Robert Rauschenberg + Donna Haraway
For a long, long time I’ve wanted to do a site like Prate. Jemma’s work was what first inspired me to learn Illustrator, in a futile attempt to make mine look more like hers. I love it. The format of full-page layouts, where you click to advance, was once a staple of online design, but you don’t see it as often anymore. I recall once, years ago, being in an airport and seriously considering starting a site like this of my own. But I didn’t have a starting point for the graphics.
Earlier this year I traveled to LA, where I happened to stop into a bookshop. A book of Robert Rauschenberg’s combines caught my eye, and as I studied the works, gestures — details — stood out to me. I wondered what certain collections of brushstrokes would be like if isolated into their own compositions. Later that evening, on the plane, I re-read Donna Haraway’s essay A Cyborg Manifesto. As happened with the Rauschenberg, I started to think about isolating certain phrases. And it must have been the setting, but I realized that I finally had all the ingredients for a site!
Posted June 2013