Hasta La Ideas

Fairytale story Alice in Wonderland becomes the backdrop for a dystopian world filled with fantastical structures in this competition-winning project by writer Kevin Wang and artist Nicholas O’Leary.

Wang and O’Leary, who studied together in New Zealand but are now based in England and Norway, won the competition run by New York organisation Blank Space to develop a modern fairytale set within a fantasy architectural environment.

Penned as the final chapter to Lewis Carroll’s famous story, Chapter Thirteen imagines “a bucolic yet futuristic world” where a grown-up Alice is battling to escape a wonderland that has become confining and frightening.

“The images were not intended to present an ‘ideal’ world, but one that is somewhere between dark and light, somewhere open for interpretation, a world between natural landscape and constructed cityscape,” Wang and O’Leary told Dezeen. “The architecture was integrated as architecture should be integrated – as an auditorium for life.”

“We tried to draw from nature to create the architecture of each image,” added O’Leary. “These floating balls were modelled on the structure of beehives, while other forms were inspired by mushrooms and fungi.”

The images were designed as a vertical journey through space, and gradually change colour from a yellowish green to a rich red. “We imagined a linearity from morning through to evening,” said O’Leary.

The project was chosen ahead of 300 other entries, judged by a panel that included architect Will Alsop, interior designer Nigel Coates and University of Minnesota professor Jack Zipes.

“The need and will to communicate universal messages resonates with every entry to the competition,” said Alsop. “Each entry is infused with topics and themes both inspired by the participants’ extremely diverse cultural backgrounds and from commonly shared thoughts and preoccupations about architecture’s role in today’s world.”

Scroll down to read the story text:

Chapter Thirteen

Tonight, I will end this life.

This is not the world I grew up in. A chess piece pinned on a two hundred square foot white box. Bounded. Absolute. Unrelenting walls inexorable after the hours I stare. Whispering a language without articulation, its only response the occasional pounding from the other side. A glimpse of life beyond these walls in the briefest of moments returns stoic as the door slams shut. Severed from desire, yearning of what is beyond reach. A barrier exists unseen and unnoticed. Few inches of air that separate its surface to me. I clean, I polish, I scrutinize over these encapsulating shells. They surround my life, yet recede into the background. There is no reason for contact. There is no reason to exist.

I am tired of these blank walls confining me. These lines are static. They are unforgiving. My English Ivy at the corner never made her reach to the window, she would not last the winter. Her shriveled yellow leaves scattered on the floor mixed in with strands of my fallen hair, barely a foot away from salvation. Her remains will slowly decay along with the carcasses of the rats that rule this city; the shadows that inhabit a world between ours.

Inside. Outside. They are no longer any different. Over-sized openings show me another interior enclosing my own prison. The world out there. Another cage with more restrictions. More rules. More limits. More of the cold steel, and hard concrete walls. Endless, and anonymous. They grow taller every year; perhaps reaching for fresher air, perhaps searching for a spot further away from the rest. I see open windows beyond my own, they show me adjacent bodies remaining completely unaware of the next, longing for signs of life. I am no different from them. No more free. No more wiser. Each compartment dressed for escape. Paintings, photographs, elaborate sculptures, all reminders of places far from here. I was once an eagle, the Queen of my world. Now a battery chicken, a body without organs. Feeding this city.

Don’t follow me. The unyielding pavement pounds against the bottom of my soles, vibrating the city up my spine. Don’t follow me. The cold pierces through my skin and pricks at my bones. Don’t follow me. The smell is nauseating, it lingers and reappears in my sleep. Don’t follow me. The stench of rot and fading life penetrates the city, disguised by chemicals of ocean fresh, lavender blossoms, white linen. I am pursued by those I cannot see. Constant noise wherever I go. Sharp sirens and low horns. Bangs of the steam pipes. Creaks of the floorboards. Stilettos against marble lobbies, and rattling of trains. A living corpse, this is the machine. This is the city.

