rojal
Rojal is a publishing project started in the spring of 2014 by the book binder and artist Olle Essvik, and the translator and artist Joel Nordqvist – for experiments, collaborations, discoveries and distribution of narratives, ideas, objects and images, that have been lost and forgotten, or deemed unfit for larger editions or conventional formats. Based in a workshop in Gothenburg, Sweden, we produce and publish everything from artists books, to photo books, multiples, theory and fiction, in small, carefully designed and handcrafted editions.
Order by e-mail: post@rojal.se (free shipping on orders over 1000 sek/100 euro). We use Paypal, Swish or IBAN. |
/ Hidden BooksUnerasable Characters I Price: 22 euro |
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Svalget, Leif Holmstrand och Jonas Örtemark
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The Computer as Seen at the End of the Human Age
(edt. 150 numbered copies) |
Eaten Books, Olle Essvik
(some titles edt. 4) |
Bruksanvisning för symaskinen Singer Victoria. / Mönster till Singer hålsöm Price: 250 kr |
Capablanca - Alekhine, 1927”, Fredrik von Zweigbergk Price: 150 kr
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FLUX UNTIL SUNRISE, Geraldine Juárez (edt. 100 numbered copies)
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BOMBER, VIRUS, KURIOSAKABINETT. TEXTER OM DIGITAL EPISTEMOLOGI, Jonas Ingvarsson (edt. 120 ) |
SOIL, Simon Berg
(edt. 120 ) |
The Goldberg variation (Bach clock), Jesper Norda
(edt. 20 numbered copies) |
Endless Endtime, Linda Hilfling
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En bok om en bild, 2015, Olle Essvik, Helga Härenstam Price: 200 sek (edt. 150) |
Art & Game Obstruction
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Sven Drobnitza, Untitled (edt. 120 numbered copies) |
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Dödens Engel
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The Chance Execution
(edt. 150 numbered and signed copies) |
År med tretton månar, Kennet Klemets
(edt. 67 numbered and signed copies) |
Price: 150 sek |
Den här datorn, Olle Essvik och Joel Nordvist
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Mareld, Elin Liljeblad Price: 150 sek
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Återkomsten - Bilden, Skolan och Samhället 1968 – 2018, redaktörer Arne Kockum, Bitte Alling Ode och Ulla Lind
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The Enemies of Books Price: Sold Out
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Välkomna Finska barn! Price: 150 sek |
WINDS, Jeff Olsson
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Flip books from the hidden corners of the Internet, Olle Essvik
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Mörker med glödande kanter, Kennet Klemets och Ola Åstrand
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Decay, Sara Wallgren
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Hidden Books / Unerasable Characters I
Winnie Soon
2022
This DIY book is a part of the artwork Unerasable Characters I, by the Hong Kong-born artist coder and
Winnies art project recevied 2023 the well known digital art prize, Prix Ars Electronica!
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Capablanca - Alekhine, 1927, Fredrik von Zweigbergk
Price: 150 kr
The Computer as Seen at the End of the Human Age
2022
The title of the book, The Computer as Seen at the End of the Human Age, is a reference to the exhibition “The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age”, curated by Pontus Hultén for MoMA in 1968, highlighting how technology was influencing art at a time when mechanical machines were increasingly replaced by electronic and chemical devices. Through its selection of contemporary art works the exhibition thus came to function as a recording of technological history. I never got to see the exhibition since I wasn’t born at the time, but a couple of years ago I came across a curious book with a tin cover. The book was published in connection to the exhibition, and the history recorded between its covers ends at approximately the same time that early computers start to make their way into the art world. In the fifty years that followed, art came to be marked by a digital presence. It was that book, along with an interest in dead media, and a curiosity for art aided by algorithms, that sparked the idea for The Computer as Seen at the End of the Human Age. Here you will encounter new works by a selection of artists, specifically invited to use algorithms/AI to contribute to a continuous, self-reproducing, anachronistic, machine aided recording of history. A way to preserve, revise and/or comment upon digital history from the vantage point of present-day technology or through the lens of imagined future media, perspectives and technologies. The works have been created specifically for the book. Some are based on works by other artists, made in another era, repurposed for our time and technologies. Others are based on redundant technologies, revived and given new functions. Some adopt a critical or political approach to the algorithm and its impact on society. Several utilize it as an opportunity to create unique works for each separate copy of the edition. Thousands of files eventually compiled into 200 unique books, each with a different cover and different contents – generated, aided or influenced by algorithms.
Participating artists: Geraldine Juárez, Cornelia Sollfrank/Winnie Soon, Mishka Henner, Shane Hope, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Rosa Menkman, Rosemary Lee, Olle Essvik, Evan Roth, Jonas Lund, Darsha Hewitt, Carl-Johan Rosén, Linda Hilfling Ritasdatter and Jacek Smolicki.
