Revolve:R

Revolve:R was initiated in 2011 by Sam Treadaway and Ricarda Vidal as a multidisciplinary and international collaboration. The project explores the transmission of ideas through collaborative forms of communication ranging from the physical and tactile (such as the sharing of original artworks via the postal service) to the digital and intangible (which includes a parallel interplay online). Besides visual artworks, Revolve:R includes poetry, film, soundscapes and music. The complete work of each Revolve:R edition is presented as a limited-edition bookwork. Revolve:R: edition three is available through Intellect.

Revolve:R: edition three is the result of a two-year-long collaboration, between 2016 and 2018, in which artists, poets, and musicians from around the UK, USA, Africa and Continental Europe created artworks in reply and response to one another. During this time many of the artworks featured have physically travelled many thousands of miles before coming together in this publication.

Edition three is a continuation of editions one and two (Arrow Bookworks, 2013 and 2015) which explored concepts relating to chaos theory, chance and synchronicity. The first artwork-page of Revolve:R, edition three (page 217) references the final artwork sequence from Revolve:R, edition two (ending on page 216). Throughout the evolution of this third edition the editors have continued the development of the initial ideas and working processes that formed the basis and structure of the original Revolve:R project and have further reflected upon the nature of collaboration. In doing so their awareness and consideration of certain parallels and connections between the artworks has developed their insight into the act of co-creation and the phenomenon of collective consciousness.

Each Revolve:R edition is formed of six rounds, or Revolves (effectively forming six chapters within the book), which follow the same pattern. A single 2D two-sided artwork of 21cm² is sent by post, to a number of invited artists with the request that they respond with an artwork of their own by a specific date. Thus the initial artwork sets in motion a multitude of alternative creative responses reflecting the recipients’ various ways of reading, interpreting and responding.

Revolve:R: edition three (Arrow Bookworks and Intellect, 2019) follows Revolve:R, edition one (Arrow Bookworks, 2013) and Revolve:R, edition two (Arrow Bookworks, 2015). All three Revolve:R editions also function as catalogues, and artworks are available...read more...