I am disengaged with all that surrounds me. The footpath leads me to places I do not wish to go. This alienating city is bitter. Day after day I wake, I walk, I stand, and I sit. I am incarcerated within the flesh that has betrayed me. It takes me to spaces swarming with other lifeless forms, smashed inside a moving sardine can, transfixed to the sickly warm glow of the screen in their fat sticky fingers. Longing for connections in a virtual world. There is a thin film of slime on every surface. The metal bars smeared with fingerprints leave suggestions of previous life. Life, that is promised behind the posters. Life, that exists elsewhere. Vacant glances down to the ground, out of the darkened portholes partly obscured by the humid interior steaming up against the glass. Moist and stale. Suffocating. Occasional glimpses of flickering lights, and scribbles on surfaces defiant of the city. Still, there is no escape.

Where can I go? The city rejects me. Pounding lights and deafening sound, mixed in with smells of alcohol, smoke, and sweat, find me no refuse. Flocks of a new religion, looking for machines of freedom. Dripping bodies grinding against the next faceless form provide no more connection than my lifeless walls. It numbs whatever was left at the end of the day. Accepted obscenity in a neat box, with a cherry on top.

My body aches, movements prescribed. The city is the architect of my body, the puppeteer with invisible strings. It tells me where to walk, where to stand, and where to sit. I am judged wherever I go. Eyes from behind the curtains, above the newspapers and dirty magazines. They see me, they judge me, and they haunt my every move. See what good little girls and boys are made of. We stand in colored lines, moving one step at a time motioned by flashing numbers overhead. The factory floor of the human farm. Order inscribed into our psyche is not without constant reminders. Signs and lights burn into my eyes wherever I look. They say,
No Standing Anytime.
No Climbing.
No Sitting.
Keep Off, Private.
Green.
Orange.
Red.
Stop.
Every inch of this city screams at me.

No more attachments with this city, nothing would remain. I will not be missed, a headline soon forgotten. They called me crazy when I was younger. Last time I fell there was more. A world that moved me. A world with life. A wonderland created for the girl I was then. Now stuck in this moment that I’ve been told as truth, constructed with glittering gold. No more wandering blind. I have to get back.

I will fall. I will succumb to the city. Return to the blank slate, and we will be bound together in flesh and mind.

Eternally,
Alice L. Dodgson

The post Fantasy world based on Alice in Wonderland
wins architectural fairytale contest appeared first on Dezeen.

The Folio Society has published illustrated editions of classic fiction titles including The Day of the Jackal, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Life, the Universe and Everything.

Each hardback book is housed in a slipcase and includes a specially commissioned introduction and original illustrations: Frederick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal is illustrated by Tatsuro Kiuchi, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues by Jillian Tamaki and Life, the Universe and Everything (the third title in Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series), by Jonathan Burton.

All three artists have worked with the Folio Society previously – Kiuchi worked on The Sea, The Sea, Tamaki on Irish Myths and Legends and Goblin Market and Selected Poems, and Burton on PD James Cover Her Face, as well as the first and second novels in the Hitchiker’s series. (He also designed some great film posters for last year’s BAFTA programmes, which you can see here).

Kiuchi’s illustrations for The Day of the Jackal are particularly striking and appear alongside, above and underneath text throughout the book, depicting key scenes, characters and objects.

Sheri Gee, an art director at The Folio Society, says she was impressed with some “suspenseful” monochrome images on Kiuchi’s website and thought they would be a great fit for Forsyth’s thriller, which was first published in 1971. “Thankfully, the Folio team and author agreed,” she says.

“We’d had an idea to integrate some of the illustrations with the text, which Tatsuro worked really well with – he showed a great ability to work with text and composition [and] his illustrations have just the right attention to detail and level of suspense,” she adds.

Also in the illustrated fiction series is a new version of The Voyage of Argo featuring illustrations by Daniel Egneus. In April, the publisher is also releasing a Letterpress Shakespeare series to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the poet and playwright’s birth. Each of Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets and poems have been reproduced in hand bound books set in 16 point Baskerville.

