Dick Raaijmakers – The Destructive Character

Book coverDick Raaijmakers – The Destructive Character
Book coverDick Raaijmakers – The Destructive Character
Book coverDick Raaijmakers – The Destructive Character
Book coverDick Raaijmakers – The Destructive Character

This little book with a text by composer, theatre-maker, multimedia artist and theorist Dick Raaijmakers generated a lengthy discussion amongst the panel. Some thought the explosion – in the book literally reproduced by laser-drilled holes in the pages and rendered visible to the reader in the form of an animation by dint of flicking through the pages from the inside out – was over the top; others thought it was a beautiful allegory of the chaos and destruction that Raaijmakers addresses in his text.

Here we have a no longer entirely new ‘dismantled and fragmented’ text about the relationship between destruction and art which has now been reworked and published. It is preceded by a 1931 essay by Walter Benjamin from which Raaijmakers borrows his title. This is a turnover book with Dutch and English text at opposite ends.

Edition: 2011
Language: English, Dutch
Final editor: Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
Publisher: Onomatopee, Eindhoven
Designer: Remco van Bladel in collaboration with Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
Printer: Lecturis, Eindhoven, ID Laser, Westzaan
Binder: Abbringh, Groningen
Dimensions: 139 x 200 x 17
Amount of pages: 184 p. + 24. p appendix
Number of copies: 750
Price: € 35
ISBN: 978 90 78454 66 3
Font and foundry: DTL Nobel
Binding style: sewn hardback
Material: 115gsm Munken Print White (interior), 115gsm Munken Print White (endpapers), Wibalin Natural White (binding)