Pippa Garner: Better Living Catalog

Pippa Garner: Better Living Catalog
Author: Pippa Garner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-08
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Pippa Garner's Better Living Catalog, originally published in 1982, takes the form of a mail order catalog featuring clever and whimsical inventions that parody consumer goods while simultaneously critiquing America's obsession with ingenuity, efficiency, leisure, and comfort. These works, which were made as prototypes and photographed for the publication, take the form of improbable accessories, clothing, footwear, home appliances, and office gadgets. For example, the "Reactiononometer," a portable wristband, instantly measures social success, while the "Digital Diet Loafers" display the wearer's weight with every step. If the "Munch-o-Matic" reduces deskwork interruptions by flinging a snack right into the user's mouth, other items promise financial solvency (the controlled cash flow "Autowallet"), sustainable waste management, or mess-free companionship (the "Pet-a-Vision" TV console). The artist asserts that all of the products in the book are "absolute necessities for contemporary survival." The Better Living Catalog was a pop hit when it was published, earning Garner spots on nighttime TV talk shows and attention from magazines like Vogue and Rolling Stone. In a meme-filled culture, the works still resonate today, finding their analog in widely-circulating consumer products, and--in the case of the "High Heel Skates"--even appearing unattributed in the runway collection of a major luxury fashion brand. A few years after the Better Living Catalog was published, Garner began her gender transition, which she has characterized as an artistic project that draws conceptual parallels to the altered consumer goods she has continued to create since the 1970s. The artist's practice has always been about hacking--gender hacking, she stated, was "an excellent premise for maverick conceptual art and diametrically opposed to anything I'd ever done." Many of the prototypes Garner created for the publication were repurposed or recycled, making this previously rare gem of an artist book one of the artist's few works to now be widely available.

Trappings

Trappings
Author: Tiffany Ludwig
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2007
Genre: Design
ISBN: 0813541840

The authors embark on an interview journey across the U.S. They talked with more than 500 women and girls, ages four through ninety-two who ranged from office workers to drag-kings, stay at home moms to attorneys.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen
Author: Elise Noble
Publisher: Undercover Publishing Limited
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2022-08-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1912888564

If a man wants to date Leah Burgess, he’d better be rich, handsome, and dress to kill. Kevin ticks precisely none of those boxes, but when a surveillance operation goes wrong, Leah’s forced to spend more time with him—and his unruly dog—than she’d like. Can Kevin convince Leah to take a chance on a regular guy? Hydrogen is a standalone romantic comedy novel with a hint of suspense. Keywords: Humor, Humour, Hidden identity, Forced proximity, Millionaire, Mystery, Opposites attract, Suspense, Romcom, Contemporary, Blackwood Security