Alphabooks Housed in 14” diameter circular cloth covered box, 1.75” high. Book text and images are photo-etched and printed on Fabriano Murillo. The boxes are covered in silver-grey Italian Cialux cloth. This unusual edition grew out of Claire Satin's groundbreaking (literally), permanent public art installation, Alphawalk, at Tampa Regional Library in Florida. There, tiles from ten alphabetic notation systems that span the globe and historic eras are embedded in the walkways and lobby in arcing pathways that form a processional. The texts, notations, and images that depict the history and development of the written language and individual letters, from prehistoric markings to contemporary alphabets, are reproduced and revisioned in the Alphabooks. Here, three wedge-shapes booklets of four pages each open to display eleven notations forming three full circles (the third completed by the title page) which, when opened out from the center, simulate the walk through history that Satin committed to the ground. The circular case of the book (14 inches diameter; 1.75 inches high) houses four pie-shaped books in a divided tray. The fourth reproduces images, phrases, poetry, and accompanying texts from and on the various cultures that have contributed to the development of writing and the modern alphabet. Though editioned, each copy is unique. Satin chose one figure from each system and fabricated tiles for the top covers which lifts from the bottom tray in the style of an old film canister. The eleven notation systems of the edition are: Prehistoric, Egyptian Hieroglyphic, Greek, Hebrew, Chinese, Arabic, Tibetan, Cyrillic, Cherokee, Mayan, and Roman. An impressive work. |
