Fw:Books (Hans Gremmen & Petra Stavast), publisher
Edges of the Experiment, published by FW:, 2015
Edges of the Experiment – The Making of the American Landscape investigates the idyllic notion of the American landscape, and shows which elements contribute to the iconic landscape, and at what cost they can be maintained. It describes the thin line between nature and civilization: how did the landscape evolve, and where are the interfaces between the organic and the artificial world, and do they fail or succeed? Edges of the Experiment is a two volume publication. Volume one shows over 60 photographs made over a period of ten years by Jongerius. Volume two is a collection of essays about the making of the American landscape, with texts by Mark Pimlott, Mishka Henner, Rixt Bosma & Jeremy Rowe, Hans Gremmen, Kristof Swaegers, Warren Techentin, Raymond Frenken, Elian Somers, Matthew Coolidge & Megan Steinman, Taco Hidde Bakker & Felix van de Vorst, Alex Lehnerer and William L. Fox.
On which fields of knowledge are you focused?
Photography, art, architecture, theory.
What is the object of your research?
Editing and design must come together in an organic and experimental way. Fw: Books makes connections between different disciplines and aims to let them work together, creating new insights for both fields of activity.
Could you identify some constants in your work?
The Imagination of the American Landscape.
How did you find out about Aby Warburg’s work?
We’ve got to learn about the intruiging life and work/methods through this project actually. Many things interest us and apply to our working methods; the ‘fluent’ or emotional usage of images, the shift in context of an image/object.
How would you define an Atlas?
An organized collection of divers material.
Atlas as a conceptual, formal and mnemonic device; do you use it in your work?
In making books, we approach each projects as an atlas; our aim is to make a body of work accessible.
Do you know about the existence of Mnemotechnics?
Yes, mostly through rhytm (in text, images, sound)
Which mnemonic system guides the organization of your material?
In the process of making a body of work into a book, using alternative systems to introduce the work and information.
In your work, what is the balance between image and text?
This balance can vary from no text (Stephan Keppels books for instance) to text books (Taco Hidde Bakker) or 50-50 (Are They Rocks or Clouds /Edges of the Experiment).
Thinking about Warburg’s ‘good neighborhood rule’, what are the books that underpin your project?
All titles of Ed Ruscha
Into The Sunset, Photography’s image of the American West (Moma)
General View – Thomas Albdorf (Skinnerboox)
Learning from Las Vegas – Venturi, Scott Brown, Izenour (MIT Press)
Gods Own Junkyard – Peter Blake (Holt/Rinehart/Winston)
From Here to There – Alec Soth (Engberg)
The Great Unreal – Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs (Edition Patrick Frey)
Wisconson Death Trip – Michael Lesy (Unmpress)
Fw:Books is an Amsterdam based independent publisher with a focus on photography and related topics. Photography is a unique medium; it doesn’t have a fixed way of revealing itself. We see the choice to make a book as a choice to make a new work. Fw:Books is a collaboration between Hans Gremmen (designer, editor), Petra Stavast (artist), and Karin Krijgsman (writer, curator).