New Visual Language is a two-volume set of books that
address our visual environment, its preconceptions and
what is problematic about them.


Book Release Date : December 7th (reception with artist panel discussion and screenings at the Warhol Museum)

Encyclopedia Destructica is pleased to announces the book launch of The Flying Destructicate: New Visual Language.

The Flying Destructicate is an annual book series being launched by Encyclopedia Destructica. This series will feature an outstanding Pittsburgh artist who has contributed to Encyclopedia Destructica. The Flying Destructicate award manifests in 2 books released as a package. One is published on the artist, curated by Encyclopedia Destructica, while the other features various artists, curated by the Flying Destructicate.

The first Flying Destructicate has been awarded to Joshua Tonies. The book set is titled New Visual Language and addresses our visual environment, its preconceptions and what is problematic about them. In 1011 AD Iraq Arab Muslim Scientist Ibn al-Haytham wrote Kitab al-Manazir (The Book of Optics). The book had a significant influence on the development of optics and its related disciplines. It drastically transformed the understanding of light and vision, and introduced the experimental scientific method. Borrowing from this example, New Visual Language takes on creativity in place of optics, and investigates visual concepts using information design and visual systems as a way of extrapolating these concepts.

Artists featured in New Visual Language are Corey Antis, Stacy Fambro, Teresa Foley, Chad Gordon, Adam Grossi, Christopher Herron, Christopher Kardambikis, Thad Kellstadt, Jesse Mclean, Ryan Muller, Joshua Tonies, and Matt Wellins.

As Encyclopedia Destructica focuses on the creative process, giving evidence to the construction of visual information, these artists have been invited by Joshua Tonies to share their unique way of visual thinking and responding.

The release event will be held at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh on December 7, 2007 from 5 – 10 pm. At 7:30 pm in the Warhol Museum Theatre, Encyclopedia Destructica and Joshua Tonies present screenings and a panel discussion. Artists in New Visual Language will present their work, contextualize the content of the book in a critical dialogue, and share and discuss issues within their disciplines. Video and film by Joshua Tonies, Jesse McLean, Thad Kellstadt, Ryan Muller and Matt Wellins will be screened.

Entertainment during the release event will be provided by DJ Mary Mack. Admission to the release event is free and open to the public. Free admission to the panel discussion with purchase of book or admission to the museum (Good Fridays half price admission - $6 adult, $4 students & children, $4.50 seniors).

The New Visual Language Panel Discussion was made possible by generous support from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Sprout Fund, and the Warhol Museum.

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Encyclopedia Destructica is an art-zine inspired from the need to explore and export contemporary arts/culture in a way that’s accessible and easy to engage. These hand-bound issues provide a forum for a primordial dialogue between artists, harvesting themes from sketchbooks and journals. Encyclopedia Destructica hopes to create a community wide awareness of developing work by local artist and writers through the public forum of a zine and the intimate experience of a book. Created and distributed in a DIY fashion, Encyclopedia Destructica promotes this attitude as well as providing support and resources for local artists to create their own book/zine projects.

The Flyiing Destructicate: New Visual Language will retail for $15. The publication will available at www.encyclopediadestructica.com and will be carried at various local bookstores and shops.

Artists Featured in New Visual Language :

Corey Antis - Corey Antis holds an MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. His current work focuses on exploring the experience of space, architecture and mapping through works on paper, objects and installation. He has held solo exhibitions of his work at the Booster and Seven Gallery in Chicago and the Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia, as well as participating in group shows at the Stray Show (Chicago), the D.C. Arts Center, and SPACE (Pittsburgh), among others. He currently lives in Philadelphia with film scholar Melissa Lenos and their cat (bio from nanomajority.org). learn more about corey...

Stacy Fambro - New Haven native, Stacy Mariposa Nikolaia Fambro holds multiple masters degrees in Psychology/Sociology and is currently purusing her PHD at Yale University. She has worked as a research consultant for various universities and practices a certain unexplainable culinary mastery. visit her website...

Teresa Foley - T. Foley's motion pictures have been screened nationally and internationally--of her work, one critic wrote that it "seduces viewers to consider the social issues and observations that inspire it." She has been the recipient of artist-fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Pittsburgh Foundation, and was a fellow at MIT's first ever IDEAS Institute within the Lifelong Kindergarten at the institute's Media Lab. Of her work, one critic wrote that it "seduces viewers to consider the social issues and observations that inspire it."(bio from center for contemporary arts : santa fe website) view her videos...

