Page 131 - Expanded Photography

Expanded Photography Bob Cotton 131/146
El Lissitzky: The Constructor (self-portrait) 1925.
Using a spatial layout grid to anchor his abstract design, locating the portrait, the semi-transpar- ent hand and compass - ‘hand and eye’ - the symbols of the practical designer or design- engineer), Lissitzky creates this fusion of photography, graphic montage and symbolism as a pro- clamation of his philosophy.
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/83836
El Lissitzky had hinted, in his 1923 graphic poster entitled The Electro-Library! at his speculative interest in the future of media (the idea of an electronic library in 1923!) and in it’s contemporary diffusion (The Isms of Art 1924), and by 1928 had turned his attention to rethinking exhibition- design in the light of new developments at the Bauhaus. Of course, we don’t know what El Lis- sitzky meant by ‘electro library’, but a few years later the Belgian documentarist Paul Otlet pub- lished his Traite de Documentation (1934) outlining his concept for a world library called the Munduneum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundaneum - this library to be accessed by telephone line and television links....