Bruce Gernand is a sculptor who has been researching the potential of computers to mediate between two- and three-dimensional objects. He has been using a software program that allows him to scan in an object (or a drawing of an object) which can be represented as a series of slices like a contour map. The program also allows him to 'unfold' the surface of a three-dimensional object, to produce a diagram that could be cut out and re-folded to remake the object. These diagrams are like maps or plans of the original object.

This is one of a group of 3 prints that are related to one another, but are part of a larger project he has called Festina lente (make haste slowly) which is based on Aesop's fable of the tortoise and the hare. The Tortoise Unfold (E.527-2009) is a diagram of a tortoise (analogous to the tortoise shell's natural faceted structure). The image has been screenprinted onto mount card which has been cut and folded to form a shallow box (in a further reference to volume). The tortoise here represents things material and substantial, ideas of volume and solidity. By extension, it stands for the slow and steady pace of more traditional print media.

The Hare in Transit (E.528-2009) is an etching showing a hare leaping through a wall (it has been re-imagined via the computer program as a series of slices through the body of the hare so that appears to become disembodied as it passes through the wall). The hare represents the speed of computer and digital processes; it is light and insubstantial, and stands for the digital and virtual in image-making.

Both images appear again in the third print Festina lente; make haste slowly(E.529-2009), which is an inkjet print. This is structured as a narrative showing the relation of the prints to a sculpture (Bruce dreams the tortoise and the hare); it takes the form of a 'Surimono' print. (Surimono prints are folded prints which incorporate related text and image; they were developed in 17th century Japan. When opened out they reveal a narrative; folded, they produce different conjunctions of word and image).

The prints formed part of Gernand's contribution to FADE (Fine Art Digital Environments) at the University of the Arts, and his research for the AHRC-funded research project The Personalised Surface: New Approaches to Digital Printmaking (the results of which were presented at a symposium hosted by the V&A on 3 April 2009).