feelingaffordanceandthinkingthroughmaking

bringing together a number of experiments to submit to a conference.

rethinkrehang

Work continues on Sizewell C, I've been working on a couple of 'introduction' / 'talking point' pieces from conversations I've had so far, alongside organizing visits, introductions and meetings. Slowly integrating into the systems that are established. Spent the weekend cleaning, repainting and then rehanging the art in the corridor – it’s like collecting the work all over again as the new layout enables the art to be seen as if for the first time. Onto screens – traumatised by Carry On – don’t go to the airport, moved by This brings me to you - hope and honesty and finally traumatised by Heretic – don’t go into a strange house.

ohnoyoudidn'tohyesyoudid

Went to see Sleeping Beauty, the pantomime at the New Wolsey – oh no I didn’t – amazing set but maybe not double entendre enough! Brian Eno presented a rich and thoughtful collection of positions and ideas at a talk the other night at Norwich University of the Arts. It was interesting to hear some diametrically opposing thoughts voiced to the audience of educators in the audience who sat listening to him. Ideas around working with chaos, the driving forces of creativity, how to make art, the role of attention, gardening v architecture, and then for me - the lack of process within ai, gotta reflect on that one. Truly wonderful stuff. Friday night was off to Lowestoft to check out Battery of Ideas in the old Tesco on the highstreet. What a fabulous space. Really nice evening full of great conversations with good work - Digital Film Installations: Water Portals by Henry Driver & Arboreal by Emily Richardson going on around you. https://firstlightfestivalcic.com/batteryofideas Snape had a sharing of Bystander - the work of a week’s dance residency with Richard Pye. https://www.instagram.com/richardpye/?hl=en-gb It was one of the most moving pieces I have seen for a long time. It brought me to tears with delicate, studied movements – stunningly powerful. https://www.brittenpearsarts.org/events/richard-pye Onto screens – really enjoying everything about Wolf Hall – The Light – astonishingly taught acting, tight script and fabulous costumes. Juror #2 – will you do the ‘right’ thing? Conclave – you will do the right thing?

thememoryofexistence

I came across these images this morning. Photographs taken the day before my dad’s funeral of his house after it had been cleared. The evidence of human existence. The materials hold the memory of repeated actions over years. My Auntie lived in the house before so some of the marks were over 50 plus years, especially in the more private spaces, under the stairs and in the larder.

progcomputerrockandsomeotherstuff

A weekend in London to see the Lambrini Girls. They were supporting Idles at Ally Pally. There was a couple of good tracks but mainly it became a little boring and communicated a sort of confusing message – fuck the police and the government and at the same time think about community building, simultaneously promoting piece and talking about mental health awareness and calling on people to love one another. The other support act, Battles - who's music was way too clever, but not interesting, all those extensive noodling samples and guitar/drum solos – prog computer rock. But the Lambrini Girls are quite marvellous and come highly recommended, the mosh pits are beautifully generated and controlled. Meanwhile dropped into South London Gallery to see some gloriously pointless things beautifully made by Nairy Baghramiam. Maybe this is the definition of art! On the way home - Mark Steel on desert island discs is a gem - great songs and great storytelling. Onto screens – Joker: Folie à Deux was stunning, a modern, dark, beautiful way of thinking about dance.

Whatisbookness?Whatisittomakebookart?Oneapproachtothemakingofbooks.

A busy couple of weeks – I’m in a book – Anthology. Ten years of Turn the Page Artists’ Book Fair. I wrote an article titled What is bookness? What is it to make bookart? One approach to the making of books. I also have an artist’s page. The book looks great, Jules Allen and Jo Howe have done a great herculean job. Ran a really pleasant and therefore creative life drawing session this week. Sizewell continues to communicate awe. I have some initial ideas but am still taking in the enormity of the whole thing. My first pantomime of the season – Aladin at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds - the Georgian building is extraordinary and defines how the staging is set, you feel you have gone back in time. I loved the dame, especially as a scout. Onto screens – Alien: Romulus – more of the same’ish’ but what did I expect. Blink Twice – dark and troubling but why, you will find out. At the moment deep into several series Lioness series 2 – brutal in so many ways. Day of the Jackel – complex killing. Rivals – hilarious maybe.

The text of the article – with a ‘made-up’ dictionary definition of bookness!

bookness

/bʊkness/

abstract noun: bookness.

An object or activity that references or contains in its conception or creation ideas, materials, concepts, production processes, functionality or other elements that are related to the book, its associated activities, and spaces. These include paper making, reading, writing, calligraphy, typography, illustration, printing, binding, folding. Spaces include libraries, archives, bookshops including second hand and antiquarian, databases, and the internet.

synonyms: book, book art, bookwork, artists’ book, volume, tome, work, printed work, publication, treatise, whole book philosophy.

More

The naming of an idea which has at its core the essence of book. Other art forms that have bookness and encompass time-based works, including dance, film, theatre, performance poetry and music both live and recorded.