Chad Gordon - Chad Gordon lives and works in New York City. His work oscillates between abstraction and representation through the use of visual systems like half-tone patterns and various forms of printed media. Woodburning, collage and painting are vehicles he uses to open conversations about meaning and high art expectations. visit his website...

Adam Grossi - Adam Grossi is a painter and video/performance artist who writes criticism in the space between projects. Since receiving his BFA from Carnegie Mellon in 2003 he has exhibited widely. His videos have been featured in film festivals in Brooklyn, Portland, Buffalo, Austin, and Seoul. His paintings have been recently displayed in Pittsburgh's Mattress Factory, the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and the Greater Reston Arts Center in Virginia. Adam is living in Chicago pursuing an MFA at the University of Illinois at Chicago. visit his website

Christopher Herren - Atlanta native, Christopher's most recent series of shaped abstract paintings are visually arresting with the moiré effect in the striped layers. As with all of Herren's work, this series is inspired by nature and landscape. From the color choices to the shapes of the pieces, there is an organic sense. The shapes are like heavy pools of liquid, or melting ice cubes. This combined with a technique of stripes layered in resin enhances the glass like depth, adding to the illusion. Herren succeeds in bringing static objects to life, with the vitality of the abstraction read as one moves around the paintings.
(bio from rebeccaibel.com) view his work here

Christopher Kardambikis - Chris Kardambikis is the co-director of Encyclopedia Destructica, a self-published and hand made book operation that presents sketchbook and journal work from artists and writers. Over a two year period he has overseen the creation of 13 books and helped to produce over 2000 individual copies. He was awarded Full Fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center and was a recipient of the Sprout Seed Award. Kardambikis has studied at the Lamar Dodd School of Art in Cortona, Italy, the CMU Inquiry and Vision Program in Sparta, Greece and holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University. Chris is best known in Pittsburgh for the development of Encyclopedia Destructica, a popular local zine that features the illustrations of local artists. Chris is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. learn more about chris...

Thad Kellstadt - With his sculpture and painting, Kellstadt creates a sense of multidimensional disorder. His work reflects on the teenage spirit, displacement, enlightenment, and modern rural mysticism. Natural yet uncomfortable, the images channel the past and present simultaneously, playing like a warbled field recording . view his work here...

Jesse McLean - Jesse McLean was born in Philadelphia, PA. She studied painting before developing an interest in film, video and animation. McLean was employed by Pittsburgh Filmmakers, a large media-arts center dedicated to experimental film, video and photography, for six years where she continued her exploration of moving images. She currently lives in Chicago, where she is pursuing her MFA at University of Illinois. visit her website...

Ryan Muller - Ryan Muller originally hales from Massachusetts, and has been working in New York's Hudson Valley (where he recieved a BFA from Bard College), Austin TX and currently in Brooklyn, NY since. His work frequently negotiates the discrepancies between craftsmanship and the natural world. Working in video, Muller has used a variety of strategies to create a tactile image, including webs of lenses and mirrors, as well as electronically-modified RCA cables that compete for the same screen space. His training in metal and woodworking has produced furniture without polish and skate parks within gallery spaces. More recently, he has returned to pencil drawings, where he continues to develop his interest in raw materials.

Josh Tonies - Joshua Tonies lives and works in Pittsburgh. He currently works in the Administration at Pittsburgh Filmmakers as a Staff Designer, and teaches Electronic Media Arts classes at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Josh grew up in Akron, a small town in northern Ohio, and attended art college at Columbus College of Art and Design. He has been living in Pittsburgh for two and a half years, and has shown his work both locally and nationally. His current work investigates the non-space. A theoretical space that is not connected to history or identity. His landscapes are reflexive to patterns found in the systems of our mental environment. His work responds to excessive information and excessive space.

"We are living in a time of overabundance, there is this claustrophobic sense that everything has been discovered. I think that
frame of mind is harmful." view his work...

Matt Wellins - Matt Wellins was born in Washington D.C. in 1983. His family moved to Tampa, FL shortly thereafter, where he learned the difference between cockroaches and "Palmetto bugs." His father, after being declined for a job with the Pepsi Cola Corporation, took a job in Pittsburgh with Development Dimensions International. After that, the Wellins family moved to a well-to-do suburb, though Matt's disposition was frequently less-than-sunny. He argued with his parents frequently and refused to
attend school. Due to his family's affluence, he was later able to attend Bard, a private liberal arts college, where he made a partial effort to nurture his waning interest in the arts. He currently lives in Baltimore.