learningthroughthinkingandtalking

I had a fabulous 2 days in Copenhagen at the medical museum speaking at a conference titled new methods for collorative engagement in museums with the team at Kings and the fabulous people from India, Copenhagen  and Scotland. That is apart from passport control (I so want people who voted Brexit to be identified as the stamps in my passport were counted up to determine that my days in Europe were below the allowance). More images to follow -Lots of learning through sharing good practice- can't wait to meet again soon - notes from the 2 days 

- Interested in whats next but we dont know.

- After fun is betrayal 

- If i work harder do i believe that people are going to give in?

- I'm going out on several limbs which I don't have.  

Science and its relationship to culture

Measure and control 

Object based learning and teaching 

How to engage with objects - 

Knowing nothing 

Knowledge making

Questions rather than answers

Questioning leaning to new directions

Enabling ways of engagement 

Àrt is an entry point to science (drawing)

Victims of what we know

The building design defined by what is being explored - 

Sizewell experience 

Honoring the object of enquiry 

Conflating lab and studio

Lab is less flexible - bunsen burner - gas

art space is flexible

Both spaces are other - places of alchemy 

Where does knowledge happen?

What are the similarities............

Valuing enquiry and enquiring minds

Framing the intention

Working with people/communities 

Storytelling is everything 

What is new that you will try..........

Interested in whats next but its best if we dont know.

Honoring the object of enquiry.

Stakeholders - what is at stake?

What next - inspirational disruption 

Saw some good art whilst there - liquid robots at Copenhagen Contemporary had some some interesting work, Hokasi at the design museum, Isa Genzken at Den Frie was strangely appropriatly odd and the collection at SMK – Statens Museum for Kunst is worth it 

Onto screens .... Harold and the purple crayon - so utterly charming. F1 netflix- insane as ever

ongoinglookingforward

Looking forward to next week, at Norwich, delivering a new project to year 2 and working with my friend Liz from the National. Another week taking people to the show at Snape and with each iteration of this activity I learn more about the work I have been making over the past year. Some people want me to explicit about the reasoning behind the work, explaining as if an activist, which I am not. Applied to be part of a conference (see below) we shall see what comes of it. Sizewell C is a building without geographic specify. Its structure is like that of others across the globe, its conception and construction at no point addresses the essential Suffolk space it will reside in. The shapes designed and the industrial nature of the materials used bare no connection to the landscape, a space which was seen by its designers as a blank canvas, it was envisaged as this and it has become a non-space, a concept conceived all be it within the concept of architecture by Marc Augé. Control and ownership of this land is now tightly controlled. Fenced and patrolled the public can no longer enter, humans that do are subjected to a vast barrage of rules and systems. My first work as artist in residence was to look at maps, created by SZC and to cut out these controlled spaces, leaving negative shapes. I have made scale models derived from official plans that in the hand become toys or gifts. This was initially a way of engaging with the vast complexity and sheer scale of the project that is SZC. But I have come to understand the power of the model as an idea itself and its function within the design world as a tool of visualisation but also its awe. popped in to see Conceptual Art and Christine Kozlov at Raven Row - truly challenging wonderful work. Onto screens – the last episode of Industry left everything on the table or maybe under it.

sometimetoreflect

Work on POWER the show at Snape Maltings continues, it’s an admin moment – price lists, interviews, social media activity. But I’m also making new work, which I love to do, anything to disrupt the experience and seek to be in a place of not knowing. The interviews are interesting in that they provide moments of reflection on what has been a full-on year. Some are listed here

Q: How would you describe your work?

The work is a way to mediate existence in this world, this is, I hope a two-way street. From my point of view the work is made as a way to make sense of the world. But I want the work to leave space for the viewer, to enable them to stop and reflect. To facilitate moments of contemplation. My practice often sets out to reposition and redirect. The work is a question rather than an answer, a collaboration in the mind and hand between me as maker and audience as reader/viewer.

Q: What about the residency with Sizewell Creative interested you?

