasy, comics, live role-playing, board games, computer games, miniatures, cards, films and much more. The magazine consists of around 48 pages, and is usually put together in the course of one hectic weekend by myself and a group of four/five editors. I’ve redesigned their logo, and made an entirely new layout. Click on the images for samples.
I made this logo and a web banner for Hyperion’s general assembly of ’09. The unicorn is the symbol of Hyperion, and every year their logo is played around with and remade for their assembly. I chose to make it in to something out of a Marvel comic book. The logo was also silkscreen printed on blue sweaters.
Here you can see some of the results of me delving into the subject of visual representations of death, in my master-thesis at the National Academy of the Arts, Oslo (KHiO). I wanted to do something that seemed to be more meaningful, ask some bigger questions in illustration, rather than making yet another thesis about t-shirt-designs, or whatever. I decided not to spend two years on something that felt quite superficial to me, so in the end I chose this, admittedly, way too big topic, of how we visualize death. I knew that the Mexicans are known for their humorous take on this kind of usually depressing or frightening imagery, so I wanted to look into that as well. Comparing the Mexican culture to that of the Norwegians and Western Europeans.
I made two books, one representing the main part of my thesis, and one about my trip to Mexico and the festival Día de los muertos (the Day of the dead). There are many visual essays in these books, because my main take on the subject was to compare imagery and to analyze and categorize. I also made several illustrations inspired by the festive Mexican Death, but using Norwegian symbols, like the traditional matchstick box. I handmade several containers for my books and ephemera. If you are interested in reading my thesis, you can contact me at post (at) thomashansen.no, and I will send you a pdf.
These photos are from my final exhibition presenting my project. It was held at Doga, Oslo. I made four peeping-boxes for the exhibition. They’re cardboard boxes with peeping holes, revealing four installations. I used different effects to make the inside of the box seem larger, like mirrors and lighting. Box 1: Contains the Matchstick Reaper rising from his coffin with sinister illumination. Box 2: A tunnel with a light at the end. Box 3: A real looking skull lighted from the inside and mirrored from every angle. Box 4: A rotating hourglass hovering over a crowd of people.
My class at the National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) got the task of arranging the final exhibition for the master students, including the visual profile as well as preparing the gallery, deciding how and where to exhibit etc. The class consisted of graphic design, furniture, interior and fashion students. I worked on the visual profile with Line Monrad-Hansen, Simone Vergeat and Eli Rikter-Svendsen. The class decided to use the word “dugnad”, a Norwegian term with no direct translation other than maybe “barn raising”. It’s when a group of people come together to clean up their neighborhood, cut the grass, tidy up in the basements, fix the fences etc. The term seemed to fit the project as we were so many people involved and helping each other, working together. We used a lot of recycled material in our designs and all the wooden materials were reusable after the event. The triangular shape was reoccurring in all of our designs, almost by accident. The invitations we sent out were folded into a triangular envelope. The displays on which the works were placed, were made of wooden triangles in different sizes, combined in multiple ways.
