top of page
image00014
image00015

Katsumi Komagata. Du bleu au bleu. Tokyo: One stroke, 1994 (2013)

“The die-cut within the pages and the pages themselves cut into shapes, create physical depth and allow layers of surfaces to be seen through each other. As the reader turns from one page to another, the scene gradually changes, as if in a stage-like space with movable foreground, middle ground, and background. The theatrical effect of the material space of the book is further heightened when material qualities of paper like texture, transparency, and luminosity not only evoke features of the landscapes and characters within the story, but also call for certain movements of the reader’s hand, like turning, caressing, and flipping. The versatility of paper thus allows it to function to some extent as a semiotic code, and it is a language that is at the same time visual, tactile, and kinetic. In Blue to Blue, the book’s materiality is therefore inevitably connected with its theatricality.”

Honglan Huan. "Komagata’s 'Paperscapes': Theatricality and Materiality in Blue to Blue". Libri & liberi, vol. 8, no.2, 2019 (p. 295-296)

bottom of page