Bookwork > Twister Series

Large portions of a text block, with thousands of residential and business names, from both White and Yellow Pages of a metropolitan phone book are cut away. Parts of it are selectively removed, allowing the spine to be flexible, making it easy to manipulate, by physically twisting or contorting the book into different shapes. The deep cuts in the book reveals striations of black ink for the print and white bands for the columns on the white and yellow pages transforming them into a soft fabric. Pulled into a fixed position, the book appears to be tortured, reminiscent of circus contortionists that morph their bodies into humanly impossible shapes. When a number of phone books are seen in an installation, the chunky white and yellow books with black calligraphic like script appear to be floating across a vertical plane. They seem to be frozen in time as if a still photograph was taken of the books. Each book resembles a bird flying off balance caught in mid air, a humorous wizard’s hat or tornado called ‘twisters’ spinning out of control. Just as some species or birds are becoming extinct, metaphorically the printed phone book, one day, may no longer exist but will become virtual or paperless.