After All Mikes Have Come to Rest  
Publication Design 
2024


Printed publication containing an archive responding to the minimalist musical composition, “Pendulum Music” by Steve Reich. The archive is comprised of scans of the individual material components of musical equipment used to perform the piece. Each of these components are paired, somewhat arbitrarily, with small excerpts from Reich’s written score for the composition. The archive ultimately responds to the piece’s egalitarian ambitions by highlighting the power and influence of objects in music-making, and the ways in which this influence may constitute a redistribution of power. 

Designer+Writer
Humberto Ochoa

Course
Making+Meaning: The Visual Archive

Professor  

Pascal Glissman

Documentation  

Olivia Rae Harris





The 11″ x 7″ publication is screw bound with nuts and bolts purchased at a hardware store and is printed on newsprint. This construction highlights both the stubborn rigidity and unstable fragility of the musical instrument. The visible screw binding also invites the possibility of the books deconstruction, as was done to the instruments documented within.

The design draws from the parsed down, deconstructed nature of the archive. The book is set entirely in 12 pt OPS Placard, a monospace typeface evoking instruction manuals and the industrial. Scans of the objects are printed at full scale in order to faithfully evoke their materialities. These images are also treated with a threshold filter, as another nod to instruction manuals and in order to emphasize the physical process of scanning these objects. 
Above: Spreads of completed publication.


Above: Deconstruction and scanning process.

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