OAS Node #1 [9/14]: Audrey Snyder + Joe Riley - Parallel Cases
Wednesday, September 12, 2012 at 09:19AM 
During the summer of 2012 Audrey Snyder and Joe Riley traveled through landscapes of abandoned railroads in California and Oregon atop bicycles adapted to run on railroad tracks. The railbikes were devised as a way to re-activate the railroads now lying in disuse in both rural and metropolitan areas of these western states. On Friday, September 14 from 7-9, Occupational Art School Node 1 at Bat Haus will host Audrey and Joe to share their amazing story.
[PROJECT SUMMARY]:
The project first emerged about a year and a half ago when Joe and Audrey became interested in exploring the parallel histories of the American railroads and the demise of commercial printing, specifically its shift from handset type to mechanized linotype and eventually to digital printing. A nearly forgotten – perhaps even abandoned – point of convergence for the histories of the railroad and printing lies in the Tramp Printers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Tramp Printers were itinerant printers who hopped trains across America to set type in the publishing houses and newspapers that had sprung up alongside the railroads. Inspired by the legacy and tradition of the tramp printers they restored a 3” by 5” Kelsey Excelsior hand operated letterpress that they will use to publish a chronicle of their travel in the forgotten right-of-way. Through Parallel Cases, they endeavored to take up the methods and means of the tramp printers as a way to both collect and distribute their findings.
PROJECT URL: http://parallelcases.tumblr.com/
FACEBOOK EVENT: http://www.facebook.com/events/414933371901352/415164485211574/