Formskifter is an artistic development project that explores how changes in publishing practices affect the fields of graphic design and illustration, where publishing has traditionally been a central arena. The project involves the entire faculty of graphic design and illustration at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

For this occasion, ROM is transformed into a “desk”—in more than one sense. The space is filled with tables, each dedicated to one of the participants’ projects. At the same time, the room functions as a newsroom, where a newspaper will be produced during the period. This desk will also serve as a venue for workshops, project presentations, reading circles, as well as teaching and student supervision.

The goal of the period is to give interested visitors an insight into the work while it is still in its initial phase, while also allowing the project to meet an audience and provide participants with valuable feedback, advice, and perspectives.

Program:

7–10 November, 12:00–16:00
Skriftprosjekt @ ROM Studio
Exhibition opening Thursday, 7 November, 13:00
This exhibition presents the results of the course Skriftprosjekt by third-year BA students in Graphic Design and Illustration.

7 November, 15:00–16:00
Panel discussion
PhD fellow Eirunn Kvalnes and Stefan Ellmer will discuss the materiality of writing and the relationship between handwriting and typography in an age of technological change.

15 November, 12:00–16:00
Parallax – et mini-seminar om et glemt modernistisk langdikt (registration required)
This seminar will explore Parallax, Nancy Cunard’s long poem designed and published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf at The Hogarth Press in 1925. Parallax is in dialogue with T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Hope Mirrlees’ Paris, both also published by The Hogarth Press between 1919 and 1925. Common to these works is their construction as journeys through inner and outer landscapes set in Central Europe after the First World War.
Further information and registration: https://khio.no/events/1996

17 November, 14:00–16:00
Meet the designers and illustrators of Formskifter!
On the final day, you are warmly invited to an informal conversation with the eight participating designers and illustrators. The group will give a brief introduction, while refreshments (and a bowl of Twist) will be served. Visitors are welcome to view the exhibition and talk with the participants about their publishing processes.

The people and their projects:

Andreas Berg, Professor of Illustration, explores in Illustration Teaching in the Age of Algorithms how digitalization affects the art of illustration and how it is taught.

Ane Thon Knutsen, Associate Professor of Graphic Design, investigates in Parallax Nancy Cunard’s path from poetry to establishing and running her own publishing house.

Lotte Grønneberg, Associate Professor of Graphic Design, explores in Post! how communication-based artistic publishing can take shape in a post-digital media landscape.

Eirunn Kvalnes, PhD candidate in Graphic Design, examines the relationship between writing, writing tools, and new digital technology through experiments with archives, datasets, and machine learning models.

Martin Lundell, Professor of Graphic Design, investigates in The Book as Place / The Place as Book the potential of the physical book to capture a physical location. Martin is the project leader for Formskifter.

Rune Helgesen, Lecturer in Graphic Design, attempts in My Days as an Anonymous Type-Cutter to revive the tradition of 17th-century coffin letters, but has so far ended up sonifying exoplanets in outer space.

Siri Dokken, Professor of Illustration with experience as a newspaper illustrator, examines in For Relocation how changes in the media landscape and reading on new platforms have affected the conditions for graphic satire.

Stefan Ellmer, Lecturer in Typography, explores in Against Typography! the relationship between letter drawing and typography in light of technological and commercial trends.