Much if not most of Internet artist Rafaël Rozendaal’s work, which (put simply) can be seen as a quest for the shape between shapes, can be found on the Web. His paintings are intriguing domain names linked to colour-rich experimental websites which are vastly popular and attract millions of visitors every year. One good example of his style is the inviting graphic declaration of love on this cover: www.muchbetterthanthis.com.
In every respect this book is a highly successful translation of Rozendaal’s work into a very well printed book. Not just in the recycling of material in which half-tone dots are a reference to printed matter, but also in the way you approach the medium: the book’s typography has you scrolling through it as if on a screen, with magenta and yellow mixed with dayglow ink to make the full colour images shine as if on an RGB monitor with the brightness set to 10.
Using the app (Here Hear) that can be downloaded free through a link in the book it was not immediately obvious how it worked. However, once it became clear that you could scan the coloured works and in that way convert them into sound, you could hardly not experiment – in the same way as Rozendaal’s work does. (We take the opportunity at this point to suggest you point the app at another book in this year’s selection, Colours on the Beach, which delivered a truly intriguing symphony of colour.)
A beautifully complete whole.