Something bound by the concepts that contain the idea of the book.

What is bookness?  What is it to make bookart? One approach to the making of books.

This paper sets out to explore some ideas developed around notions of bookart and the expansive possibilities available when interrogating the idea of book through the lens of bookness. It will also examine the making of books within an art practice alongside its position within education, specifically the core values that were embedded within the Book Art Course at Camberwell College of the Arts. ref 1

24 years ago, in 1995 as a visiting tutor at Camberwell College of the Arts, working on the BA Graphic Design Course I was asked by Alex Lumley ref 2 to help write the course documents for a new MA Book Art Course ref 3. I had been working with students, developing ideas around image and text within various formats. In my own practice I had been printing books since 1983, my second year of study on the Graphic Design course at London College of Printing (now London College of Communication). My foray into the making of books was instigated mainly because I had discovered the glorious design printmaking workshops and the machine printing workshops operated by ex Fleet St printers. I often created too much work to fit in the space allocated to individual students in crits and assessments and the book provided the opportunity to have a lot of work in one place. Eventually I developed an approach where I produced work specifically for the book format; images to scale and text length developed in relationship to each other, but still basically using the form as a container of information, repositories for my image and text works. I tentatively started to consider the possibilities afforded by exploring the structures associated with the book; fold, gutter, page. These were mainly design concerns which contextualised the work within a livre d'artiste framework rather than an experimental bookwork model. This was something I only really understood when I found myself standing in Charlene Gary's library at Basilisk Press in 1983 with Derek Humphries ref 4 surrounded by things called bookart or fine press books or livre d'artiste. ref 5. Before that exposure I think I naively believed I had invented this thing called the book.

As part of my role to create course documents and the need to further my understanding of the books possibilities I corresponded with Ivor Robinson, ref 6 who was running a bookart module at Oxford Polytechnique. Thus, my introduction to bookness was born, I was soon reading around the subject and was subsequently drawn to the dogma of Ulises Carrion. ref 7 There have been many people along the way who have informed my understanding of the creative process, enabling me to be standing at Turn the Page. Over the existence of the course at Camberwell, under the guidance of the Course Leader of 24 years, Susan Johanknecht ref 8 I have been introduced to and learnt along with the student’s new ways of thinking specifically about book. This led to the development of ideas related to an understanding of bookness, a whole book philosophy, an activity that explores concepts and actions relating to the making of bookworks; folding, printing, sequence, order, time, control. This concept has provided me with a framework for a practice which has enabled a focused core set of values and an approach to the making of a wide range of artworks and presented a methodology to be used within a teaching context.

The core of this paper was carved out of a seminar I have been giving at Camberwell since the course’s conception - it has evolved greatly from its first iteration, collecting ideas like a wayward snowball gathers everything in its path as it hurtles down a mountain, so that it now has the density of a black hole, tightly packed, somewhat impenetrable but diametrically it melts away under interrogation. It is this link with the concept of belief, belief in the idea of a made-up word - bookness that I enjoy. The slippage of language means that each individual can find their own version of what bookart means to them and it can change with each new encounter, each new piece of information.

The presentation titled What is bookness - finding your relationship to book ref 9 formed part of the first seminar that the new co-hort of MA Book Art students received at the beginning of the course. It was an attempt to create a level playing field of knowledge within the group, a way of presenting an open approach to thinking about the book, supporting the idea of challenging preconceived notions of what book is or could be, an idea that went to the core of the course's philosophy. My starting point for building the initial presentation was to challenge traditional notions and known's associated with the book, for example that in an art practice it needs to have anything to do with paper, pages and hard covers containing images and texts. It attempted to present an opportunity for the students to develop their own relationship to book - book as material - image of book - paper - words / text - binding - folding - structure / book as architecture / space - smell - touch - codes / communication - documentation / dissemination - collecting / ordering - performance / reading - process / making - distribution - sequence.

Having taught for the whole of the Course's life, from its conception to its termination, I have delivered a version of the presentation26 times, starting off using photographic slides and moving onto PowerPoint, each one delivered revelatory moments for myself which in turn fuels the thinking for the specific cohort and also informs the next one. This almost invisible reflective element of teaching has enabled me to reinvent and redefine my understanding of book. The process of creating presentations is a way of gathering current transitory information and weaving it with established historical knowledge. When delivering it to a new group of students there is no way that the inputs from students and subsequent discussion can be anticipated. In that moment fresh hypothesis are born and original thinking established.

For myself revelation, and an acknowledgement of audience are at the heart of what I do and underpin my relationship to the making of books. This lateral thinking, multi discipline approach is what artists bring to a problem.  The world is re-imagined, viewed as having 'book-like' qualities, which could be explored by making connections within the idea of the page, chapter, and binding. The action of how a walk or book evolves through visiting and revisiting, reading, and rereading. The bringing together of individuals within structures has at its heart the idea of book.

