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Someoddpilot–a world renowned branding and design studio–has been at the center of Chicago’s art, design and music scenes since 1999.
Their clients include Patagonia, Nike, Dyson, Saucony, Herman Miller, Pitchfork, The Second City and dozens of independent institutions of music, art & culture. This is their first monograph.
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Space Becomes You–A Mythology is an art book with 288 pages of lush, glorious, other-worldly illustration & photography. Woven throughout is an inspiring narrative constructed by the authors and a fringe European UFO cult about life, the cosmos and ultimately creativity. “It’s like a cult for non-believers. A mythology for the planet Earth. A unifier for our divided times.” “Inspiring! A psychedelic space odyssey and an instant cult classic.” “The ultimate millenial coffee table book and guide to living a free & creative life.”
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Inspired by the quick and intense rise of political and cultural tribalism in the U.S., and Someoddpilot’s own practice of brand creation and world-building, the studio dove into an examination of mythology by constructing their own myth. Foreword from the book: We are inherently social creatures. From our beginnings, we have shared stories, both imagined and observed. We pass on wisdom, embellish experiences, and search for new ways to understand the world around us. Forging narratives, ascribing meaning to the unexplained, inventing myths: this is how we form our world. As Joseph Campbell claimed, myth-making is the path to selfexpansion and human expansion. Myths help us understand reality. We are seeing a new depth to the power of myths to shape truth. In this highly-charged contemporary moment where constructed narratives build new realities, we see that myths don’t just inform our understanding of the world: they can shift power dynamics, unite people, cause divides, even alter our core understanding of truth and reality. Our inherent belief in the power of the myth is exploited every day. Myths have become more than stories; they have cohered into a unified, formulaic approach to commercialism, politics and social behavior at large. The brands we buy and wear, the political parties and sociopolitical systems we subscribe to, the social media platforms we live on—these are the modern forms of myth. They represent a complex and evolving set of stories that we tell and that are told to us, a web of aesthetics, symbolism, rituals, archetypes and languages. Space Becomes You is a year-long project by Someoddpilot that explores modern myth-making by deconstructing it and then reimagining it through visual experimentation. It’s an iterative process by which we construct an intricate simulacrum, a universe consisting of its own gods, symbols, language and imagery. This is our myth.
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All belongs to everyone, that is why we work this way.
We only press buttons on the most modern equipment, but you
would have to see it
yourself
I am from a planet which is really beautiful. I will not tell you the name because you are not able to receive names and numbers yet. You need more practice and also to hold out. You will get to know everything soon.
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WELCOME COSMIC BEING WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU
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The Earth and planets of your solar system are coming in incredible speed to all changing aura of central sun called Meta-ONE
And I know that there is another question which you would like to be answered: “what will we do there all the time?”
The galaxy is speaking. It really is. But you are usually not listening! Your inner monologue is loud but it covers only a tiny fraction of the story. Your lungs are busy filling miniature balloons with oxygen and spreading it around your body. You make enzymes. You grow fingernails. You fight microscopic things by the millions every day, while you host millions of other things to help you survive and break things apart. You build an army of little yous and store them for the right time. You replicate DNA and make mistakes that benefit your species beyond your lifetime. You flow and bubble and ooze around, waves rippling across your body. You flow across time and metamorphosize as you go, growing hair and external organs and pheromones that control other living things around you. We’re not making this up!
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There are powerful energies spreading around, That’s only describing the present. Imagine you are watching a time lapse of your creation. You might imagine an embryo but that’s too recent. Let’s go back to the real beginningThey will wake up refreshed, not hungry, not thirsty, happy and watch the particulate matter and wisps of energy falling out of a dead
so we let them circulate
star or an exploded one, near the and quiet inside beginning of the universe, cosmic dust and matter bumping around, forming all manner of things. Imagine a piece of granite on a distant planet, maybe a single cell lifeform, dark matter, or atoms in nebula clouds. All of these microscopic and subatomic things bounce around and work their way around the universe, speeding past this star and that, a handful of the billions of stars in our galaxy, millions and billions of years swooshing on by!
freely on the planet Earth
Eventually your trillions of tiny pieces settle closer to your sun. Over massive stretches of time, they get hold of one another and they are on their way - through lifeforms and matter and light, inching their way - through endless generations of beings and now, finally, they are on a collision course, this experiment, just the latest in trillions that came before. This accident is headed RIGHT IN YOUR DIRECTION. Against all odds, in a sea of zillions of odds – YOU START with a single cell and you get busy with your multiplying. Cells upon cells, each a rightful owner of YOU, building to a walking talking being, capable of reading these words. It’s almost too much. Ok, let’s start there. That’s WHERE WE ARE. – 8 ZETA 1
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UOY T ONN A C EB D E T E L ED
YOU CANNOT BE DELETED
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THERE
ARE
BILLIONS OF STARS IN
THE
MILKY
WAY YOU LIVE NEAR ONE OF THEM
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“…the only myth that is going to be worth thinking about in the immediate future is one that is talking about the planet; not the city, not these people, but the planet, and everybody on it.” — Joseph Campbell, The Power Of Myth
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Space Becomes You—A Mythology is a 288-page narrative art book replete with surreal intergalactic landscapes, psychedelic rituals, and curious beings. Inspired by the quick and intense rise of political and cultural tribalism in the U.S., and Someoddpilot’s own practice of brand creation and world-building, the studio dove into an examination of mythology by constructing their own myth. First Printing
2019
Format
Hardback
Size
8.625" x 11.125"
Pages
288 pp
Images
284 photos & illustrations
ISBN
9781732061866
Price
$50 US
Printed & Bound In Canada
Published by Trope Publishing Co. Chicago, IL USA trope.com
someoddpilot.com spacebecomesyou.com