Mark Barrow

The publication is composed of a Catalogue of works and an artist book titled Redaction. The concept of the book was designed by Mark Barrow in collaboration with Stefano Cernuschi of Studio Mousse. Below, find an excerpted interview between Matthew Higgs and Mark Barrow.

Matthew Higgs: Can you say more about the Redaction book project you have been working on recently, and how you plan to present it – i.e. within a functional, furniture-like structure of your design.

Mark Barrow: The project is a conceptual piece that takes the form of book. It is called Redaction because it is a collection of texts and images I appropriated and also because I alter the texts by removing words. The basic conceit of the book comes from the linguists, Lakoff and Johnson: we can only understand concepts in terms of other concepts. To facilitate movement between concepts I try to pare the texts and images down to their basic elements— pixels and words. I also wanted to create the environment in which the viewer would interact with the book so I designed a table and stools on which to present it. The dimensions of the furniture are derived from the dimensions of a standard sheet of plywood. And the furniture’s design is meant to emphasize the individual plies of the plywood. The furniture is also a way to showcase Sarah’s fabric. Each stool is upholstered in fabric she designed based on ideas in the book about digital color space and weaving.