SKUTER
Moments of Now
A small but comparatively thick and heavy volume of photographs presents quotidian and very repetitive snapshots depicting scooter riders on Sumatra going about their business. The design adopts an efficient approach to the candid genre: all the photos are positioned in the lower half of the page in full bleed, emphasising the linearity with which the captured moments succeed each other like the pages of a book when flicking through it. The linearity also evokes the road; and just as the scooters’ direction of travel sometimes switches back and forth, so the book allows for two directions of motion. Double-page photographs are printed on the softcover and endpaper. The embossed text is integrated into the cover picture, while the font evokes a street culture linked to the scooter. The large ISBN number on the spine emphasises that a book itself is assigned a moment in the linear temporality of the global book trade. Indeed the book’s content itself constitutes a snapshot, documenting everyday goings-on on Sumatra from the perspective of impartial observers.
