Special Projects > Love and Reproduction

Object #7 : A Crash of Rhinoceri/Rhinoceros/Rhinoceroses

Stop! This blog entry will make more sense if you have received object #7

Welcome to the Thunderdome! There was a QR code printed on your object, but if you prefer a regular link, here you go.

Object Notes:

This poster was inkjet printed on 60lb Lynx paper. I debated on this or a nicer Cougar 70lb, but the Lynx kept the folds better. A lighter-weight Cougar (both papers are made by Domtar) would have been perfect, but THERE IS A PAPER SHORTAGE. I am happy to get what I can.

I copied a printout of Dürer's Rhinoceros and then copied that copy (and so on) a total of 25 times. Every photocopy artist knows that a slightly degraded image has more visual interest, although usually we don't go this far down the path. I started to notice a real difference with the 5th version, and things went pretty fast from there. I expected the lines to fill in, but I was not at all prepared for it to start migrating across the page. The poster contains images 0, 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, and 25.

Research Notes:

I've been thinking about the degradation of information a lot lately, especially the confluence of social media and conspiracy theories. I didn't want to get too on the nose with this project, so while taking a class on the history of printmaking with Phil Sanders and reading Prints and Visual Communication by William Ivins (who is a hoot, btw), I got to thinking about Albrecht Dürer and his made-up Rhino. He'd only ever heard about it, so he drew it to his best ability, but it isn't all that accurate. And while Ivins talks up printing as being the mechanism by which science can spread (gotta have reproducible images and text to get stuff out there) it is by no means a perfect technology. Accidental errors (and intentional ones) can multiply over time, and then we end up with a blurry beast only tangentially related to its antecedent.