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Lance
Task: Research and craft an analogy for Jorge Luis Borges's "Empire" from On Exactitude in Science
Specs: 11"x 9" grayscale with one color interior, 16 page book
Process
An excerpt of Borge's On Exactitude in Science (shown above) served as inspiration for detailing the rise and fall of American cyclist Lance Armstrong. I used a cycling catalog format as a guide for my storyboard. As a finishing touch, I used the color red, inspired by the idea red herring, to create a visual parallel between the excerpt and Armstrong.
Interior
The catalog opens with a Tour de France race map and race statistics. This serves as a parallel realm for Borges's "Empire". The second spread is an image of cyclists entering Paris or Borges's "City". In the third spread I used Armstrong's tour statistics to symbolize Armstrong's rise, much like the rise in the excerpt. Armstrong won seven consecutive tours from 1999 to 2005. The fourth spread, inspired by the 1999 Trek bike catalog, details Armstrong's Trek bikes. These are Armstrong's "maps," as referenced in Borge's text. The fifth spread pays homage to Armstrong's race jerseys from his seven tours. Armstrong's jersey number rose from181 in 1999 to number one by 2005. In the sixth spread, I pulled imagery from 2013 headlines where Armstrong admits doping. I paired this with the final text from the excerpt to represent the fall in Borge's "Empire".
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