마스트리히트의 얀 반 에이크 아카데미가 새로운 인쇄출판연구소(Lab for Printing and Publishing)를 만들어달라고 요청했을 때 나는 리소 더플리케이터가 중요한 역할을 할 것임을 깨달았다. 나는 수년간 주로 그래픽 디자이너와 함께 단골 인쇄소와 제본소들을 통해 오프셋으로 인쇄된 책을 만들었다. 우리는 언제나 시험 인쇄본을 검토했음에도 예술가들은 자신의 손을 떠나 작업의 주된 부분을 외부 전문가에게 의뢰하는 것을 항상 불편히 여겼다.
리소 더플리케이터가 이 환경친화적인 연구소에서 중요한 임무를 맡게 됨으로써 예술가들은 제작 과정에 매우 가까이 머물며 자신들의 취향에 맞게 결과물을 조정할 수 있었다. 또한, 우리는 A부터 Z까지 소규모로 아트북을 만들 수 있는 주변 장비를 제공했다. 그렇게 찰스 나이펠스 연구소(Charles Nypels Lab)가 탄생했고 성공을 거두었다. 저렴한 비용으로 인쇄기를 직접 마주할 수 있다는 점 외에도, 선명한 색상을 보여주는 스텐실 인쇄 특유의 거친 미학은 많은 예술가와 디자이너들에게 가장 매력적인 특징으로 받아들여졌다.
오프셋의 세계에서 오랜 기간을 보낸 나에게 스텐실 인쇄로의 전환은 큰 해방감을 가져다준 경험이었다. 미묘한 색상의 제어와 해상도에 관한 문제들, 그리고 미시적 수준의 핀맞춤 등 수많은 스트레스 요인들이 갑자기 사라졌고 다시 내용에 집중할 수 있게 되었다.
아이러니하게도, 요즘엔 엄청난 노력을 쏟아 더 매력적인 리소 컬러차트와 매뉴얼을 제작하는 동료들이 늘어나고 있다. 대부분 고객과의 소통을 위한 것이거나 순수하게 즐거움을 얻기 위한 것이지만, “제어할 수 없는 것을 제어하려는” 시도도 있다.
(당시 찰스 나이펠스 연구소로 알려졌던) 인쇄출판연구소가 주최하는—리소그래피 분야의 주요 관계자들이 모여드는—격년제 행사 매지컬 리소(Magical Riso) 컨퍼런스에서는 리소에 CMYK 색상 생산을 시작해달라는 요청이 반복되는 주제다. 나는 리소가 이를 거부하길 진심으로 바란다. 그렇지 않으면 우리가 사랑하는 스텐실 기법이 “가난한 사람의 오프셋”으로 격하되고야 말 것이다.
스벤 틸락의 <익스플로리소: 로우테크 파인 아트(Exploriso: Low-tech Fine Art)>는 리소그래피에 대한 새로운 기준을 세우려는 용기 있는 시도로, 기술적 측면에 초점을 맞추고 있다. 다행히도 스텐실 기법이 그 어느 때보다 활발하기 때문에, 이와 같은 출판물이 앞으로도 정기적으로 업데이트될 것이라고 생각한다. 많은 젊은 동료들이 이 모험을 시작하고 있다. 스펙터 북스가 이 책의 영어판을 세상에 선사한 것에도 감사드린다.
조 프렌켄
얀 반 아이크 아카데미 인쇄 및 출판 연구소장
얀 반 아이크 아카데미, 마스트리히트
When I was asked to set up a new Lab for Printing and Publishing at the Van Eyck in Maastricht, I immediately realised that the Riso Duplicator would play an essential role in it. For many years, I worked, mostly with graphic designers, on publications printed in offset by a selected group of printers and bookbinders. Artists always felt uncomfortable to give main parts of the production out of their hands to external professionals, even though we always monitored the test runs.
