Reversing the roles
The Tomorrow Book Studio (in particular Eva Moulaert and Jens Schildt) will produce a series of 6 booklets/sections. These booklets are not intended as ‘documents’ that present a past event. These booklets will be like an exhibition space, a framework which is offered to each participant, culminating in a book as a publicly distributed exhibition in Los Angeles.
‘In a ‘normal’ situation a commissioner gives you the content and asks you to make something ‘nice’. Here the designer starts a capsulated, isolated monologue with their screen. The first step in the cooperation with Los Angeles Works was that Tomorrow Book Studio gave the LA Works group a grid, our content, and we allow them to adapt to that. Being aware of the grid, while looking for and editing their content, makes them consider how and why to choose a specific content. It is a radical way of reconsidering the relationship between designer/commissioner and for us it is an attempt to get involved differently in a project and trying to reach a point where we are both commissioners and designers at the same time. We want to avoid the split situation between the author and the designer followed by a pdf traffic.
By giving the participants of Los Angeles Works the grid we give ourselves more space (not to be confused with stepping out of the project and letting them do all the work). We create for ourselves a wider margin that enables us to grasp the material on a higher, more in-depth level. We want to work in a closer relation to the publication’s contributors. We want to follow their way of thinking, their steps, their decisions more closely. The artist makes the first move but together we create a fitting language that we think is worth publishing.
We choose to work with an already existing grid: the Metropolis M grid. We had the idea of using an existing grid in the same way we use the existing grid of a city. Perhaps grids in publications like Art of America or Learning from Las Vegas would better fit into the concept of a city, since we are working of the city of Los Angeles. But we opted for the MM grid because of the importance of the margin and to be able to have a discussion with the designers of the grid, Stuart Bailey and Will Holder. This grid is also a tool for us in the sense that we want to start a conversation with Will and Stuart and while talking to them we will learn how to use the grid. Maybe more interesting is to get to know their way of working (always in very close cooperation with people) and to make this way of working public.
Our research concerns first of all the design of the publications we make together with the LA Works group. We want to make a publication with them on the spot as one of the issues. It’s the moment when we all come together and we want to use this to make an issue out of a more collaborative spirit where all their different projects touch in an interesting way. This issue will take the spur of the moment into account and together we decide on the content once we are in Los Angeles. We plan to spend some time with them during their investigations in Los Angeles also, to get more into their specific projects. We want to interfere with and react to what they’re doing.
The city of NYNY developed in a very organized and grid-like way; LA grew more organically. Our aim is to grow organically but to steer clear of traffic jams.’