Editor: Olle Essvik
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2021
Det handlar i lika hög grad om tillvaron i en post-digital skriftkultur, som om identifierandet av redaktionella aspekter hos historiska texter.
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Eaten Books, Olle Essvik
2021
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Bruksanvisning för symaskinen Singer Victoria. / Mönster till Singer Hålsöm
2022
Price: 250 kr
A remake and a new version of Åke Hodells famous artists book Bruksanvisning för symaskinen Singer Victoria.
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Svalget, Leif Holmstrand och Jonas Örtemark
2021
Svalget är en stor experimentbok som växt fram ur en sväljande, inkorporerande, hejdlöst glupsk hållning som författarna Jonas Örtemark och Leif Holmstrand anammat under ett drygt decenniums arbete.
Halvcitat från samtidens nätgräl, recept, bloggar och ilskna diskussionstrådar har muterat, bearbetats och fogats samman med drömska visioner, förgrenande berättelser, poesi, ytterst prosaiska utspel och rytmiserade cut-up-kollage. Allt är smuts, sorg och gluphunger, allt är vackert och roligt.
Jonas Örtemarks och Leif Holmstrands föregående litterära samarbete, Darger Reviderad (Drucksache Förlag), hade liknande men mildare anspråk, och lindade dessa anspråk försiktigt kring den mytonspunne konstnären Darger och dennes imaginära flickfamilj. Den nya boken, Svalget, tror sig kunna äta upp hela den mänskliga civilisationen med sin ogenomtänkta bebismun.
Boken inkluderar en orginalteckning av Jonas Örtemark.
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Mörker med glödande kanter, Kennet Klemets och Ola Åstrand
2020
Svartvita fotocollage varvas med korta meningar och längre textsjok i ett mörkt, uppsplittrat och rytmiskt flöde. Ett trevande, maniskt försök att få fotfäste, att fånga och väga en omvärld som hela tiden är för nära, för avlägsen, skymd, överbelamrad eller uttömd – för att nå fram till något, en fast punkt, en insikt, en flyktig känsla av lugn och klarhet, oregelbundna andningspauser.
Boken är formgiven av rojal förlag och tillverkad för hand i en begränsad upplaga på hundra numrerade exemplar.
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Decay, Sara Wallgren
2019
| Boken innehåller en mängd verkbilder, samt två längre texter på svenska/engelska av Getrud Sandqvist och Thomas Millroth. |
FLUX UNTIL SUNRISE, Geraldine Juárez
2018
Book 140 * 140 mm, [52 pages][100 copies]
Flux until Sunrise is a book documenting a material exploration of our Liquid Crystal Epoque through the production of screenware and screen-glazes for ceramics. Screen-glazes use LCD screen waste from computers and smartphones as glass former component instead of silica and frits. The book includes an interview with Esther Leslie about Materialismo Mágico and screen-glaze recipes for ceramics. |
Flip books from the hidden corners of the Internet, Olle Essvik
2021
I'm looking for movies on Youtube with few or no visitors, webcams at eventless times. In most cases, I am the only visitor. Sometimes the filmmaker does not even know that the movie was uploaded, an incorrect button press. Movies that sometimes are there for a short while, disappear. Webcams from tourist resorts off season, construction sites, municipal webcams that monitor traffic or someone trying their new mobile phone.
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BOMBER, VIRUS, KURIOSAKABINETT. TEXTER OM DIGITAL EPISTEMOLOGI, Jonas Ingvarsson
2018
Book 145 * 205 mm, [212 pages][100 copies]
I boken BOMBER, VIRUS, KURIOSAKABINETT. TEXTER OM DIGITAL EPISTEMOLOGI samlas texter som har gemensamt avsikten att belysa konceptet »digital epistemologi». Utgångspunkten här är att »det digitala» inte ska förstås enbart som något som är knutet till särskilda verktyg och objekt. »Det digitala» inom till exempel humaniora är inte bara databaser och big data, topic modelling och spekulativa visualiseringar; ej heller är objekten begränsade till dataspel, andra elektroniska verk eller till litteratur och konst som explicit relaterar till datorisering eller andra digitala aspekter.
Detta perspektiv har kommit att väcka ett antal frågor. Hur kan litterära former i tryckt text spegla eller relateras till en digital närmiljö? På vilket sätt skiljer sig de digitala verktygen och uttrycken under 1960-talet till vår tids ubika system – och vad kan det få för konstnärliga effekter? Är vår tids uppenbara fascination för konstens och textens materialitet en effekt av eller reaktion mot en tilltagande digitalisering? Vad har kuriosakabinett, emblem och pertinensprinciper att göra i analysen av samtida digitala uttrycksformer?
