Elasticity, Fracture & Flow
Elasticity, Fracture & Flow is a form of palimpsest, superimposing extracts from a scientific text to write a form of concrete poetry. Each phrase is extracted from the text on the page directly beneath, attempting to unearth the affective or aesthetic content from a supposedly objective scientific text — within even the driest most technical texts there are phrases that evoke visual, emotional or sensual experiences.
The book was chosen for its title – Elasticity, Fracture & Flow – referring to properties of matter, qualities of language as well as states of mind. It has a motif of a twisted loop recurring in many permutations and layered with elements of drawing, a process moving backwards and forwards between the digital and analogue using an interplay of intention and chance, a creative freedom within constraints.
She has been making artist’s books for a number of years, finding old physics textbooks, removing each page and then printing or drawing on to each page before rebinding them in the original cover. This is the first time she has reproduced one of these unique books as a small edition. Rowena Hughes’s book works have been exhibited at Belmacz, the ICA, IMT, BreeseLittle galleries in London, Gebruder Lehmann Berlin, Arch Athens and Fotogalerie Vienna amongst others
Joint book launches alongside Florian Roithmayr's Waves were held at Radio Athènes gallery in Athens and Camden Arts Centre in London.
Elasticity, Fracture & Flow by Rowena Hughes
Cloth-bound, hardcover, full colour, 168pp
140 x 204 mm
Printed in an edition of 150
€30