Planet T is the title of my bachelor’s thesis. To create this photo-book I went to Japan, the city of Tokyo. Although I derived the title from capital city’s name, it wasn’t my purpose to refer specifically to this place and is therefore only a possible hint for the reader as to where the pictures come from – otherwise the place of acquisition remains intentionally unknown.
The book presents different angles on how to approach the story within the work. The beginning of the book appears as a visible line, there is the awakening of the viewer in the sleeping capsule and the subsequent discovery of Planet T. Over the time, the book darkens to a complete eclipse, giving the photos an impressive and above all different atmosphere. The viewer’s journey ends again in a unified sleeping capsule. Rather than an architectural guide to Tokyo, this publication creates a record of an emotional experience and is meant to serve as a meditative connection to the surreal landscape of Planet T. On the back cover is a short text by the Czech Japanologist Petr Holý, who has been working in Japan for over 20 years. His text is his own subjective feeling from the photographs and the journey through Planet T.
Photos are divided into 3 ways of formatting. One of the ways is across the entire page, these are views either of the interior or the entire building. The second ones are details on specific buildings, elements in architecture, etc. The third way is a set of several samples of cladding used on local buildings. This last file or “swatch“ also serves as a sort of closure of the viewer’s entire journey through Planet T.
I worked on the book for 6 weeks. I took approximately 700 photos, of which only 90 are used in the book.
I had the book printed only as a book block and then applied the cover, which I screen-printed myself. The color was specifically mixed and adjusted to resemble the atmosphere of the content of the photos.
The work also includes typographic bookmarks on which other designs for the cover are used. They are printed in Tokyo, in the HandSawPress studio using the risograph printing technique.
Format, material and printing of cover/book block:
size 310 × 230, 104 pgs, binding V4 Open
Bindakote White 250g, screen printing with custom tinted color.
Offset paper, digital offset HP Indigo 12 000
