Jacob Blank

Typefarce 1 was a show of satirical and critical design pointed at and embedded within Typeforce, then in it's 6th year. Typeforce is an annual design show centered around the creative use of typography. The goal of Typefarce, which was independently curated by the design house Dgenerator, was to both empower designers to use satire and social critique while also calling into question it's effectiveness within the medium. Where does design fail to be critical?

Bēhance

Bēhance

What do we value most in design? Is it cleanliness, organization, purpose, or something else? Do Make Break poses a question to each of these values by allowing participants control over a shared design space. Provided with tiled laser prints, text, tape, and the permission to remove or alter anything they dislike, gallery-goers were given the opportunity to either make design or make a mess. Like much of my work, the ultimate goal of the piece was to explore alternative strategies of design. In the piece, there are two major zones of composition; the 4x4' square delineated by tape as well as the 3D zone of the clear trash bin.

Party Aphorisms addresses issues of continuing a queer visual and political lineage after the AIDS crisis. The work of David McDiarmid is pointedly political, acerbically humorous, and incredibly important to me despite only having access to his story and work through the Internet. For this piece, I borrowed heavily from his Rainbow Aphorisms series in an attempt to funnel it through the experiences, traumas, and trajectory of my own generation. The result is a failure to memorialize and instead is a critical reimagining which I believe is a very queer way to access history. I’ve decided to document this work through collecting photos from Instagram to further activate the idea of generation loss/re-contextualization.

Facebook event

Digital garbage / cutouts from screen-printed stickers on holographic paper, processed.

N-Space Video, 2:29

N-Space Gif Preview

OOHH MMYY GGAAWWDD. Sass Trip Shift is a 17-page photo zine complete with special gifts (a button+sticker). Laser and Inkjet, bound with pink, blue, red, and green thread. Pre-Order

I asked 24 people to take my photo in front of and inside Cloud Gate in order to capture the presence of both myself and my unknown collaborators. Alternatively, I attempted to insert myself into the travel photographs of others. To date, this is the only publicly available, independently produced photograph of my presence.

Blank #1 is my first zine for sale! It comes in a black on black cover (my favorite) and black on blue. Essentially, it's 16 pages of crunchy, hypnotic imagery made from the imagery of vintage computer graphics. Plus, it's hand-stitched with silver thread, comes in a handmade envelope, and includes some GUI icon cut-outs. All this beauty is only $3.50! Limited to 24.

BEAM OF LIGHT Digital Image from web design 3D Installation model, Alternative view 2014

Randomized gif, shape, and text layers merge to cycle through 1330 possible configurations.

VHS X DEMO

DEATH MASK Digital Image 2014

A re-make of a found vintage pattern. I would love to find the original designer.