Brief: answer the ISTD 2021 Brief asking for a radical retelling of Italo Calvino’s novel “Invisible Cities” for a new edition to be published in large format.
Solution: for this project, I imagined the character of Kublai Khan, emperor, as a character in modern times. Initially, I discovered the importance of pattern within the book structure. I learned about “patternicity”, which is the brain’s ability to make connections when there are none, leading to conspiracy thinking. From there, I focused on the word radical. I started theorising that if alive today Kublai would likely be a conspirator. This retelling shows selected cities through his eyes and the conspiracies within the cities found through these seemingly meaningful connections.
Five conspiracies chapters take the reader on a journey down the rabbit hole. At the end of the book, a truth chapter explaining the mechanics of patternicity and conspiracy thinking brings them back out the other side. His entire dialogue has been extracted and runs as a single line of red text through the book, signifying his train of thought. Each chapter has a visual language and type behaviour that speaks to its conspiracy. The degeneration of his mind is represented by a gradual darkening and destruction of the pages, with gritty and dirty textures made by hand and photographed.
Initially, I struggled to create the tension and darkness of this conspiracy world, and the analogue image-making was the answer in the end. I was limited with technology but was able to create the expressive backgrounds I wanted. They give the book texture and depth and make the smooth pages deceptively tactile.
This project is one of my favourites because of both the process and the end result. It allowed me to let go and forced me to get messy, push myself and make mistakes along the way.
I received a Pass result for this project and am now a member of the ISTD.
