Jimmy Luu has been developing an interesting body of work called The Office of Printed Ephemera. The work consists of letterpress translations of various electronic communications. The tension between analog and digital is a favorite topic at Printeresting so we thought we’d share some images of his recent show at St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX; the pictures don’t do the work justice but they should give you some sense of the project.
I had a few questions about the work and Luu was good enough to share his thoughts. I asked if there was a physical office and how quotes were chosen for printing. Here’s Luu’s response…
This piece is based on THIS.
Statement from the exhibition…
The Office of Printed Ephemera is a set of in-progress meditations about typography in the transitional space between so-called ‘old-’ and ‘new-’ media.
I have collected digital texts from sources such as Craigslist ads, blogs, and Twitter posts, whose long-term existence is not necessarily guaranteed nor considered. Each selected text is archived via an array of print-specific technologies including lithography, letterpress and silkscreen.
As I worked with these materials, the conflation of old typographic processes and my daily examination of digital texts created a space in which I began to develop a more refined awareness of just how much the tradition of typography has been disrupted by the digital. In response to this, I recorded my observations via essays and short notes in between long stretches of making prints in the studio.
This work is part craft, part critical writing, and part daydreaming. Mostly, it embodies the formation of a clearer position on how we can better reconcile the tradition of typography with the unyielding progress of technology.
Amidst the printed matter are LCD screens with a didactic feed.
