256GB by Yung Lean

256GB is Yung Lean’s first book, tracing the artist’s evolution and continual reinvention. Yung Lean has generated a mass following as a cult icon. Poised between influence and infamy, his outsider status emerged from the internet-based culture of the early 2010s, characterised by its vaporwave aesthetic of nostalgia, surrealism and melancholia. Fusing sincere introspection with humour, his practice continues to resonate with audiences around the world.

Collating 574 images shot across iPhone’s 6, 8, X & SE, the book exemplifies Yung Lean’s autonomous artistic production. Intimate, extemporary images stored in a personal photo library are reformulated into a classical book form. Produced in Italy, the book’s material construction draws upon the 500-year-old tradition of bible-making at Legatoria Industriale Artigianale’s premises in Cava de’ Tirreni. Red hot-foil typography graces a melanged green substrate. The spine paired with a red silk ribbon furthers the book’s aesthetic resonance.

Each copy of the book is accompanied by a silver sticker sheet as a token of viral ephemera provoking the book’s classical endurance. The erratic, temporal organisation of the camera roll is reformulated through the book’s nine chapters across 596 pages, categorised by colour – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black, and white. Encountered in this way, the book’s images lose their impulsive quality and take on new signification as a cohesively structured volume. The logic of the book’s index exaggerates the blunt dissonance of its contents. Images are categorised into a list, each referenced by an unambiguous word or phrase – ‘Me and Mum’, ‘Dead Fish’ and ‘Travis’, echoing the candid, deadpan approach of Lean’s lyricism.