How to build a Telescope / Carlos Trancoso

Sale Price: €24.00 Original Price: €30.00

‘How to Build a Telescope’ is about technology in a rural context, reflecting on the topics of curiosity and the need for invention. It also explores the complexity of science and the laws of physics, showing how they are closely related to the everyday experience of being alive. The narrative is constructed around a found book and set in a small and isolated village where technology can find its maximum expression of freedom. The project addresses the importance of reshaping the future of technology against mass production, proposing a reconnection between user, creator, and creations.The photos were taken between 2018 and 2023 and the title, directly translated from the found book, embodies the concept of a specific type of technology (a telescope) that is originally designed to be used outside noisy urban areas. The idea of building an amateur telescope evokes the juxtaposition between cosmos and mundane life. The project explores language by intentionally erasing written text from the scanned books, transforming it into an essay on the importance of visual communication in human connections.

‘How to Build a Telescope’ is about technology in a rural context, reflecting on the topics of curiosity and the need for invention. It also explores the complexity of science and the laws of physics, showing how they are closely related to the everyday experience of being alive. The narrative is constructed around a found book and set in a small and isolated village where technology can find its maximum expression of freedom. The project addresses the importance of reshaping the future of technology against mass production, proposing a reconnection between user, creator, and creations.The photos were taken between 2018 and 2023 and the title, directly translated from the found book, embodies the concept of a specific type of technology (a telescope) that is originally designed to be used outside noisy urban areas. The idea of building an amateur telescope evokes the juxtaposition between cosmos and mundane life. The project explores language by intentionally erasing written text from the scanned books, transforming it into an essay on the importance of visual communication in human connections.

Presale price with 20% Discount | Copies will start to be shipped on the 18th of November

Photographs: Carlos Trancoso
Editing & Sequence: Tiago Casanova, Pedro Guimarães & Carlos Trancoso
Prepress: Pedro Guimarães
Production: Tiago Casanova
Production Assistants: Miranda Verstraete, Emilie Tizien and Antonis Pappos.
Printing: Gráfica Maiadouro

2025
XYZ Books
152 pages
17 x 22 cm
Hardcover
Offset
First edition
500 copies
ISBN: 978-989-35169-9-7

This project was further developed and produced in the scope of the Creative Europe initiative Intergalactica: books for the culture without borders, between 2024-25.