ATOMNOTES by Liliane Lijn

Published by Piece of Paper Press

14th September 2010

In 1967, inspired by analogies formulated from her scientific readings, between the structure and behaviour of matter with that of human beings, Liliane Lijn began writing them down in her notebook under the heading Atom-Man Notes. Lijn wanted to collaborate with a physicist to explore relationships between the atomic structure of matter and the human brain and to compare human behaviour with that of atomic particles, but receiving little response from scientists at the time she instead wrote a philosophical epic poem, Crossing Map (Thames & Hudson Ltd. 1983) that explored human relationships in terms of energy transfer and dematerialisation. In 2005, an artist fellowship at the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) at the University of California, Berkeley put Lijn in daily contact with astronomers and physicists. Numerous conversations later, Lijn sent them five questions taken from her 1968 notebook. ATOMANOTES is an illustrated book containing both the questions originally asked by Lijn in 1968 and the answers of four scientists today: John Vallerga, Laura Peticolas, John Bonnell and Ilan Roth.

PIECE OF PAPER PRESS was created by Tony White in 1994 as a lo-tech, sustainable publishing project that could be used to publish new writings, visual and graphic works by artists and writers. Each book is manufactured from a single A4 sheet of paper that is printed on both sides using a photocopier or a domestic printer, and then folded, stapled and trimmed by hand to create the book. The edition is limited to 150 copies, which are usually distributed free by post.

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