The Constructivist City
The Situationist City
The Provotarian City
The Post-Punk City
The relationship between language and the city is one of the main themes of Superstructures – an exhibition that is simultaneously a reflection on the work of the Amsterdam-based graphic design studio Experimental Jetset, and a site-specific installation addressing the very notion of the city as a platform for language. As they explained: ‘Invited by RMIT Design Hub Gallery and the NGV to put together a retrospective show on the topic of our own work, we decided to somewhat broaden the theme, and seize this opportunity to turn the exhibition into a personal research project – a chance to look deeper into some of the themes that we find relevant to our own practice.
By focusing on four (sub-)cultural movements that have greatly informed the practice of Experimental Jetset (Constructivism, the Situationist International, the Provo movement, and the Post-Punk continuum) several graphic strategies will be explored by various ways in which the languages of these movements manifested themselves in the city, just as the city manifested itself in the languages of these movements.
Accordingly, the installation is constructed as a city in itself – an abstract representation of a fragmented metropolis, in which these different movements exist at the same time, not unlike overlapping districts or zones.
Based on a research project (and accompanying exhibition) by Experimental Jetset, the publication features footnotes written by Vasyl Cherepanyn, Leontine Coelewij, Linda van Deursen, Experimental Jetset, Owen Hatherley, Brad Haylock, Dirk van den Heuvel, Lieven Lahaye, Samata Masato, Tom McDonough, Kateryna Mishchenko, Other Forms, Mark Owens, Megan Patty, Adam Pendleton, Simon Reynolds, McKenzie Wark, Lori Waxman, and Mimi Zeiger, Ian F. Svenonius /Escape-ism (Alphabet Reform: exhibition soundtrack),
To celebrate the monumental task of putting together this exhibit and publications the pocketbook comes with a 24-page zine, zooming in on the design typology of the original exhibition.
conceived & design: Experimental Jetset
©2021 published by Roma 400
424 p, ills colour & bw, 11 x 18 cm, pb, English
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Full Scale False Scale is again part of Test Press Books #3 at KO-OP, Sofia / 12*-22 Oct 2023