a book with a view - a view with a book

a book with a view - a view with a book

the landscape of the book

I am interested a lot in the space within the book and how the physicality of the book can influence the space inside. How this space (the pages) stretch and compress themselves with opening and closing. How the landscape of the book is manipulated with the turning of a page.

I am going to look at three examples of the space inside, which all quite differently present a landscape that wouldn’t exist in any other form but the book. 

Humphry Repton - Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire A.

A self taught landscape gardener Humphry Repton (1752-1818) produced books as a way of generating business. He would commission watercolours of clients estates with proposed alterations underneath flaps that could be revealed and covered over to display the extent of his plans. 1.

Repton's proposed landscaping for the Pavilion at Brighton: Before (above), after (below) B.

Red Book for Vinters, Kent, 1797. C.

These red books play with a before and after notion of time, which in a time before moving image has created a playful landscape that works only within the book.

Pauline Lamont-Fisher - Walking the Past D. 

Next I shall look at a book by the book artist Pauline Lamont-Fisher. It’s structure is integral to the landscape it is about. 

‘This artist's book documents the shape of a walk following a map found in the back of an old, discarded Health and Safety pamphlet illustrating how to get to an exhibition at HMSO in 1950. I was reflecting on how much the streets had changed in the intervening years. By printing the photographs in black and white, an impression is created of seeing the walk as it would have been seen in 1950, and therefore of seeing the future. This contrasts with other information found on the way which is grounded in the 21st century.’ 2.

The space of the book and the space of the walk are so interlinked the book takes the form of a meandering concertina. The book folds back on itself which makes an interesting correlation with Repton’s Red Books. The both present an object which is about finding and revealing as you interact with them. The shape and content of them changes as you read them. In the Red Books the landscape in the image changes as you reveal the flaps, in Pauline’s work the landscape in the structure of the walk is revealed as you interact with it. 

Colin Sackett - Black Bob E.

Lastly is a book by Colin Sackett called Black Bob. An image of a shepherd with his sheep walking along a riverside is repeated endlessly through the book, each page is identical. The structure of the book and the landscape of the image play against each other. 

‘This demonstration of direction, the page after page rightward movement of shepherd, dog, sheep, and the parallel flow of the river, is identical to the narrative of a book with blank stock as its subject…’ 3. 

The movement through the book is controlled by the image and the image controlled by the book. The landscape of one influences the landscape of the other. 

‘it doesn’t dictate a pace. That’s a curious thing about it and why I’m pleased with it. It has all sorts of paces. It’s absolutely static. I don’t know if it the front’s moving towards the back or vice-versa…’ 3.

Here the image has melded with the landscape of the book. In repeating the image it almost voids itself, as if it were a blank book. But what is important is it is a book and this repeated image creates a unique landscape to navigate through. Controlled by your movements as a reader as you interpret and interact with the space thats been created. 

[George]

References:

1. A History of the Book in 100 Books, Roderick Cave and Sara Ayad - 2014

2. http://www.burntbarn.co.uk/thepast.html

3. http://www.colinsackett.co.uk/writing_readings_02.php

Illustrations:

A. http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/humphrey-repton-observations-theory-and-practice-landscape-gardening

B. http://www.gardendesign.com/sites/all/files/Brighton.jpg

C.https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiohubitW4eU58UleUN_8bfSD6Iilnglnx8-W42iIueGues4nDUfcije76Rw897oSVC9pW0NOPOEQiYUP8u2alCMXmu_P_sp36WNtYnY1jOGbCj4FKTdEBmG5VP1La6NctNjdDRZCg3NI8nME/s1600/ReptonRedBookVintersKent.jpg

D. http://www.burntbarn.co.uk/thepast.html

E. http://www.vampandtramp.com/finepress/c/coracle-blackbob-L.jpg

BABE 2015 - from behind the table

 

Our table in BABE 2015

Firstly I would like to say how impressed I was with #BABE2015 at the Arnolfini. The amount of visitors and variety of stalls was outstanding.

I would like to talk a bit about being behind the table and the chance of interacting with the public, also more importantly for them to interact with our books. I think it ties in quite nicely to the talk that we also gave at BABE entitled: 'codex: between one hand and another. A video and talk on the relationship between the reader, the book and the hand.'

 

codex: between one hand and another - video still

We showed a video which we have been working on, where people where asked to close their eyes and talk about how the book feels. The book as an object. A still of which is above. Listening to people talk about their experiences was fascinating, as people filled the lack of sight with memories.

What is important for me as a book artist and sitting behind the table at BABE was watching people interact with the books. Experiencing and learning about them through touch. One of my books has interleaved pages which get turned over one by one. (See the images below). Watching how people approach it, pick it up and how it reveals itself to them though movement was for me really interesting. I know it sounds a bit cliche to say it, but it made me see the work in a new way. It is so easy to get caught up in the making of it, you get lost sometimes in the simplicity of things. I often wonder if people interact with the work in a way that I intended, as often my books rely on movement to convey their meaning. If people move them differently does it still convey the same thing?

