We* submitted this book to the Frankenstein exhibition in Liverpool Central Library (200 years since the publication of Frankenstein) – the lovely Simon Ryder organises an exhibition to go with the Liverpool Artist’s Book Fair every other year (two years ago Clare and I submitted a book to the Shakespeare exhibition).
It was fascinating reading Frankenstein – and realising that I didn’t really know much about the book. This book/sculpture was inspired by the debate between William Lawrence’s materialism and John Abernathy’s spiritualised vitalism, which Mary Shelley would have been familiar with, and the ideas of the time about electricity, mechanisms and life. The ‘book’ is in the form of a modular origami heart (made from two copies of Frankenstein) with origami elements, electric wire and little cogs flying out from it, tumbles of electrical wire in the heart and the whole mounted on printed circuit boards and an old electrical connecting panel.
Simon displayed in in pride of place in the exhibition and it looked great.
*Rock – Tree – Landscape (Clare and I). I do the making but we bounce about ideas together for the designs of our books.
