a definite beginning and end

Continuing on from Egidija’s last post I am going to take a look into curious structures. Or the curious structure of one particular book. 

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

The Sulawesi reel-to-reel is a Lontar manuscript, created in South Sulawesi, Indonesia before 1907.

Lontar is the Indonesian word for for a palm leaf manuscript. It is the modern form of Old Javanese ‘Rontal’ which is composed of two Old Javanese words, ron "leaf" and tal "Borassus flabellifer, palmyra palm". Not only are the palms used for making books they are made into plaited mats, water scoops, ornaments, ritual tools, and writing material. The more traditional form of the Lontar is more recognisable, with strips of dried palm leaves held together with twine, between two strips of wood. 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTN8rJcZixmuSBPpv1ArAeRcmSnn-ovStcoYHqTRYaSHvRnKy9k4Kux_yDxlWXSATRiQ9p1v-MZ8TaPobzCk7r5yZwNOSEvBi1rxk2LvamRDHoCsSZLPAfe2KM-7w_LyLBz6pxJoC57u7M/s640/DSC03365.JPG

An interesting side point is the way the form and material of the manuscripts have influenced the handwriting:

The rounded or diagonal shapes of the letters of many of the scripts of South India and Southeast Asia, such as Devanagari, Nandinagari, Telugu script, Lontara, the Javanese script, the Balinese alphabet, the Odia alphabet, the Burmese alphabet, the Tamil script and others may have developed as an adaptation to writing on palm leaves, as angular letters tend to split the leaf. Sanford Steever, 'Tamil Writing'; Kuipers & McDermott, 'Insular Southeast Asian Scripts', in Daniels & Bright, The World's Writing Systems, 1996, p. 426, 480

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

Not much is know about this scroll variant but it is thought that the book was intended to be read from beginning to end so is probable that it was intended for formal use in ceremonies, where the order of things had to be recognised. It is interesting to think of it in this way. It is not a text that you can flick though like in the more conventional codex. It has a pace and an structured journey, that has to be undertaken. You have to follow it word for word.  It might be a thing to bear in mind when creating books. How much as an artist do I want to impose a route though my books. In some I guess I use text to draw you though but it is up to the reader what page they open up on. More recently I have been creating books based on journeys (see below) so It is interesting for me to see a book with a definite beginning and end. This is the route you take and you read the text in this order. Nothing gets mixed up and the author has more control over the interpretation of the piece. 

www.georgecullen.com

[George]

resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm-leaf_manuscript

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

www.georgecullen.com

the typewriter

As part of our Gutter project we used a typewriter. The reason for us, was that it is the most transportable way of printing on site without having to have a computer and a printer.  It doesn't need electricity or take up a lot of room, so fits into our project quite nicely, allowing us to print a publication during the duration of the fair.

Photo: Pauline Lamont-Fisher

So I'm going to explore a few creative uses of the typewriter in various forms. 

Instructions for the use of the Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter

Firstly this manual for the use of an Olivetti typewriter from the 50's. Though not intended as a piece of art it is beautifully designed and reads like a piece of concrete poetry. It sums up the modern differences in keyboard design which enthralled so many people at the fair. The 'experience' of the typewriter, the noise, the extra pressure you put on the keys added an interesting layer to the event. Also what I liked was that the backspace key pointed in the direction the carriage moved and not in the direction it now points on a modern keyboard. I wonder when this change in direction appeared?

Instructions for the use of the Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter

Carl Andre - then I pulled his gun and I, 1975

Carl Andre - PLAN (Yucatan), 1972

Carl Andre

I couldn't look at the typewriter without looking at concrete poetry which seems to form a big part of its creative use, like these typewriter drawings and poems by Carl Andre. It did strike me while using the typewriter the other weekend, that there is something quite freeing about an analogue way of working. If you don't mind not having perfectly straight lines of text, the typewriter works more like a drawing with a slightly less than precise form of mark making. 

Ed Ruscha - Royal Road Test 1967

While doing this typewriter research I came across this fun book by Ed Ruscha that I wasn't aware of. Some might be repulsed by it but it fits into this post on the creative use of a typewriter quite nicely. 

This artists' book documents the destruction of a Royal (Model 'X') typewriter that was thrown from a car travelling at 90 m.p.h. The book being an interpretation of Jack Kerouac’s 1959 novel, On the Road. Various parts of the typewriter that were scattered far and wide were documented along with the remaining body of the typewriter itself and the artist inspecting it. 

I'll leave you with this: 'The Typewriter' a piece of classical music from the 50's written by Leroy Anderson. Reminding us that the typewriter can not only be used to draw with, record text and be thrown out of a speeding car, but can also be used to make music. Enjoy!