I samarbete med Rojal förlag – och konstnären och bokbindaren Olle Essvik – har själva boken utformats som ett hundratal handgjorda mediearkeologiska objekt, bland annat med bokpärmar som hämtats från kasserade böcker. Varje volym är unik. Boken kan ses som en samling prövande och öppna essäer, målet är inte att spika upp några teser, utan snarare erbjuda ingångar till mer eller mindre spekulativa samtal om humanioras framtid.
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WINDS, Jeff Olsson
2018
Book 150 * 210 mm, [100] [68 pages] [120 copies]
SOIL, Simon Berg
2018
Book 240 * 205 mm, [62 pages] [100 copies]
The Goldberg variation (Bach clock), Jesper Norda
2016
Book + usb [sound files] 300 * 210 mm, [20+4 AP] [468 pages]
The Goldberg variation (Bach clock) is based on Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg variations. But whereas Bach’s version takes around 30 minutes to play from beginning to end, this version is stretched to 12 hours and 25 minutes. Each note in the original score is struck at even intervals, every two seconds. The rythm is evened out, the dynamics are flattened: every sense of musical direction is gone. What remains is a solemn enumeration of all the tones that make up the original piece – a kind of clockwork. |
Endless Endtime, Linda Hilfling
2016 -2022
Book 180 * 265 mm [Annual edition decided by the number of buyers] [666 pages]
A collaboration with the Danish artist Linda Hilfing, on a ”complete index of all elements leading to the end of the world”. |
En bok om en bild, 2015, Olle Essvik, Helga Härenstam
2015
Book 180 * 190 mm [48 pages] [160 copies]
Price: 200 sek
The starting point for the book is a single photograph – to which around thirty different writers, poets, journalists, photographers and artists were invited to contribute their own written or visual interpretetion/comment. Those who accepted recieved an e-mail with the photo and an instruction not to spread it.
Participants: |
Art & Game Obstruction
2016
Book. 280 * 220 mm [300 copies] [165 pages]
Art and Game Obstruction documents an the exhibition of the same name, held at Skövde Art Museum in 2015 as part of a teaching collaboration between Academy Valand in Gothenburg and University of Skövde. The anthology gives the people, who took part in the exhibition, the space to elaborate their views on contemporary art and computer games. The authors range from students and teachers to artist and curators, but what unite them are questions relating to playability and contemporary art. As such the collection of essays gives a unique insight into research and creative practices located at the intersection between art and games.
Participants: Lars Kristensen, Ewa Mazierska , Graeme Kirkpatrick , Lissa Holloway-Attaway, Jenny Brusk, Thomas Oldrell, Olle Essvik , Benjamin Fallon, Robert J. Homewood, Marisa Tapper, Karin Ryding, Mathilda Bjarnehed, Jasmine Idun, Dev Karnal Fridén, Ossian Borén, Jenny Sörensen, Berith Stennabb, Iman Farhanieh and Carlos González Díaz, Minnamari Helmisaari
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Sven Drobnitza, Untitled
2001
Book 110*170 mm (120 copies)
A white book filled with pages that would be completely empty if it wasn’t for the round black ink stain on one of its shorter edges. The stain bleeds into the paper, leaving a unique mark on each page. When the book is read like a flip book the three dimensional stain turns into an animation, a growing and fading image. With the title printed on both sides of the cover the book can be read in both directions: There is no beginning and no end. The process can be repeated until the book falls apart.
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Mari Lagerquist, Travelogue/In My Pocket
2014
Book 370 * 290 mm (1 copy) [42 pages]
On the 19th of September 2012 I travelled to Alexandria, Egypt.
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Dödens Engel
2014
Book 150 * 215 mm (30 copies) [40 pages]
Price: 200 sek
The poem Dödens Engel (”The Angel of Death”) was written in 1834, during the first Swedish cholera epidemic, but wasn’t publish until five years later, the same year as the author himself passed away. The poem has since been published in a number of different illustrated editions, the latest in 1917. This edition is a scaled down remake of a publication from 1880, illustrated by Carl Larsson. |
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The Chance Execution 2017, Transmediale, Berlin
Artist book 110 * 140 mm [150 copies]
Price: 150 sek
A book on marbeling, chance, algorithms and end pages. Each book unique with different contents.
