Almanac for the year 2012
What interested me about this almanac – other than the number twelve, which plays such an important role in our understanding of time – was the long tradition of the almanac format. I wanted the edition to include 12 copies, so I looked for 12 subscribers who would agree to buy a copy in advance without knowing what the book would look like or contain. At the time, I myself did not know. The idea was that I would send each subscriber a copy of the almanac in the mail on 12/12/12, postmarked with that date. During the project, it quickly became clear that it would not merely be an almanac for the current year. The years ending in twelve in previous centuries provided me with so much material that 2012 often faded into the background. Nonetheless, the book follows the course of the year chronologically and also includes the 2012 calendar, divided among 12 different double spreads at the start of each new month. I used month names from 12 different languages, beginning with the Welsh IONAWR and ending with the Czech PROSINEC. Letters from twelve authors from various centuries provide a framework to which I attached texts from the past and the present. 1912 turned out to be an especially interesting year. In January 1912, Robert F. Scott and four of his companions died attempting to reach the South Pole; the Titanic sank in April 1912. Four letters from Franz Kafka discussed the publication of his book Betrachtung, which Rowohlt Verlag had released in November 1912. There were also important anniversaries for some of my subscribers in 2012, which I was able to include in the almanac. The German National Library, for instance, was founded on October 3, 1912, as the German Library (Deutsche Bücherei) in Leipzig. On March 21, 2012, the University of California at Berkeley (who was one of the 12 subscribers) celebrated the 100th anniversary of the opening of its Doe Library. In addition to literary texts, I also used texts from twelve spam emails. In fact, I regularly received emails in 2012 that dealt with the topic of time in their own way: dubious deals on expensive brand-name watches, being offered (as imitations) at a fraction of the original price. The time-related number of 12 also plays a role in the technical aspect of the almanac. The book measures 12 x 24 cm and has 120 pages. The page numbering turns the 120 pages into two hours, one minute per page. Each section has 12 pages; between the sections, short lines in the fold divide the height of the pages into 12 segments. The type area has 24 lines.
120 pages, Zerkall mould-made paper, hand-set, letterpress printed, cloth-over-board, in cardboard box, 12 x 24 cm,
12 signed copies. (sold)