The residency with First light, a great organisation whose primary visibility is the free festival on the beach in Lowestoft but their engagement with the community has extended to this project and they have been wonderfully supportive. I spend my life as an artist travelling to work in different parts of the UK and this was a chance to be involved in something local that was going to affect me personally. I have been working within Sizewell C bearing witness to the changes that are taking place, responding, artistically, to both the construction and ultimately the human side of this project. It was almost as if I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this since I moved to Suffolk in 1990, when I would go to watch the building of Sizewell B. I remember reflecting at this huge undertaking, which at its core was about utilising something so small and yet so fundamental to our existence. Spontaneous, collaborative tattooing that I have been engaged in with @jim_skins over the past 2 years added another connection. The lines and marks on my body are similar to the lines of evidence created during a neutrino particle interaction event within atomic energy.  Finally, I live in a house that was created in opposition to Nuclear Power, designed by Clive Latimer, an anarchist, pacifist, and a vocal member of Stop Sizewell B. I have recently realised that I had been living this residency for longer than I knew.

Q: What is your medium of choice and why?

Each opportunity has a different need or outcome dependant on the circumstances of the situation. I'm generally interested in systems, the idea of control and power. This manifests itself in a range of different types of artworks. I have developed a practice where physical outcomes are dependent on the opportunities available; each individual context requires flexibility and so a huge range of outcomes can be defined as my practice from permanent sculptural installations to ephemeral giveaways and presentations.  Within this residency I have made assemblages, sculptures, 2D and 3D prints, films and gifs. I trained as a graphic designer, so the work often uses design processes within a fine art context. I think I am happiest when there are practical processes to be negotiated between the idea and the final artwork.

Q: What are your processes and where did you find inspiration for your exhibition?

Sizewell C is such a huge and complex activity that inspiration can come from anywhere and everything. Going on site one is dwarfed by the scale of the physical activity taking place, the endeavour is truly monumental. I have also been fascinated by the systems involved in preparing the site and its potential workforce, the logistics, gannt charts, the language used within the legal paperwork, which is its own mountain to climb. Talking with people who work there has been inspiring, I felt that their worlds required engagement, be it the archaeologists, the Chaplin, branding managers, data analysists or the community engagement team. Then there is the space the work will be exhibited, Snape. Although the work I’ve made is not site specific the specificity of the spaces will be considered when I am hanging the work, attempting to collaborate with the quality of the spaces to enhance the work.

Q: If you could own any piece of art what would you own and why?

This is a challenging question, my walls are quite small and would not accommodate most of the art I love and anyway the answer changes with each art experience; I have just been to MONA in Tasmania and encountered The Divine Comedy by Alfredo Jarr, a 30-minute art experience that was transformative. But within the context of this residency, I would have to pick The Ambassadors by Holbein. The work is clever, something I admire, a clever idea executed with skilled craft. The realistic portraits stare down at you, wearing fine robes and jewellery, you can feel the weight of the fur and believe if you touched it, it would be real. The work appears to be about the demonstration of power, but there is also discord and the meticulously rendered objects displayed on a shelf have knowledge embedded in them. There are so many clues and readings to be had if you take the time to look. If the code is understood there are messages that can be decoded. The tools of science are rendered with precision for all to see. Finally, there is the anamorphic scull. Who could not be impressed by the artists potential to show off. I can remember standing in just the right place in the National Gallery, I felt that I had unlocked the knowledge and had become part of a parallel, hidden world that was always there but unseen by most.

Q: Have you always wanted to be an artist?

I don't think I could have expressed it in those terms – I didn’t know what an artist was and I had never met one. As a young child I loved drawing, I was always doing it, my art teachers at school were interesting and showed interest in me. I felt that it was the only place you could express yourself and were seen as a person. The art room was a sanctuary from 70s comprehensive teaching. They played music and appeared to exist in another world. I took myself off see art in galleries, another type of sanctuary, and was drawn to arts transgressive nature, although again I would not have had the words to explain why. But I was enquiring. Going to a foundation course was an eye opener, there were people in the world like me, I had found my people. Although without the government position on tuition fees I don’t think I would have made the journey into the world of the art school in London.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring artists?

This depends on if you want it as a ‘career’.  Making art is a glorious activity, manifesting the ideas in your head into a physical being, wow…magic. But as a job for this to happen you have to be doing it, not thinking about it, planning to do it but be doing it. Eventually those around you will have given up and you will be left doing it. This sounds brutal but having a job as an artist is challenging. It is undervalued within the society we live in, so you have to have belief that what you do is of value.

Q: Is there any piece in the exhibition that you found particularly challenging to create?

