The Walrus - Music With Big Fuckin' Teeth!

04/16/2008

VISUAL NOTES: Pump The Letterpress Jams

Letterpress prints and upbeat tunes, my two life passions, have just been joined! Film producer Jörg Petri, electronic musician Michael Fakesch, and helpers from the University of Arts in Braunschweig, Germany have teamed up to create the official music video for "dot," a single from Fakesch's forthcoming solo album dos.

"dot", however, is far more than just a catchy track or blip on the screen. The carefully crafted video is a stop-motion animation created from over 300 letterpress-printed sheets of text, punctuation, and geometric shapes. Some of the lyrics are written out in movable type, and other parts rely on rhythmically bouncing shapes. The official DOT website tells me that these are also going to be bound into a limited edition book!

The project is based on the idea of the dot as universal image and punctuation across the genres of music, printmaking, and written word.

Check out the stills and process photos below:

Find more from Michael Fakesch on his MySpace page.

Find more photographs from the printing and filming on the Flickr slideshow.

VISUAL NOTES is brought to you by Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - a clothing company that hires innovative, contemporary artists to design exceptional and wearable pieces that combat the troubling possibility of artwork losing its presence and power in our image-saturated society.