Simon Schubert: In Apnoesie

May 12, 2009 4:40 PM

2D artwork created by 'simply' folding paper.

By German artist Simon Schubert

posted by gman (28 comments total)

For easier navigation, use the minus or plus symbols which appear near the top left/right of each piece when you scroll over.
posted by gman at 4:46 PM on May 12, 2009

Ghostly. Lovely find.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:48 PM on May 12, 2009

Love this stuff-- almost posted it earlier today, in fact. But DAMN I just don't understand what it is with artists and photographers and horrible flash interfaces.
posted by dersins at 4:48 PM on May 12, 2009

It's not Flash. It's Javascript.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:52 PM on May 12, 2009

It's not Flash. It's Javascript.

My mistake. I'm no tech guy. I made the assumption because it appears to behave similarly to all those annoyingand horrible flash sites that artists and photographers seem to flock to, slow load times and all. Of course maybe all of those sites are javascript as well. Whatever the hell they are, though, I can't stand them.

As I said in my initial comment, though, I love this artwork, regardless of how annoyed I might be at the presentation.
posted by dersins at 5:00 PM on May 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

stupidcommentoftheday: holy shit.
posted by artof.mulata at 5:15 PM on May 12, 2009

Yes. These days, you can make the same sort of horrible interfaces with Javascript that once required Flash.

(Did everyone not get tired of the slowly-resizing lightbox zoom effect about two years ago? After you wait through it twice, it's painful.)
posted by rokusan at 5:19 PM on May 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

The interface seemed OK to me.

And the art: Wow. That's some good stuff. I was trying to imagine doing all that folding and skipping in the right places and I was all, damn. But then I realized you could just use a stylus and press the creases in. Still, pretty awes.
posted by DU at 5:19 PM on May 12, 2009

Also, seconding artof's sacred excrement at the work itself.
posted by rokusan at 5:20 PM on May 12, 2009

It looks cool, but I wonder if the building perspectives are rubbed reliefs rather than folded paper?
posted by doobiedoo at 5:21 PM on May 12, 2009

This is beautiful stuff.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:23 PM on May 12, 2009

It looks cool, but I wonder if the building perspectives are rubbed reliefs rather than folded paper?

That's what I thought. How is it topologically possible to create such isolated folds?
posted by Tube at 5:28 PM on May 12, 2009

He sure likes the inside of that house.
posted by orme at 5:30 PM on May 12, 2009

"For his first solo exhibition at upstairs berlin Simon Schubert has created an accessible room. Ceiling and walls are covered completely with panels of paper folds in which other works of paper are embedded."
posted by gman at 5:36 PM on May 12, 2009

There is some stuff that definitely looks hard-pressed to have been folded.

Still, they're all incredible!
posted by movicont at 5:40 PM on May 12, 2009

The Google translation of his index page:

Simon Schubert designed rooms of paper, to living rooms across from wrapping. Complete with a derangierten, in its shape only hint of real people and some lamps is everything in these rooms from pleated paper: the jacket on a bracket on the wall, a bed, a picture.

In a subtle shift in the real Schubert questioned levels of transience, disappearance and vulnerability and translates them into a physical reality. Furthermore, he negotiated the idea of a crisis in the consciousness of modernity become brittle consistency of identity and world.

It went around a portrait of Samuel Beckett showed the Schubert, also on paper as an image carrier, characterized by intricate convolutions. In the folding takes place some form of physical registration, the image-makers at the same time threatened and shapes.

In barely noticeable interplay of positive and negative convolution arises, depending on the viewing direction, a sculptural portrait, but the next moment again invisible to the interview. This portrait, shimmering between two-and three-dimensionality, drawing and relief object image and is characterized mainly by the reduction of design elements. Again and again, it seems to tilt into nothingness, it displays the variable in the change of light or the viewer position.

Magdalena Kröner

I liked it. It reminded me of how I felt the first time I heard some of those ethereal 4AD bands when I was a kid.
posted by not_on_display at 5:41 PM on May 12, 2009

That's wonderful, thank you for sharing it.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:43 PM on May 12, 2009

Beautiful.
posted by rtha at 5:47 PM on May 12, 2009

fave fave fave fave fave!

Thanks so much for sharing this; I am a huge fan of folded paper artwork, and I had never heard of this guy until today. Very pleased to find him :)
posted by EricGjerde at 5:52 PM on May 12, 2009

Love the effect. This reminds me of a neat computer graphics research project [PDF] that turns 3D models into bas-relief carvings.
posted by teraflop at 5:58 PM on May 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

Thanks so much for sharing this; I am a huge fan of folded paper artwork, and I had never heard of this guy until today. Very pleased to find him :)

That's an understatement! From EricGjerde's profile - http://www.origamitessellations.com/
posted by gman at 5:58 PM on May 12, 2009

Those are stunning, but I refuse to believe there isn't technology involved at some stage of the process.
posted by fire&wings at 6:00 PM on May 12, 2009

Hehehe... well I definitely am interested in this sort of work as it's directly applicable to some of my own, so there's some desire for understanding on my part here, surely.

Tube asked about whether this is folded or not - unless Simon Schubert is just inhumanly skilled, I would guess these were scored/embossed lines (either very skilled work by hand, which is possible, or using a computer device like a CraftROBO or similar plotting cutter). Like using an empty ballpoint pen and pushing down hard. This would crease the paper somewhat and put in a fold orientation to it, lending to a 3D effect. Given the slight irregularities I am going to make an assumption that he did all of this scoring/embossing work by hand. Wow.

What that also means is he worked on these pieces from both sides of the paper... now that's really hard to do without mucking up the work you made previously.

It isn't folded though, per se, because making curved folds by hand (without some sort of tool) is pretty darn near impossible - there's no "straight line" to fold, but an infinite number of straight lines, and that's hard to make happen without using a single point of contact with the paper (like a stylus).

Not sure if that helps answer any of your questions, but hopefully it sheds some light on this rather splendid and complex work.

(he also works pretty large scale, which IMHO lends credence to handwork vs. machine.)
posted by EricGjerde at 6:07 PM on May 12, 2009 [4 favorites]

Love the work. Very cool.

I wonder about the collector value. Temporary art is amazing, and I respect the notion, and respect its place in academia. Buying the piece...maybe in a temperature controlled vacuum, way down in the bowels of an underground manor. It might be safe.
posted by Benway at 6:43 PM on May 12, 2009

I would guess these were scored/embossed lines...

I agree. In fact, I said as much upthread.

That said, in re: the question of topological possibility: It is possible to cut out any given set of straight lines in a single straight-line cut after folding. So theoretically, he could also create all the creases at once (at least all the valleys at once and then all the mountains at once) if he had some kind of magical paper that wouldn't store the intermediate folds.
posted by DU at 6:43 PM on May 12, 2009

The folded work is fabulous. However, the Cousin It sculptures are not really my cup of tea.
posted by digsrus at 7:17 PM on May 12, 2009

Very impressive. I wonder how versions ended up in recycling before the final versions we see here.
posted by Sargas at 7:43 PM on May 12, 2009

2D artwork created by 'simply' folding paper.

um...i think u forgot a D
posted by sexyrobot at 9:45 PM on May 12, 2009 [1 favorite]