Tags
A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, exquisite corpse, flip fashion, Grosse Fatigue, Interactive, lucille clerc, Raymond Queneau, Remix culture, sonnet, street style, writing technique
After doing research on different dress-up games for kids, I wanted to focus on the way I would approach my own graphic piece. One of the main things I’m interested on is the creation of an app where you can build your own style in a fast and simple way. But in order to get there, I want to try different interactive forms that could be made in printed/online versions.
So, with this idea in mind, I’ve explored several ways to make interactive pieces in paper. I was encouraged to look into writing methods such as exquisite corpses (which is also used in art and design) and A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, both from the 60’s.
First, I looked for different examples in Fashion related to A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, by Raymond Queneau. Each of the 10 sonnets created by Queneau has 14 lines, and these are written in strips so that any line can be replaced by another. There are infinite combinations of the sonnet, which leads to an interactive book.[1]
There’s also an online version[2] for Queneau sonnets were you can shuffle the lines (in print, these would be the strips) and create different sonnets. The main difference is that the shuffle button will always make a predetermined mix which in some way restricts the human interaction; the book is much more versatile when deciding which strip you will flip.
Screenshots from the online version:
Shuffled:
Reshuffled:
The most important aspect about this work and the time when it was created is the fact that the reader’s interaction is needed to complete the sonnet.
Using this work as a starting point, I’ve found a similar type of interaction in a fashion dress-up book. It’s called The Flip Fashion[3] and it’s a mix and match lookbook that contains multiple fashion styles (most of them street styles). The way in which the user creates different outfits is the same used in A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, so you can choose how to move the strips to make your own style. The main difference is that the human body implies using garments that fit each part so you cannot replace garments from bottom to top or vice versa. The mix and match is quite limited but the outcome is really interesting. In any case, the author/creator of the piece provides a base that limits the final piece.
Pictures of the Flip Book:
I’ve also looked for exquisite corpse exercises using fashion drawings. The original technique was created by surrealists: different people would write on a piece of paper a word or phrase and then fold the paper and pass it by to another person. This technique has very unique results because you can’t see what the other person has written, and that makes the interaction more open in terms of narrative styles. The same happens with art examples: the drawings have a very versatile mix of textures, colors, graphic styles, and scale.
This is an original piece created by André Breton, Jacques Hérold, Yves Tanguy, and Victor Brauner.[4]
And this is another example created by Esteban Francés, Remedios Varo, Oscar Dominguez, and Marcel Jean.[5]
When it comes to Fashion, there’s a digital example based on the last sentence in André Breton’s novel Nadja: “Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all”. The video was conceived by Jerry Stafford and directed by photographer and director Sølve Sundsbø. The interaction is made in frames and the aim of the video is to show how fashion is in constant movement and playing with metamorphosis. Although the different frames in some way relate to each other (the vertical position and using Lara Stone as the only model), the exquisite corpse technique –where each frame represents a fold of paper– is used to bring certain surprise in the different assemblages.
[1] Gallix, Andrew (2013) The Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/jul/12/oulipo-freeing-literature-tightening-rules [Accessed: 12/31/2013]
[2] Rowe, Beverly Charles (2013) Beverly Charles Rowe’s webpage. Available at: http://www.bevrowe.info/Queneau/QueneauHome_v2.html [Accessed: 12/31/2013]
[3] Clerc, Lucille. (2013) Flip Fashion: The mix ‘n’ match Lookbook. England. Laurence King Publishing
[4] André Breton, Jacques Hérold, Yves Tanguy, and Victor Brauner, 1934, 10 1/8 x 6 1/2″ (25.6 x 16.5 cm), Pencil on paper.
[5] Esteban Francés, Remedios Varo, Oscar Dominguez, and Marcel Jean, 1935, 10 7/8 x 8 1/4″ (27.3 x 20.8 cm), Cut-and-pasted printed paper on paper.
Interactive Experience 