本書の核心は、デジタルネイティブ世代の日常を切り取った膨大な「カメラロール」が、500年の歴史を持つイタリアの聖書製本所の伝統技術を用いて、豪華な装丁の一冊の本へと物質化されている点にあります。ランダムな時間の流れは「色」によって9つの章に再編集され、衝動的なイメージ群に新たな構造と意味を与えています。さらに、「Me and Mum（私とママ）」、「Dead Fish（死んだ魚）」、「Travis（トラヴィス）」といった、アーティストのリリックを彷彿とさせる言葉でつけられた索引は、本書のユニークな編集思想を際立たせています。
256GB is Yung Lean’s first book, tracing the artist’s evolution and continual reinvention. Yung Lean has generated a mass following as a cult icon. Poised between influence and infamy, his outsider status emerged from the internet-based culture of the early 2010s, characterised by its vaporwave aesthetic of nostalgia, surrealism and melancholia. Fusing sincere introspection with humour, his practice continues to resonate with audiences around the world.
Collating 574 images shot across iPhone’s 6, 8, X & SE, the book exemplifies Yung Lean’s autonomous artistic production. Intimate, extemporary images stored in a personal photo library are reformulated into a classical book form. Produced in Italy, the book’s material construction draws upon the 500-year-old tradition of bible-making at Legatoria Industriale Artigianale’s premises in Cava de’ Tirreni. Red hot-foil typography graces a melanged green substrate. The spine paired with a red silk ribbon furthers the book’s aesthetic resonance. Each copy of the book is accompanied by a silver sticker sheet as a token of viral ephemera provoking the book’s classical endurance.
The erratic, temporal organisation of the camera roll is reformulated through the book’s nine chapters across 596 pages, categorised by colour – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black, and white. Encountered in this way, the book’s images lose their impulsive quality and take on new signification as a cohesively structured volume. The logic of the book’s index exaggerates the blunt dissonance of its contents. Images are categorised into a list, each referenced by an unambiguous word or phrase – ‘Me and Mum’, ‘Dead Fish’ and ‘Travis’, echoing the candid, deadpan approach of Lean’s lyricism.
- Pages: 576 Size: 170 x 240 mm Hardcover with a sticker sheet Color, black and white Limited edition of 4,000 copies
