Sunnudagur 29. September, 1912

Description

Artists: Arild Tveito and Gavin Morrison

Publishers: FOSS and Widowed Swan

Dimensions: 520×760 mm.

Edition size: 75 (+15 printers and artist’s proofs)

The first of three “Seydisfjördur Editions” co-published with Widowed Swan; Sunnudagur, 29. september, 1912 is a collaboration between Norwegian artist Arild Tveito and Scottish writer, curator and director of Widowed Swan, Gavin Morrison, based on a journal-entry by David Pinsent.

The journal from which it is taken describes a tour of Iceland, Pinsent set out on with the philosopher Wittgenstein over 100 years ago. The entry for Sunday, the 29 of September 1912 — is from when their ship stopped in Seyðisfjörður during their journey. Pinsent mentions the landscape and northern lights, yet the words allude to more than is expressed. Wittgenstein’s successes in logic are not described, the photographs taken by Pinsent, are now lost.

As much as the words reveal, they also obscure. The description becomes a near-isolated totality, as Wittgenstein says in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922): “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. Morrison and Tveito sought to create an echo of this linguistic exiling, banishing this single entry, and having it translated into the language of the place of which it speaks. The original entry in English was translated to Icelandic by Þorbergur Þórsson, who has previously translating Wittgenstein for publication in Iceland.

The edition is letterpress printed on a proof press on a heavy weight cotton paper at The Technical Museum of East Iceland.