Facebook. We use this word so often that it’s hard to remember the meaning. A book. With faces. While the book became a website and the faces have become full body shots, the basic essence of the site remains in its name. It’s an obvious pun, but someone had to do it: a recent post on Design Taxi tipped me off the work of Malaysian artist/architect Hong Yi. The artist carved out the face of Mark Zuckerberg in a stack of books, creating a strange portrait of the famous Facebook founder:
By cutting grooves into the pages of the books, Yi used the shadows that were formed to create the details of Zuckerberg’s face. After 36 books and 7 days later, Zuckerberg’s face was finally completed.
The video process certainly makes it seem a lot simpler than it was, and when it all comes together it makes you say, “Huh, it is Mark Zuckerberg.” I’m not sure if Hong Yi intended symbolism here, but she used A Feast of Crows as her book material. According to Wikipedia, the book is a story about the battle of wills amongst kings. In the end, the books topple, and the subject of the portrait is no more It got me thinking about a recent Fast Company article about leaving Facebook without losing your friends. Could the Facebook empire ever fall apart, or is it bound to stay on our virtual bookshelves? The timeline, as they say, will tell.
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Please don’t let Hyperallergic become a quirky design blog (this + Subway Maps of the Body). It’s just the worst gimmicky stuff.
Sorry you don’t like it, Tony. We allow our contributors to explore their own interests and contribute to the wider conversation about contemporary art. I hope people will find things they like, but we understand not everyone is into everything. An’s interests are in the intersection of art, design and technology and these posts explore her passion for the topics.