Flother
November / 2018
Documentation of an accidental mark-making process
︎ Bookbinding / Process-led
An investigation on short lifespans and irreproducible moments. After many experiments melting a mixture of ice and ink I discovered a new process of mark-making. When the ice of the blended mix melted, the ink separated and crystallized into a unique shape. Flother, meaning snowflake, is a hapax legomenon, which describes a word of which only one instance of use is recorded. The concertina publication evidences each individual flother, encapsulating one of them in a display box to capture it’s decay.
Flother is an exploration into the place that process takes in the world of value. We are inherently attracted to uniqueness, prioritizing hand-made and laboured artefacts over mass-produced items.The irony in the process is found by batch-making the mix and freezing the 36 ice cubes together. Mass produced up until the irrepeatable moment of melting, where the value of the outcome is inreased due to its individuality. An inimitable instance, where an ice cube carries out its entire lifespan, creating a singular ink flake, and a trace of its melting pattern.
