Matter, Antimatter and So Forth by Casey Gardner

A series of seven letterpress printed folios illumined with digitally printed transparencies, wrapped in a map of the universe. Phoebe is a traveller through time and space in search of what matters. Along the way, she meets an intergalactic wayfarer who is also on a quest. He seeks the 10th dimension which can only be reached by learning what is uniquely human. Together they travel to the beginning of the universe and back. Meanwhile, the two travellers investigate the workings of the universe. Each of the seven folios chronicles a mission that revolves around a field of exploration: light, gravity, time, matter, infinity, constellations and science. On the back of each folio is a mission dispatch reporting their discoveries of meaning in the natural forces and phenomena of the cosmos. Each folio is adhered with sheets of translucent exposures. These multi-layered artifacts reveal data+images of each mission and reflect the time at the beginning of the universe when space became transparent and light could flow freely. The title of the book refers to a time soon after the Big Bang, when, a small preponderance of matter over antimatter was produced. This asymmetry gave rise to all that exists in the universe, explaining why we have something, rather than a vast nothingness. Ah!