Undo / *smilefaucet vol. 7

With nods to late-night literary advertising and a graphical homage to the covers found on Penguin-published books, this opening for *smilefaucet, a serial DVD project, desires the viewer to “undo” text presented on the screen. The fictitious book titles shown are anagrams and can be solved using the graphical hints provided adjacent to them. Once solved, the resulting text concerns a contemporary idea or occurrence that many in today’s world may wish they could “undo.” These subjects include The Patriot Act, Middle East Intervention, and Walter Reed.

Additionally, we composed a second companion audio track “Harmonics” to accompany a montage of projects for the DVD.

Wooden models of the book covers were handcrafted to exploit a simple visual illusion of scale and then combined digitally with other text and graphic elements.