[George]

the web within a book the book within a web

Recently we have been asked by the British Library to submit our site http://collectiveinvestigations.tumblr.com for the http://www.webarchive.org.uk/. This has got me thinking about how the internet has a vast wealth of data that a library could potentially collect. They currently hold 14,929 websites represeting 27.48TB of data which is a small portion of the 957,324,487 websites that are currently on the internet. (http://www.internetlivestats.com) 

‘The UK Web Archive contains websites that publish research, that reflect the diversity of lives, interests and activities throughout the UK, and demonstrate web innovation. This includes "grey literature" sites: those that carry briefings, reports, policy statements, and other ephemeral but significant forms of information. Because websites are revisited and snapshots ("instances") taken at regular intervals, readers can see how a website evolves over time. The archive is free to view, accessed directly from the Web itself and, since archiving began in 2004, has collected thousands of websites.’ (http://www.webarchive.org.uk/)

It is interesting how the the websites are given book like qualities. Collected by a library and presented to readers, in much the same way they would collect and catalogue a book. 

_

I have been looking at some artists and projects that explore this notion of collecting and the place the internet and the library have in relation to this. 

One of them being Chris Gibson from our collective with his work the Unassuming Collection. 

The book holds within it links to books that can be read online. Using the form of the book to collect and present these other books. The book becomes a library. A library of texts that sits between both an online collection and a physical one.

the unassuming collection - Chris Gibson

‘The Unassuming Collection is a paperback comprised of double-page spreads, featuring a disjointed but unfolding narrative on the left hand and a visual fragment (marginalia, an image, isolated text) taken from an existing book, on the right. The story refers to an imaginary library, but the images are taken from existing books. Below the right hand text is a QR code leading to a location where the book can be borrowed online, turning the fictional collection into an actual one.
The artwork emphasises the book’s role as archive – or keeper much more than its pages belie.’ (http://chrisgibsonart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/in-progress-unassuming-collection.html)

Another project I have come across is the Library of the Printed Web. http://libraryoftheprintedweb.tumblr.com

Library of the Printed Web is a physical archive and Tumblr devoted to web-to-print artists’ books, zines and other printout matter. It is also the publisher of Printed Web. Founded by Paul Soulellis in 2013, Library of the Printed Web is “web culture articulated as printed artifact,” characterized as an “accumulation of accumulations,” much of it printed on demand. It has also been described as an archive of archives. Techniques for appropriating web content used by artists in the collection include grabbing, hunting, scraping and performing, detailed by Soulellis in “Search, Compile, Publish,” and later referenced by Alessandro Ludovico.

They have collected together a lot of really interesting projects that like Chris’ book straddle that physical/digital divide. 

Experimental Publishing Studio at Rhode Island School of Design, COOKING WITH DOG, a one-hour Google doc book. With Jordan Hu, Drew Litowitz, Jane Long, Zhurong Qian, Francesca Capone, Mina Park, Stephanie Low, Ming Zhen, Lizzy Lim, Gyu Won Lee, Julie Rhee, Yoo Jin Jang. Spring 2015.

Mishka Henner, _IMG01 Australian-troops-passing-014.jpg. Self-published, PoD, 2014. Edition of 97 signed books and a 5x7 silver gelatin print. 740 pages.

[George]

/ / / / ECHO

Currently we have a piece of art on display in Cambridge. The work is part of an art fair called Art Language Location which sees works by various artists dotted around Cambridge. The piece is called MIRROR ECHO. 

We have chosen three double sided notice boards outside a lecture theatre in Cambridge University’s Sidgwick Site. 

The piece is a play on perception and reflections. We want you to look at what is reflected on the boards instead of what is in them. Underneath a glass surface are a white sheet, black sheet and sheets with gradients from black to white and vice versa. 

The outer boards have the gradients so reflect the rest of the campus in a slightly distorted way. A black surface reflecting much clearer than a white one. The gradient boards act like a lens flare in a photograph masking out parts of the image. It is something that has to be seen to really experience it,  as the photographs have a kind ‘photoshopped’ quality, where the boards look false or artificial. It is something that you have to walk alongside, in doing so you see your reflection disappear and reemerge.

MIRROR ECHO from George Cullen on Vimeo.

On the reverse of these gradient boards are printed two words: MIRROR and ECHO. These words reflect on the centre board. As you walk though the space you get caught in the reflection. You may notice the words printed backwards or you may notice the reflection of the word, but to see one board is to see the other. Situated outside the doors to lecture theatres that see multiple lectures a day there is a lot of passing traffic. I hope at least a few stop and contemplate on the space. 

MIRROR ECHO is located on the Noticeboards outside Lecture Block A, Cambridge University, Sidgwick Site, Sidgwick Avenue, CB3 9DA. They will be there from 15 October – 1 November 2015

What became really interesting for us in this piece are the gradient boards. I'm wondering if it will lead to more uses of gradients and the change in perception that they provoke.

I came across this book, that will act as a colourful contrast to our black and white boards.

The RGB Colourspace Atlas by Tauba Auerbach

It is interesting how the gradient defines the passage of time and space. The movement in colour signifying a movement in page and a movement on the page signifying the volume of the book. There is a lot in the simplicity of it. In the fact that it can only exist as a book, a 3D visualisation of a form of colour. 

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[George]