'connected space' - George Cullen

The book structure is a familiar thing but when it is presented in a slightly different way, as in my book above, or in another example in some of my colleagues Egidija's work. It is an intriguing new experience that is fun to watch and be a part of. Some of Egidija's work on the table at the weekend (see below) were beautifully fragile and light. They came as unbound, folded loose sheets. The very nature of the super thin printed Japanese papers to float and catch in the wind, transformed these pieces when picked up, into a performance. There was a lightness in them that brought out a poetic romantic quality from the book, which spoke of the femininity of the paper coupled with the strength of the book structure. Something which, only as I watched people read them did I notice. 

'those frivolous readers' -  Egidija Čiricaitė

So if you are a book artists and have never been to a fair, I strongly recommend it. Having a table at BABE was a great way to critique your own work. For me at least it has sparked some thoughts in where I would like my work to progress. We make books to be read, so let people read them!

[George]

the photo book

The photo book has evolved quite rapidly since the invention of the photographic process and I am going to explore a few below. From the worlds first right through to a project that we worked on together. The photo book maybe associated now with a soulless print on demand generation of book making but the photo book has an interesting past and is still can be very interesting now.

'Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions'  - cover detail A

The worlds first photo book created between 1843-1853 was 'Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions' by Anna Atkins. It is made up of a series of cyanotype prints where dried algae are placed directly on the cyanotype paper. Paper coated in water soluble iron salts when exposed to sunlight form a compound know as Prussian blue, hence the blue image created.

'Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions'  - page detail A

"The difficulty of making accurate drawings of objects as minute as many of the Algae and Confera, has induced me to avail myself of Sir John Herschel's beautiful process of Cyanotype, to obtain impressions of the plants themselves," 1.

'The Pencil of Nature' - cover detail B

The first photographically illustrated book to follow this was 'The Pencil of Nature', 1844- 1846 by William Henry Fox Talbot. Set up as a commercial exploitation to encourage the widespread distribution of large editions of photographic prints. The 'Pencil of Nature' contains 24 plates with a brief text for each. 2.

'The Pencil of Nature' - page detail C

One artist that most of us will be familiar with for his photo books is Ed Ruscha. He is probably responsible for bringing the popularity photo books to the world of book arts. Rejecting the tradition of the handmade limited edition these books are mass produced simple and in large repeated editions. 3.

'Twentysix Gasoline Stations' - cover and page detail D

Heres a short video of Ed Ruscha taking about his photo books. E

Lastly I would like to mention the visual essays that we worked on together as part of 'codex: between this and that'. Here we used the idea of the photo book and combined images together that created a narrative which relied on the form of the book to convey itself. The images we chose would not work, or at least not be so successful if conveyed in any other way. The book holds the narrative of the imagery and conveys our thoughts in a visual way.

'codex: between one hand and another.' F.

[George]

Refrences

1. http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?col_id=188

2. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/267022

3. http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/focus_ruscha/

Images

A. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Atkins

B. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/267022

C. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/pencil-of-nature/

D. http://www.tate.org.uk/about/projects/transforming-artist-books/summaries/edward-ruscha-twentysix-gasoline-stations-1963

E. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xboX5cvIzw

F. http://collectiveinvestigations.tumblr.com/bookshop

seeing the world upside down

Today my blog post is going to be slightly experimental and take the form of a textual experiment:

Here is a link to a larger .pdf version: link

[George]

Group Material / Collective Investigations

In 2010, at the Frieze Art Fair I attended an excellent talk by Julie Ault, one of the founding members of the art collective Group Material. Although l hadn't come across the group before, it was fascinating to hear about the projects they were involved in and the importance of their legacy.

One thing that stuck with me was the way that this ever-changing group of artists seemed to produce such a large body of work with an incredible reach.

The reason the talk came to mind was because Egidija, George and I have been meeting together as Collective Investigations for two years now and the milestone made me reflect on the experience of working as a group.

Detail of window from exhibition at the bookartbookshop.

As with Group Material I feel like Collective Investigations has reached further than we might have on our own. During this past two years we have published a huge artists' book, made and exhibited new art, held public workshops, given a talk at the Victoria and Albert Museum and been selected to have a table at Kaleid. I'm looking forward to the next things on the horizon. For me this work ethic has spilled over into my own individual practice, which also seems to be flourishing.

Workshop materials.

A couple of years ago I came across the book 'Show and Tell: A Chronicle of Group Material', which was released by Ault at the time of the Frieze talk. The thing that came across most strongly from the book was the bureaucracy and the systems that the group put in place to make the whole thing work. It seemed quite a contrast to the talk, as it exposed the extensive, but unseen machinery behind the art. What's interesting to me now (after working as part of a collective myself for two years) is that without regular meetings, talks about finance, long term plans etc, the group wouldn't have had the time, space or energy to create and to make such thoughtful and engaging artworks.

Book: Codex Between This and That

{Chris}