quickness

Italo Calvino’s book Six Memos for the Next Millennium, despite the name, is divided into five parts. (the sixth was never released) Originally published in 1988, his concepts for the future of literature have a lasting legacy that hardly notice nearly thirty years have passed. The contents: Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity.

Focusing on the chapter, Quickness, some of the key words and concepts I drew on: divergence, chaos, connectedness, constant motion, relativity, repetition, flow, simultaneity, scatter, elasticity, layer, rhythm, verse, narrative. Using a variety of media I made a series of compositions that reflected these concepts.

I spent a portion of my third year away from RISD, at Elisava in Barcelona, Spain. Though not asked to make up the course, I would have missed a crucial part of RISD’s education: the third and final chapter in the graphic design department’s typographical education. Rather than skip the course entirely, I had a rare opportunity to take it in the fall of my senior year, alongside the graduate students, instead of with my peers, the undergrads. This opened up my perspective immensely to what education at a graduate level is like at a very young age, giving me a rich new set of peers with whom to share ideas. I was also very fortunate that the course was taught by the famously best (in mine and many others’ opinions) professor RISD has seen throughout its history, Doug Scott.