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Went to Bradford-on-Avon today and saw Fiona and Piers at Ale and Porter. The A-Mart show seems to be coming along well, with startling pink supermarket fittings filling the gallery space. A shame i can't make it for the opening since i'm in london. I must try to make it for the portraits show, though.
I've also posted another photo set to flickr.
It's at http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreweason/sets/42336/
It's now looking quite likely that I'll be giving one or more talks on book art in the US in spring- probably March, if I can just straighten out my timetable for it. i need to isolate a week or so when there are going to be no calamitously onerous duties to perform as regards my PhD, and get it straightened out. Andrew, thanks for the opening!
I've posted a new photoset on Flickr.
Who says you can't take photos at night without a tripod. (Warning, the woozy streaming lights, out-of-focus shots and digital noise may make some people feel a wee bit nauseous.)
I presented Twelve O'Clock Wood to my usual Tuesday group.
Remarks-
Linear/nonlinear?
How much have I storyboarded?
Why not multimedia?
I'm preferring to see the storyboard question as applying to the project of several books, rather than as pertaining to individual books. In fact, I DO often storyboard books before I do them, as compositions with narrative structure and rhythm. But it's precisely to try out different "motors" for creating the books that I want to try to use the amassed research material in different ways. So, sometimes I write and split a piece of writing into pages with a narrative structure that then gets worked into illustratively. More on this later....
I've been working on a diagrammatic representation of my thoughts on my research project, to try and spark off some relationship-analysis thoughts that can help me see the overall scheme of things and help me figure out what to do next. I anticipate this pile of blobs to grow and get more detailed: eventually I want to have links in here that will feature little gobbets of text that I can finish certain areas up with.
Anyway, here's the pdf. for it:
I've been talking with my friend Andrew about some of his an my projects and discussing some stuff to do with pictorial space and the senses, and the way that the senses inform the project of narrative presence (ie the presence of being-in the story that is actuated by the reader). it sort of fits in with my thoughts about books and also with Andrew's thoughts about the paranoia of knowledge. i saw some of his new pics and wrote him a couple of notes.
He's also asked me to consider doing a couple of basic talks over there in the states, so I think I'm going to use it as a method of writing up some of my thoughts about my strategies of practice and test drive a few of my notions about artists' books, presence and narrative. I want also, if I possibly can, to introduce the idea of books as a solution to various problems of practice: a notion I've elaborated at various points in this blog, but which needs a great deal more connecting up to
i. the existing conceptual framework around artists' books
ii. my custom frameworks adapted from my wider reading
and, most importantly
iii. How do I frame this notion (books as a solution to the problems of practice)as a series of questions that I can test/pursue/answer by making books?
So, this is an exercise in writing up a compact version of my conceptual framework and a chance to continue considering my methodology.
Later, I'm going to try to set this up as a series of mind-mapping diagrams...
What might some of the questions be that I ask other book artists?…
This is a parking lot post...
When people pick up and read your books, what do you think is happening to them? I’m interested in ideas of immersion here. Does the reader have a job to do in constructing the text? ( I mean, is there a dialogue between artist and reader? … Do you think there is a higher idea of “book” to which all book artists- including yourself- relate? Do
you think that the advent of digital information technologies and the
much-heralded death of the book affect the status of artists books? … Do
you think book arts should be thought of as a series of objects or as a
strategy, a form of practice that artists use to create work and
negotiate their cultural concerns? I think that these are two different
ways of looking at things and that there seems to be more thought and
criticism of the objects than of the artists and their strategies.
These approaches are necessarily intertwined... in terms of conception in terms of relationship between production and concept … How
do you address the relationship between the idea and the material?
Would you say that the available means of production dictate what you
can make, or would you say that if you had an idea you'd find a way to
make it? … Do
you view books as a changing or static thing in relation to your
subject matter/ sources and thought. What I mean is, are they
containers into which your thought can be decanted, or are they more
than that? What do you think the relationship between printing and book art is? What do you think the relationship between craft and book art is? … Do you find book art helpful in organising your practice? … What
is the relationship of books to collage? What I mean, is that simple,
flat collage allows a presentation of disparate materials together on a
page, whereas books (including books of collage) present pages in
relationship but as an array of possibly separate "modules" … Do
you use any digital tools to produce your books? Could you imagine
using the files you create in another medium rather than artists books?
…
Do you think this idea is changing? Does it need to be changed? Is it bad if it changes? Should it be resisted?
…
What about digital printing?
Is the “democratising” principle of the multiple an important issue for you?
…
Can you compartmentalize ideas?
Can you better express complex ideas with a structure/overarching form that aids narrative?
Do books limit you? Is this good/bad/other?
Do books change your voice?
Can you include more than one voice in a book?
Does the idea of a “strategy of containment” mean anything to you in terms of your practice?
Is
a book like a game? Does it exist because of a set of constitutive
rules? And is it therefore easier to temporarily separate from the
world to incorporate ideas elegantly?
Sense of a temporary horizon just now, as I look forward to spending some time until mid December reading solely about AB's. A sense also of some relief that I can close the borders a little bit thereby- well, I have some small hope of that anyway- and make some headway in my own field without trying to swallow the planet as has been the case for some considerable time. Also, I think that this'll make the time I'm actually spending on my artwork seem more legitimate to me. I'm a bit too tough on myself sometimes, albeit that I have to acknowledge that I could work a bit more steadily sometimes, rather than the sort of binge pattern I have now.
Still, I'm very glad that i've been made to settle in for a bit by my last supervisory meeting.
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