Enemies of Books
2015,
book 125 * 190 mm[200 copies] [23 + 96 p ]
Price: Sold Out
I download the book from the Internet, https://books.google.com, Enemies of books, written by William Blades, published in 1881. A book on the decay of books. The enemies of the physical book – fire, water, gas, the bookworm, dirt, bigotry etc. A digitized book with no identity. Black letters on a white background. I buy a copy of the book from 1881. A yellowed, and stained copy. The book bears traces of a former owner, one Dr. Sarolea. Newspaper cuttings on his death and his extensive book collection. I compare the two texts, the original and the digitized copy. Using my computer I create a tool for binding books. I combine and modify traditional tools that have been used for hundreds of years and print out the components on a 3D-printer. The next day I print out another copy of the digitized book, and using the 3D-printed tool I make an exact replica of the book from 1881, in its original design. I construct a manual describing the process and upload the files to the Internet.
This is a description of a project which I begun in 2014 as an artistic development project financed by the University of Gothenburg. A project exploring digitization, human traces and the unique copy, and at the same time an act of resistance against digitization and technology. The outcome of the project was a book, presented together with the tool used to produce it.
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Välkomna Finska barn!
2014
Book 700 * 100 mm [28 pages] [unlimited edition]
Price: 100 sek
Välkomna finska barn! (”Welcome Finnish Children!”) is a remake of a leaflet distributed to the Swedish foster parents of Finnish children who were evacuated to Sweden during the Second World War, containing translations of useful everyday words and phrases. |
År med tretton månar, Kenneth Klemets
2015
Book 140 * 205 mm [67 copies] [48 pages]
Price: 200 sek
Carefully revised limited edition reissue of the rare 1997 debut
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Alla hjärtans dag och andra scener, Helga Härenstam
2015
Book 195 * 155 mm [80 copies] [48 pages]
Price: sold out
Alla hjärtans dag och andra scener documents a project conducted by the artist Helga Härenstam in collaboration with the Vegahusen retirement home. On six Wednesday afternoons in the spring of 2014 the artist met up with a group of residents for a study circle in photography.
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Virtuella Utopier, Olle Essvik och Joel Nordqvist
2015
Book 135 mm * 22 mm [500 copies ][181 pages]
Price: 150 sek
This book is the result of an associative, experimental collaboration. Starting from a collection of quotations – on art and technology in general and art and computers in particular – spanning from the late 19th century until our present time, we move freely between different times, ideas and visions of the future. |
Den här datorn, Olle Essvik och Joel Nordvist (red.)
2015
Book 170 * 240 mm, [300 pages] [750 copies]
Den här datorn (”My Computer”) explores the role of the computer on the Swedish art scene from the first personal computers until today. Through long interviews, documents and art works we encounter more than 40 different artists, researchers and curators who have been working with computers and art in Sweden in the past 30 years.
Participating artists: Channa Bankier, Beeoff, Erik Berglin & Clement Valla, Jim Berggren, Donatella Bernardi, Göran Boardy, Thomas Broomé, Beck & Jung, Erik Bünger, Palle Dahlstedt, Leif Elggren, Carl Michael von Hausswolff och Ulf Bilting, Hans Esselius, Goldin + Senneby, Peter Hagdahl, Johannes Heldén & Håkan Jonson, Karin Hansson, Johan Fowelin och Åsa Andersson Broms, Lisa Jevbratt, Ann-Charlotte och Sture Johannesson, Veine Johansson, Geraldine Juaréz, Arijana Kajfes, Stefan Karlsson och Mats Olsson, Anna Kindvall, Tove Kjellmark, Raquel Meyers, Lars Midbøe, Björn Norberg, Ola Pehrson, Piratbyrån, Lina Persson, Jonas Lund, Anna Lundh, Lundahl & Seitl, Syntjuntan, Pär Thörn, Arne Kjell Vikhagen, Lars Vipsjö, Magnus Wallin, Björn Wangen, Magnus Wassborg, Teresa Wennberg, Kristoffer Zetterstrand
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Återkomsten- Bilden, Skolan och Samhället 1968 - 2018, redaktörer Arne Kockum, Bitte Alling Ode och Ulla Lind
2019
Återkomsten har sin utgångspunkt från händelserna kring 1968 på Konstfack - ett uppror och revolt som kom att bli ett paradigmskifte för den svenska teckningslärarutbildningen. Boken beskriver bildämnets förändring - från revolten 1968 till idag och består av en samling texter och minnen från tiden på Konstfack skriven av forskare, teoretiker, konstnärer och bildlärare.
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Mareld, 2015, Elin Liljeblad
2013
Book 150 * 200 mm [42 pages] [70 copies]
Price: 150 sek
A group of people walking through the pitch black August night, heading for the sea, hoping to experience the elusive ”mareel”, guided by the sole light of the photographer’s camera flash. |
