Twelve Hours
Artist book


Design interpretation of Kafka's short story In the Penal Colony.


The text describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned man on his skin before letting him die, all in the course of twelve hours. 


The 12 books retell the core of the novella using the form of the book alone. Each book represents an hour of the machine’s work, showing the progression of the piercing from barely to fully pierced. 


In the last book, 12:00, the piercings reach the very last page with great force recreating the last and fatal hour of the machine.