As an artist I often I find myself between positions and states of being. Artists are and have to be many things to exist and to make work. Not fitting, slipping between is often an artist’s default position. For artists, being invisible is often a mode of operation especially when bearing witness, creating testimony to what has happened. A person posited that this residency was like being a war artist, a comment I initially rejected, I felt that building a power station has little to do with the horrors of war. But I came to realise that the remark was not about the physical situation, Sizewell as a battle ground, but rather an observation on my role as a neutral observer. For this residency my intention was to make work that people could find a connection to regardless of their position on Sizewell C.  As an artist there are many challenges to making art, of choosing the right materials and processes when making an idea, often one that is beautifully formed in your mind, into a physical state. The technical aspects of 3D printing, the frustration of AI prompts and negotiating access were all challenging.  I often ask myself where the work is. I think the work is around the work. The work of making the work happen is hidden. Conversations create the work, and the conversation is embedded in the work, in the negotiation of opportunities within what is a complex, hierarchical, organisation run on strict rules and systems, with a specific outcome, the building of a nuclear power station. A process diametrically in opposition to that of an artist working randomly, and rhizomic, towards an unspecified goal. But that is the job and it has been fascinating placing myself in a position where I don’t know.

Dead and Alive - the book of essays by Zadie Smith – is insightful and instructive – it’s like having a really knowledgeable, interesting person standing next to you elevating your thoughts on stuff you thought you knew about. onto screens About Fate – a beautiful example of will-they-won’t-they. Trap House – madness about taking control and delivering justice, with weapons. Forever – interesting time-travel premise twist. His and Hers – talk about a twist – twister madness, will you see any of it coming -fabulous?

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

finalessaysofthefinalyearofthefinalMABookArtCourse

The final essays of the final year of the final MA Book Art Course at Camberwell - the title list as ever is eclectic and demonstrates the multi-disciplinary nature of the course. It was always student focused before it was a thing! Helping the individual student on the course to first identify then celebrate and nurture their interests.

I post them all here to give an indication of how the course has evolved through the years. The MA was highly flexible - often pragmatically through the challenge of resources, money, space or/and equipment but it was always able to find a theoretical space, to evolve into a new form whilst retaining its integrity, responding to current contemporary issues to retain relevance. enjoy.

Titles

1996

PERSONAL STATEMENT 

Notes and Fragments: The documentation of the development of an idea

Books: Public or Private objects?

WRITTEN STATEMENT

written statement

INTERVIEWED IN THE BOOK ART STUDIO

WRITTEN STATEMENT

STATEMENT

Written Statement

A METAMORPHOSIS AN ADVENTURE INTO BOOKARTS

1997

FRAGMENTS – PROCESS – SENSORY IMPRESSIONS

- JOURNEY WITH UNPREDICTABLE END -

An Unprecedented Event

Language as Art, Typography as Language

On Medieval Manuscripts

ABOUT BOOK ARTS

SEQUENTIAL ART or (The invention that is Art)

MA BOOK ARTS

A Projection. A theory

Book arts, Architecture, Space, Place, Paper and me

Mid-century Disjunction: the Fate of Early Modern Typography and the Evolution of Artists’ Books As Traced In the Work of Johanna Drucker

books as visual form for communication

1998

Memories of my food in the 1970’s, 1980’s

ESSAY: ART AND ECOLOGY

Low Culture, High Art

DOCUMENTING THE CITY

Time

Not At Home: in search of green ornaments – a collected narrative

Halfway to Inevitability

The Booked Block

1999

Judging A Book by it’s Cover: Questions of Legitimisation, Aesthetics, and Audience. A Catalogue Essay.

MA Book Arts

ROCK & ROLL an archive

- Found Words – The use of found words and objects in Book Art

Trivial Tales About Nothing At All

STRUCTURE

GIVER OF LIFE about rituals and metaphors, about domestic and the feminine in life and art.

Aspects of Exhibitions and Collections

UNDERGROUND

Thinking about reading

The narrative of London

2000

Silent Books

Towards Process as the work and Reading as the practice

Natural Mystic & Book

Personal Experience and the Book Outcome

IF YOU WOULD LIVE HERE YOU WOULD BE HOME NOW

(Space is everywhere open…We are in this place)

NARRATIVE AND CONCRETE SYSTEMS IN BOOK ARTS; through the book structure and content

The book: a psychosocial metaphor

SQUASHED FROG

CULTURE JAMMING; Its relation To My Work As A Book Artist

War, Art, and the artist as the recorder of History.

Are the contemporary pop-up books really that much better than the Victorian ones?

