
Royal Road Test
- Publisher
- Edward Ruscha
- Year
- 1967
- Specifications
- Spiral-bound, cream-colored wrappers
9 1/4 x 6 1/4 in (23.7 x 15.8 cm)
60 pages, 36 illustrations
First edition of 1,000 copies
With Mason Williams and Patrick Blackwell
Printer: Blair Litho, Los Angeles
A mock-forensic investigation documenting the defenestration, in the desert, of a standard office-model typewriter thrown from a car traveling ninety miles an hour. Presented with the flat, procedural language of an accident report -- measured distances, numbered evidence photographs, a diagram of the wreckage -- the project turns a deliberately pointless act of destruction into a deadpan piece of pseudo-scientific documentation.