Burton’s illustrations for Life, the Universe and Everything

For more info on any of the titles featured or to buy a copy, visit thefoliosociety.com

London and New York-based studio Empire Design has created a series of film-noir inspired posters for Richard Ayoade’s forthcoming film, The Double.

The Double is the second film Ayoade has directed. The first, Submarine, was released in 2010 and nominated for a BAFTA. Based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel of the same name, The Double follows the story of an awkward male lead (Jesse Eisenberg) who is driven to despair after his life is usurped by someone who looks exactly like him, but is his behavioural opposite.

Empire, which specialises in producing film ads and trailers including work for 12 Years a Slave, Dallas Buyers Club and Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom, created both photographic and illustrated ads which reference The Double’s title, its psychological themes and Ayoade’s artistic influences.

Images of Eisenberg and co-star Mia Wasikowska were shot on set by unit photographer Dean Rogers. Art director John Calvert says Empire was given exclusive access to the script and set to ensure the team had “a real feel” for visuals and lighting before designing the campaign.

Once the film was finished, Empire was briefed by Ayoade and Studio Canal and asked to convey a claustrophic atmosphere, as well as referencing the well-known leads and director.

“Richard also had some specific references such as the Jean Luc Godard movie Alphaville, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, the poster for Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samurai, film noir movies of the 1940s and a self portrait by Edvard Munch. We then went away and produced around of 10 to 15 visuals, [which] were refined…until we ended up with a look everyone was happy with,” explains Calvert.

The photographs use lots of deep shadow and were lit from a single overhead bulb. “There’s very little, if any natural light in the film and you never see any sky,” adds Calvert. Type is inspired by lettering used in French posters from the 1960s but Calvert says it was given “a slight hand drawn roughness” to avoid looking too much like a retro pastiche.

The illustrated ad (above) is inspired by one promoting Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, The 39 Steps, which features similarly bold 3D type. In keeping with the darkness and sense of claustrophobia conveyed in the photographic posters, the cityscape pictured is largely in darkness and long shadows have been added to letters for an ominous feel.

The only light in the poster comes from a spotlight shining on a lone protagonist, which Calvert says was added to give a sense of scale (La Boca and Human After All used a similar technique to great effect in their posters for this year’s BAFTAs)

“I built [the poster] using Adobe Illustrator, then added texture and shading in Photoshop. We then gave it to an illustrator, Warren Holder, who drew over the top of it to get more of a sketched feel. The drawing was then dropped back over the Photoshop file and the two merged together,” says Calvert.

Designing film posters that are bold enough to cut through the visual noise of large cities without being garish is always a challenge, but Empire’s posters for The Double do just that. They convey all of the necessary information on the film’s famous cast and acclaimed director, while creating a sense of suspense through a contemporary take on classic artwork from decades past.

The Double is released in UK cinemas on April 4. See more of Empire’s work here.

The Royal College of Art’s anonymous postcard exhibition and fundraiser returns for its twentieth year later this month. This year’s contributors include Milton Glaser, Pete Fowler, Grayson Perry, Jarvis Cocker, Paul Smith and David Bailey.

More than 2,900 artworks will be displayed anonymously at RCA’s Dyson Building in Battersea from March 13 to 21 and sold on March 22. All works are priced at £50 and as with previous years, buyers won’t know whose work they’ve bought until they’ve paid for it.

Contributors include RCA alumni and new designers as well as leading creatives and there is no set brief for submissions – work can be a painting, drawing or 3D sculpture provided its postcard-sized.

The event is sponsored by law firm Stewarts and proceeds will go towards RCA’s Fine Art student fund. For details and opening hours, see rca.ac.uk/secret.

L’artiste mexicain Ricardo Solis a fait des illustrations d’animaux qui sortent de l’ordinaire car il introduit dans son dessin des petits ouvriers qui oeuvrent à la création de l’animal en question en le coloriant. Cela rend l’illustration vivante et animée avec cette dimension de travail qui se réalise simultanément sous nos yeux.