Is This the World’s First One-sided Continuous Photography Book?

diciembre 21, 2019

Is This the World’s First One-sided Continuous Photography Book?

Hoods – Möbius Edition may be the first-ever continuous, one-sided photography book. It is formed from a Möbius strip, a mathematical surface with only one side. This means that the book can be read from any starting point and to any point at which the reader wishes to stop or gets tired.

It is based on the standard edition of the book (two-sided pages, bound together) and features a collection of photos taken in Cuba in 2017 of the weird and wonderful car hood ornaments I saw there.

Why?

In April 2019 I received a short story in the post from one of my favorite authors, Robin Sloan, which the postage label described as a ‘One-page work of fiction’. While this was true, it was one page printed on both sides, so it set me off wondering how a one-SIDED book could work.

As my dad is a Mathematician and introduced me from an early age to anything that might get me into maths, I already had the means to make this idea, thanks to learning about the Möbius strip. This magical shape is very easy to make and has lots of strange properties (especially when you start cutting one along its length once or more).

In terms of what would go on this book, if it were fiction, the end of the story would have to lead perfectly back to the start, with a plot that made sense in an infinite loop (and preferably could be started at any point). It was slightly easier to do as a photo book, and I sequenced the photos for the standard edition of the book by color order, knowing I would eventually make the Möbius edition.

Product details: Width: 60mm, Length: ∞mm, 170gsm Silk + glue. Boxed Yellow Edition, 1 copy, with signed certificate of authenticity. £1,000 + P&P from Austria. 40% of profits go to Lupus UK. You can buy it here.

About the author: Michael Goldrei is a Vienna, Austria-based street and documentary photographer who originally hails from the UK. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Goldrei’s work shows the humour, mundanity and colour of everyday life and has been featured by The Guardian, BBC, Time Out, Slate.fr, Il Post, Buzzfeed, Eyeshot, Gizmodo, South Bank London, Londonist, and Vogue Italia’s PhotoVogue. You can find more of his work on his website, Facebook, Flickr, and Instagram. This article was also published here.