Michael Ryan’s text-works are an attempt to analyse and contextualise the language of media and politics. Hype and spin is re-packaged and re-presented in ways specifically designed to illicit renewed meaning and interpretation. Newspapers function to provide news stories in print and as such are examples of an omnipresent narrative in a contemporary format. These ephemeral texts provide a fertile source for the study of manipulated language.

 

The rhetoric of war provides the raw material for this series of ‘text-works’ published as a set of 4 hardback books (170 x 200mm) two of which have folding formats while the other two in the set adopt a classic book construction format which contrasts with the unconventional and challenging nature of the text arrangements within. All four covers are illustrated front and back as a set of images adapted from news events. There are currently two of each volume available but a limited number of further copies will be available on request.

 

Two of the four titles have been published  in a paper-back version (135 x 155mm) in editions of 250 each under the publishing imprint: Mass Distraction Press and are ISBN registered. The titles: Into the Red Zone and Smoking Guns & Desert Rats. This edition is in archive collections at the Tate Britain Library, the University of California’s Mandeville Special Collection and the University of West of England. And Winchester School of Art Library. (Orders for both editions are available from mryan@ucreative.ac.uk)