Catherine Wagner

trans/literate

2013

With trans/literate, volumes of braille texts are presented as diptych typologies; an image of the closed book on the left with its accompanying open pages and embossed braille on the right.

trans/literate continues Wagner’s investigation of cultural archives that use unique systems to transfer knowledge. Each book is broken into macro- and micro-abstractions. Viewed at a distance, the diptychs are color fields, revealing only the color of the cover and the white page of an open book printed in braille. The photographs convey a strong understanding of physical loss, documenting the books as flat surfaces that create a sculptural illusion of punched relief, with a distance that reinforces the irreplaceable loss of a physical dimension.

Braille has remained a constant, unchanged language since its invention in 1834. Books in general have long been fetishized as tactile, almost sensual objects. This context transcends the world of the blind. In a literal sense, the growing prevalence of auditory materials is a harbinger of reading itself entering a retreat into history and memory.

Click here for the San Francisco Chronicle review of trans/literate.