(ARTIST'S BOOK). VIGUERS, Susan. The Universe Tends Toward Disorder.

Loschmidt's Paradox

(ARTIST'S BOOK). VIGUERS, Susan. The Universe Tends Toward Disorder. ([Pennsylvania: Shandy Press, 2001]) (Unfolded: 270 x 165 mm.) One of 30 copies, this being the author's copy, signed by the author inside the folding paper box. Six double-sided plates composed of recycled shutter slats painted beige, connected with Tyvek strips to form a Jacob's Ladder book. Housed in a marbled Elephant Hide paper box with printed text and a diagram showing how to use the book. Five of the slats with screen printed illustrations of wine glasses, and one with with text.  A very tiny chip on one slat, otherwise fine.

A cheeky mix of folk toy and artist's book, testing the scientific paradox that actions are [not] reversible.

The classic kinetic toy known as "Jacob's ladder" is here used as a vehicle for an unusual artist's book that plays with two fundamentally opposed principles: on one side is printed the second law of thermodynamics, relating to entropy ("the universe tends toward disorder"). On the connected slats below, there is a series of cascading images depicting a falling wine glass breaking on the floor. The opposite side displays the related law that considers time-reversibility ("every motion is potentially reversible"). When the ladder is flipped to reveal the second quote, the broken wine glass reverses its path and becomes whole once again. In the artist's words, "Only one side of the ladder is readable at a time; mutually exclusive, they embody the artist's perception of the impossible tension between the two principles." The artist constructed the ladder from discarded shutter slats, and this act of reclamation and reuse is an integral part of the work.

From the artist's website: "Susan Viguers is a book artist, writer, and teacher. Her artist’s books have been shown in various national and international venues and are included numerous public and private collections. For almost nine years, until recently, she was director of the MFA Book Arts/Printmaking Program at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she has taught in various departments since the mid 1970s. She has a PhD in English from Bryn Mawr College and has published creative non-fiction and poetry as well as scholarship and criticism in the areas of Renaissance drama, children’s literature, and artists' books." (1116)