Jorn Ebner: Leif Codices
Artist(s):
Title:
- Leif Codices
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 2004
Category:
Artist Statement:
Leif Codices consists of two sections: 1. “Landscape” takes the viewer through a sequence of online animations that employ fragmented browser display and user activation as their main formal features. Landscape is understood in terms both personal and political. T he Pollen Station window hides a sequence of pollen windows (I understand pollen as analogous to minute invisible emotional units). The Go window activates the Propaganda Panorama, which refers to the construction of reality with a view to the recent war. 2. “Library,” by contrast, is a mere container for a series of artist eBooks: Pollen Connection Point, Border Patrol, Party Turnstile, Conflict Mountain, O[clk]tober, Road Works, and Equilibrium Panel. With the exception of O[clk]tober (an online diary of images collected from web sites that are daily updated and linked to news sites across the world), these books are available for download and off-line viewing. Their often complex structures merge abstract form and literal images in an idiosyncratic investigation into possible meanings of landscape, from the personally obscure to the politically obvious. Both eBooks and the online structure share formal aspects, and, in some cases, also imagery. One is reflecting on the other. The eBooks can be owned by the user; the structure is available only online. The work is a mainly self-contained structure. Only its links from the Ocktober HTML-eBook provide a connection to the everyday world presented through the internet. This work was made possible through an AHRB Research Fellowship at Newcastle University.
Technical Information:
The online structure is best viewed on Internet Explorer 5+ and requires a Flash 5 plug-in. It works best with a fast connection.
The eBooks require Acrobat Reader 5+. Except for two of the
eBooks, they are for Macintosh only. Acrobat Reader for Windows does not open the sub-books in new windows as the Macintosh Reader does. Each book is a small application in itself.
The work was conceived as a sculptural online work in which the small windows are placed like objects in a space. It uses Javascripted windows in conjunction with Flash animation. There are three different versions to accommodate three different screen sizes. For its graphical appearance, “Landscape” is intentionally making use of the browser’s
capability to use several display windows at the same time in
order to show its possibilities compared to video art. It is also an alternative proposition for use of the usual browser interface.
The eBooks are both linear and non-linear structures: the user can simply use the arrow-buttons on the keyboard to browse through the books or discover hidden links within the pages. Pollen Connection Point, Border Patrol, Party Turnstile, and Road Works also contain sub-books and parallel books for the user to discover, whereas Conflict Mountain and Equilibrium Panel only have one image sequence. Each work employs PDF technology with Javascript to create a new form of electronic book (or book in general), that can also be printed out as a picture series. Each, with the exception of
O[clk]tober, is a self-contained, computer-based work of art.
O[clk]tober displays images in small individual browser windows that provide links to the contemporary world of news information: the main source of literal imagery throughout Leif Codices.