MA Dissertation Book Arts 2000

THE TRIAL AND CHANGE AS AN ARTISTIC FORM OF BOOK

2001

Approaches To Depicting Space

Books as Objects

A comment on repeat through artists books and multiples, form and process.

Time and the Artist

INTRODUCTION TO DOMESTIC PHILOSOPHY ABOUT ART, AUDIENCE AND THERAPY

on coming to book arts

Knock! Knock! Bang! Bang!

Public Space: Room for Authority or Art?

The influence of psychological theories on changes in representations of childhood in art since the Romantic era

‘Focusing on Studio Practice’

Alice in Wonderland

Opening the Text: The Book as a Hypertextual Object

An investigation into the Context of My Studio Practice

Evaluating House and Home

The True Nature of Conservation: Are Conservation Ethics Commensurate with Contemporary Art Practice?

2002

An Investigation into the “Disappearance of the Book”

The gap

The efficacy of the diary format in artists’ book.

Between Author and Reader exploring the notion of the writerly and readerly within the work of Susan King and Lygia Clark

Savouring the recipe book

The library of unpublished books: From fiction to reality

Visceral Passage: Reading the Book as Body

In/Outside Space: The shifting boundary between private and public…how it structures our homes

Un Coup de Des: Musique Meditation on a Musigram

Book as Box : Box as Book

ELUSIVE/ALLUSIVE: Book Arts and the Undermining of ‘Truth’ and ‘Reality’

A comparison of, and investigation into, Michael Landy’s break Down (2001) and Susan Hiller’s After the Freud Museum (1995), with reference to the role of research within artistic practice as compared to academic models.

2003

The Precious and the Processed: What are the implications for the status of the art object and the integrity of the artistic vision within the medium of artist publishing?

Man, Earth and Presence: Self-awareness in Floor-like Piece of Work

The System of (Book) Art

Description of Life a Users Manual

The Visible Word Concrete Poetry and Book Arts

Art, Therapy and the Artist’s Book: Inspiration from Eva Hesse and Lygia Clark

2004

How could language shape the future?

The Narratives of the Cabinet of Curiosities in 16^th & 17^th century Europe and Contemporary Book Artist Practice

To receive or not to receive: choice, the gift, and art.

The Surveillance of Everyday Life: Appropriating City Space/Book Space

The book as a space within contemporary curating

CLOTHES ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

Cultural shift in relationship to the significance of objects, as seen in British collections from the sixteenth century to the present day, with particular reference to the Enlightenment Exhibition at the British Museum, the Soane Museum and the Saatchi Collection.

The Visual Power of Language Language Play/Word Play

The Erotic and the Innocent: The role of the child/adolescent as seen through the role of Hans Bellmer and Dorothea Tanning

What is the role of a visual style and media in the development of the content of a visual book?

Magic Lantern

How the Viennese painter Gustav Klimt appropriated motifs from the Archaic Greek Art period in his paintings and in what way this engagement might have affected his formation as a mature artist in his career?

RELATING TO DISEASE: The Narrative Origins of Medical Artists’ Books

How do the books of Susan Hiller and Joseph Cornell differ in their presentation and revelation of an inner, emotional journey?

In relation to my own explorations of an empty three dimensional book space, how effectively have Rachel Whiteread and Johnathan Callan articulated negative space and to what extent in terms of the book?

This is me, this is you: Ubiquity of self

How do Joseph Cornell and the collaborative artists cris cheek and Kirsten Lavers (T.N.W.K.) use systems of objects to give a sense of implied narrative?

2005

An artists’ search for sense of self, time and place, reflected back through the Mother’s Gaze

Memory as a vehicle for self-exploration, or a gateway for others?

Revisiting the Sublime Through Mariele Neudecker and Alison Wilding

Exploration of inner and outer spaces in book: Through analyzing works of Richard Long and artist books of Telfer Stroke and Helen Douglas and Michael Snow’s, Cover to cover and Real Fiction, I will examine the ways of depicting spaces within book structure and spaces in nature.

When Craft Is Applied Into Book Art

Through the exhibition Body Worlds I will examine the relationship between art and science and the issue of consent in display of the human body within didactic institutions

Is the Use of Photography in Documentation of Ephemeral Art Inherently Contradictory?

What Role Does Freedom play in the work of Joseph Beuys?

Read me, Seymour! Considering Book Art worthy of analysis as ‘text’.

