Photo by Lucas Allen
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Alison Knowles and Rirkrit Tiravanija
"Men and Women Commonly Dress Alike"

Published March 2011
Digital printing on canvas, bamboo
Scroll dimensions:
29” wide = 73.5 centimeter
61” tall = 155 centimeter

Edition of ten plus four artists’ proofs, with six hors commerce
All copies are signed and numbered by the artists

Computer programming: Adrian Peter Orion Lauf

A fusion of two forces has created “Men and Women Commonly Dress Alike,” Three Star Books’ first scroll work. It is a collaboration between Alison Knowles and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Based on a poem structure conceived by Knowles and then generated further by computer, the scroll distills the subsequent computer version, according to a project by Tiravanija.
In the first round, “Clear Skies All Week” has been conceived by Alison Knowles. This poem consists of three disparate categories subsequently randomized (cross-matched) into all possible permutations. The categories described in the poem are: “situations,” “weather/time,” and “place.” The full version by Knowles has been printed in a volume by onestar press in February 2011. The scroll, titled “Men and Women Commonly Dress Alike,” is a collaborative project with Rirkrit Tiravanija. Asked to design Knowles’ text, Tiravanija suggested both his characteristic typeface and that Knowles’ poem be scrambled once again, this time according to the numbers of the Fibonacci system (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so forth). The oddly short result has been presented in a tribute to the Eastern book, in the form of a digitally printed scroll with two bamboo rods, devised using canvas selected by Knowles.
The method and concept of Knowles’ initial work relates to her seminal computer-generated “House of Dust,” published by Verlag Gebr. König, Cologne, in 1969. It is a trail-blazing example of a literary score generated by machine. In turn, the collaborative project is an example of the fractal-like logic of artistic collaboration and inspiration.

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