By giving the duplicator a central role in an environmentally friendly lab the artists could stay very close to the production process and make adjustments to their liking. Additionally, we offered peripheral equipment to be able to produce low edition artists’ books from A to Z. The Charles Nypels Lab was born and proved to be a success. Besides the argument of direct and low-cost accessibility to a press, the typical raw aesthetics of stencil printing with its vibrant colours are the most appealing characteristics embraced by a large and growing group of artists and designers.
After a long period in the offset world, the transition to stencil printing was a very liberating experience to me. Suddenly a lot of stress factors in production fell away, like subtle colour controls, resolution issues and registration on a micro-level. The focus was on content again.
Ironically, nowadays more and more appealing Riso colour charts and manuals are produced by colleagues who put a lot of effort into it. Mostly to communicate with their clients or out of pure joy, but also in trying to “control the uncontrollable”.
At the biennial Magical Riso conference organised by the Printing & Publishing Lab [then known as Charles Nypels Lab], a gathering of the main players in Risography, the request to Riso to start producing CMYK colours is a recurring topic. I truly hope that Riso will resist, it will degrade our beloved stencil technique to a “poor mans offset”.
Exploriso: Low-tech Fine Art by Sven Tillack is a courageous undertaking to write a new benchmark to Risography, with a focus on its technical aspects. I can imagine a publication like this will have regular updates in the future since fortunately, the stencil technique is more alive than ever. Many young colleagues are starting the adventure. I’m grateful to Spector Books that they provide the world with an English edition.
Jo Frenken
Head of the Jan van Eyck Academie Printing & Publishing Lab
Jan van Eyck Academie, Maasticht
A traditional, as well as widespread perception of art, is that art and technology contradict each other: Art defines itself by differentiating itself from technology, while technology is not art simply by virtue of being technology. In this concept, technology is seen as mechanical, dead and simply convenient, while art is seen as organic, alive and intrinsically logical. If you understand, however, that there is no art without technology, this distinction seems less plausible. Of course, it all depends on the question of what exactly is meant by technology. What is meant is not technology in terms of advancing the practical domination of nature, but of specific artistic procedures as well as artistic media. Artistic procedures refer to principles; those that constitute the artwork and those that help the artwork arrange its materials. This includes not only the individual use of the conventional subdivision of the tonal system into twelve semitones in the European music tradition in each musical work.
It is understood as a special process of reassembling sound by organising it in a certain way. On the contrary, it also includes a process such as that in Michael Hanekes Caché, in which the narrative uncertainty about the status of some cinematic images gives the whole movie an uncertain status. It is similar to a method like in Thomas Bernhardt’s Extinction: language is organised within the framework of an exaggerated narrative attitude so the topics dealt with are brought to a calculated as well as grotesque escalation. Artistic media, however, is to be understood as what is used in the production of the artwork and what makes that specific piece of art possible in the first place.
This obviously does not just include paper and pen, but also cameras and computers — as well as the process of risography. One characteristic of artistic media is that they turn into artistic media solely through use. Not everything produced with a pen is art. Not everything edited with a computer is art. And not everything produced with a risograph is art. Sven Tillack’s reflections on the history, technique, and aesthetics of risography also contain elements of what one might call the aesthetics of risography. It would not exist solely or primarily in the plane of the appearance of what was created using the process of risography.
It would rather comprise a special, aesthetic use of risography.
Sven Tillack’s reflections give some indication as to what that might entail. In the case of slight registration inaccuracies rendering the prints no longer “clean” and replaceable, risography offers special aesthetic options: the objects that were manufactured with it are now, in an aesthetic way, a reflection of their own manufacturing process. It is comparable, but not exactly identical, to using defective printers that leave artefacts on the prints or using devices that instantly fail in a calculated way. It should not just be about the technique of aesthetics, but also about technology being rendered aesthetic.
In the case of risography, this quite literally inscribes itself to the products and uncovers the peculiarity of their production.
As a whole, Sven Tillack’s book shows that risography, in its unclear status between being merely a technical procedure and a specific aesthetic, is an interesting subject for aesthetic practice as well as theory because its possibilities are far from having been explored to exhaustion.
Prof. Dr. Daniel Martin Feige
Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics
in the Design Departement of the
Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design
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