The nature of making objects that will be held in the hand by others is an important element when conceiving and then making the work. Consideration of scale, weight, and texture, alongside its functionality are at the core of its conception. The book is a physical conduit between maker and audience. Its materiality conveys information which needs to be as considered as the content in and on its structure. The physical form and its functionality can become the work, form becoming content and the manipulation of the object in the hand delivering sequence or multiple narratives, as seen in the work of Lygia Clark ref 10 The making of book art straddles and utilises the world of craft and art. All this interdisciplinary activity confuses institutions seeking definitive boundaries whilst creating marketing absolutes with which to sell courses, but it is this mercurial position that excites makers and audiences who enjoy the skill of making combined with the conceptual thinking to deliver intriguing objects that convey ideas through the hand and eye. 

The hybrid nature of the book form has led to undertaking an extensive range of commissions and residencies, some examples of these will used in an attempt to present an expanded notion of bookness, specifically recent work within the science community but initially large-scale public art commissions were the testing ground for the concept to be trialled.

The act of creating a text for reading in a site-specific space, timetravel, nonlinear narrative and notions of the expanded book have been explored and utilized in several large-scale site-specific commissions.

Texts dispersed within a space means that the audience must move between the words to create the narrative. Rather than animating the texts the space itself takes on the role and form of book. Text with a content that comments on or uses information from the past that is also site-specific takes the reader back in time. This concept was used when rethinking and redesigning 2 streets in Lowestoft where texts were cut into stone and embedded within the structure of the street furniture: bollards, paving, junctions, roadway. The texts mapped the history of the street, allowing the residents the act of everyday time travel as texts from different time periods, along with facts about the space, connected them to moments in time as they walked. The texts are reread, rethought, and transform as the context for their reading changes, through age or personal circumstances. ref 11

A conceptual question I have asked often is around the space a book inhabits, could this be mapped? What would it look like? As an art piece I have wanted to cast this space, making physical the books wider presence. This would include both the visualisation of the book’s physical presence, the hinge mechanism and the influence it has, the ideas within the work disseminated through the eyes, brain and mouth.  I see a huge rhizome of nodal points and connections that links everything with everything. My work within the robotics department at Kings College, part of Parallel Practices, ref 12 a Crafts Council project where makers were paired with Scientists offered a diversion to this but went some way to exploring the idea. Working with Thrishantha Nanayakkara and Naomi Mcintosh we created a project Squeeze Fold Bend and Expand - Structural Memory in Deformable Objects ref 13 which set out to extend an understanding of current thinking around soft robotics through model making.  We built new structures whose functionality and manipulation were framed and enriched by a knowledge of soft robotics. This led to us challenging and expanding our own practices by exploring ways of controlling movement and the articulation of objects.

As part of the trailing and testing I created a multi-hinged bookwork which was attached to a robotic arm where we could accurately repeat a simple movement. This meant that the bookwork's physical movement could be mapped with positional recognition software linked to a video camera. In effect the bookwork was drawing the physical space it inhabited, drawing both its influence and its existence. ref 14

The presentation What is bookness? starts with an image of two bookworks that are important touch stones for me and in some way encapsulate the possibilities afforded through the engagement with books; John Latham's Noit Intercourse,  a image of two books in conversation with each other and Mirror Book by Ron King and John Christie published by Circle Press - a bookwork that contains the whole world and which changes with each reading because it is made of mirrors. The concepts of revelation and engagement are what books do best.

 

ref 1

the last intake of students was in 1996, the final graduate exhibition was in 2020.

ref 2

Alex was the Course Leader for the first year and is now Associate Dean of Academic Support at UAL.

ref 3

https://www.arts.ac.uk/subjects/fine-art/postgraduate/ma-visual-arts-book-arts-camberwell

ref 4

Derek Humphries and I were co-founders of Oblivion Boys Press an imprint that burned bright and intensely between 1985 - 1989

ref 5

Charlene Garry Basilisk press

https://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/pdf/canon/janssen_ii.pdf

ref 6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_Robinson_(craftsman)

ref 7

Ulises Carrion  - The new art of making books http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/faculty/reese/classes/artistsbooks/Ulises%20Carrion,%20The%20New%20Art%20of%20Making%20Books.pdf

ref 8

http://www.gefnpress.co.uk/

ref 9

https://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/001-a-what-is-book-bookness-2016

ref 10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cq2OVD7dvA

ref 11

http://www.publicartonline.org.uk/casestudies/housing/oxbridge/index.html

ref 12

https://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/articles/craft-and-healthcare/

ref 13

http://de-reform.blogspot.com/

ref 14

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfOVMb5ecsk

the presentation given at Turn the Page 2019 can be found here -

https://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/ttp-2019-les-b-with-links

ihaveanewjobamanalivewithenergyandpotential

I have a new job. I’m artist in residence at Sizewell C nuclear power station, which is under construction on the Suffolk coast. It should lead to some new work and some new community collaborations over the next year. I’ll be sharing stuff soon. Really looking forward to seeing how it all goes.