SHELFLIFE #20B: COPY VOL.1
Leah Singer’s film work has always been mind-blowing. Her live performances with analyzer projectors are some of the most phenomenal bits of visceral human interaction with technology that I’ve ever had the good fortune to see. I remember when she first started talking about her concept for COPY. I was excited to see how her relationship with media would translate from film to serial book art.
At the time, she had been working in the archives of the New York Post as they were migrating to digital storage. She’d found a treasure trove of inspiration in the ruby-lith film that had been used and then, apparently, stored after being exploited to create photo knockouts in the pages of the Post. Drawn to the mysterious abstractions presented by the disembodied ruby-liths, Leah started editing simple, abstract layouts from the forms. They were essentially silhouettes. I’ve always been suspicious that an art director working on Apple’s iPod silhouette campaign stole the premise from the several volumes of COPY that had been released before anyone ever associated a silhouette with an MP3 player. I still am. Ad agencies steal oodles from underground ephemera.
Here’s the cover and centerfold from Leah’s first release:
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