Encyclopédie à 180 degrés

Encyclopédie à 180 degrés is a facsimile edition of a French Petit Larousse encyclopaedia of 1972. A selection of the pages where also printed as unica. Aëgerter replaced 167 images of landscapes and monuments with images made from a 180 degrees point of view from these exact places. To cover the scope of the project, Aëgerter invited friends and colleagues from all over the world to contribute.

This playful manipulation did not only result in alienating images of apparently meaningless places among the familiar images, but also called into question the presumed canonicity of the encyclopaedia.

Aëgerter is engaged in ‘reshaping “the” real’ with a high degree of meticulousness, which throws you off guard for an instant only to make you realize that your perception is distorted because of your preconditioned view.

Related project:
Encyclopédie à 180 degrés (artist’s book)