Hilke Kurzke ~ Germany

The Smiley Oracle
By Hilke Kurzke
Bonn, Germany: Hilke Kurzke, 2009. Edition of 16.

1.875 x 2.375 x 1.5"; 324 pages. 160 handprinted Smiley faces, cut from soft linoleum. Hand bound in a coptic-style binding. Housed in slipcase with laser-printed title. Includes information pamphlet (2.4 x 2.6"; 6 pages) and a paper "choice knife."

Hilke Kurzke: "In my work I investigate how books work, what it is that makes a book a book, what functions and structures are essential for its bookishness and which are not. The Smiley Oracle is the first of my works that comes in an edition; all previous works were one-of-a-kind. The edition is an integral part of this piece, since it investigates how the contents of a book can vary from reader to reader. (And therefore requires several readers.) The Smiley Oracle works like this: You pose a question, you open the book at a random page, and you see a printed smiley face. This face is then interpreted as the oracle answer to your question. Thus it can provide a lot of different 'content' depending on the questions different readers ask, and even for the same question, the answer may be different.

"The Smiley Oracle is a game, an oracle, and a piece of art, investigating the way readers interact with their books."
$58

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