Systems of recurrences

I'm delighted to announce that submissions are now being accepted on a rolling basis for FULL BLEDE Issue Four: The Pattern. Early submissions are encouraged.

When deciding on a theme for the next broadsheet I found myself thinking about repetition and sameness—in nature, in our built-environment, in our behaviour. The beauty of leaves, the grids of high-rise  buildings, the way I start out on the same route every time I walk my dog. Bad decisions in relationships, repeated. I thought about the attempt for sameness that results in randomness; never being able to be perfect in an outcome, despite making the seemingly same efforts over and over. Baking cookies: following the same recipe, shaping the same amount of dough, but each one is unique (and not always delicious). 

I thought about the epic images of Andreas Gursky. I spent many weeks looking at "Amazon," 2016 (this post's thumbnail). On first glance the image is order and precision, as is our idea of the company it depicts: the mega online retailer with it's super-smart algorithms and next-day shipping poweress. But longer looks reveal chaos, bizarre pairings of goods, and a sense of anxiety. The image is manufactured in part by the artist himself—he is creating and destroying the order. It is classical in its arrangement—consumer goods as a landscape, with a foreground, horizon, and a sky of boxes. He cuts and pastes parts of the image, creating a pattern of goods. It is also a depiction of the pattern of our buying behavior, which we may think is unique, but it turns out we all buy the same stuff.

Another favorite: "99 Cent," 1999.

I'm looking forward to how our collaborators will explore the theme for Issue Four: The Pattern. Details on the launch will be forthcoming. Like the first three issues it will correspond with an opening or closing reception of an exhibition at a Los Angeles gallery. That pattern too repeats.