LDN E1

LDN EI is Antony Cairns's book-object in his ongoing LDN series. It recasts a recycled e-ink tablet as the vehicle for a suite of high-contrast black-and-white photographs of London at night. It was shortlisted for the 2015 Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards.

Cairns hacked the software of secondhand e-reader tablets bought at flea markets and junk shops. He loaded them with his full LDN archive of nocturnal London imagery, viewed chapter by chapter on the tablet's E Ink screen. The hardware itself was stripped down and customized, with the keyboard covered over and a new back fitted. Each copy functions as a self-published object rather than a printed book. The archive also includes reviews, an artist interview, and an essay by the critic Ian Jeffrey.

The book continues Cairns's photographic study of London that runs through the LDN series. He followed it with LDN2, made with Archive of Modern Conflict. Both extend his practice of treating repurposed digital display hardware as a medium for night photography of cities.