The influence of the “Duesseldorfer Schule” of Bernd and Hilla Becher ass seen in the works of their former students Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff and Andreas Gursky.

Art imitating life, Life imitating art

The presence of mental anxiety in the artwork of the displaced

Portraying the Stories: Paula Rego and Illya Kabakov’s visual-storytelling practices in art context

THE ART OF NOTATION: THE MUSIC DRAWINGS OF TOM PHILLIPS

2006

Extended Artist’s Statement: Shaping the Gathered Parts

ON COLLAGE

THE WAY OF TELLING A FAMILY AS A ROUTE FOR SEEKING AN IDENTITY

Visual Approaches of Reading sound and Listening image

Visual Sequences : speeds of reading

The Embodied experience of space: Michael Snow’s Cover to cover

The Container of Fixed Truths

Words of Comfort The Book As A Fashion Item

Alter-ed books. Alter-ed narrative? Two Famous Artists compared and an Emerged One takes her position.

The Journey in Book Arts

This paper is an examination of my own practise, compared and contrasted to “The Sleepers” by Sophie Calle and Martin Newth’s “8 Hours” I intend to explore the ideas of voyeurism in my work and where my practice stands in relation to book arts.

2007

FUTURISTS The roots of the controversies

Where the Art Lies

Feeling the book: The book in the digital era

The promotion of the moral and social development of the child through fairy tales

A Study on presenting the words on paper structure

The assumption of casualness and the discovery of intensity

Absence/Presence

MUSICAL SYNAESTHESIA

How Have Ideas Of Fiction, Theatre and Literature Influenced Ilya Kabakov’s Installations; ’10 Characters’, and ‘The Artist’s Despair, of the Conspiracy Of The Untalented’? How Do These Ideas Relate To His Thoughts On ‘TotalInstallation’ and What Effect Do His Concepts and Techniques Have On My Own Artistic Practice?

Deconstruction/Construction

HOME

2008

Touching as reading – When does touch make a reader become the content of a book?-

The book as a Document – Personal Statement and the audience Exploring the notion of documenting in Artists’ books and locating their audience by portraying and critically analyzing ‘Autobiography’ and ‘Break Down Inventory’, works by Sol Lewitt and Michael Landy respectively.

History and foresight of public libraries in UK

Shaping issues of personal verus global feminist issues through evocative memories within the context of book arts and particularly in consideration of book structure.

Existence of Book and Book Art

Semiotic Guerrilla War

Hunting Rabbit

What is the difference between a book and an artist’s book? What I pay special regards in creating my project?

Migration

The Aspects of Narration-Narrative relationships with the object.

Through comparing and contrasting three artists’ books: String Book, Mirror Book and Killing Book; this essay examins the physical structure and materiality of books in order to articulate a non-verbal sensational language, which is highly concerned in my book art practice.

2009

Does Unconventionality aid or constrict book art, or any form of artwork?

SEEKING FOR FREEDOM – THE INSTALLATION ARTS OF ESCAPING FROM THE SURFACE

The transitions of daily life in living spaces andpublic spaces.

A comparative evaluation and analysis on the works of Sophie Calle, Paul Auster and Michel DeCerteau in the context of the pedestrian self belonging to the urban life journey.

How everyday objects infused with personal/sentimental value are translated into artworks of public significance.

Future tense: Steampunk in Contemporary Art and Artists’ Books.

GREEN WORDS

Using Heidegger’s ideas on the nature of time and relating them to Keith Smith’s book 91, this paper will investigate book as a form of living art/live experience.

What would be the aim as an art practitioner by giving value to the collection of the disposal, the clutter, or the remnants of the ordinary, within the context of the scarce and the abundant in both Ilya Kabakov’s work The Boat of My Life and Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules.

MULTISENSORY INTEGRATION IN INTERACTIVE MEDIA ART: PRACTICE AND EXPLORATIONS WITH INTERACTIVE MEDIA ARTWORK FOUR SELECTED ARTISTS

By using both visual and haptic methods I intend to investigate ‘Cover to Cover’ by Michael Snow and ‘In Between’ by Kate Farley. This paper will compare and look critically at the ways these artists create visual spatial experiences in their work.

HOUSE AS ART Monuments for memory – Vessels for living.

2010

Chance as an agent in art

To what extent does Marinetti resolve the apparent paradox in his work of achieving a spatial and temporal extension which allowed simultaneous communication and sensation?

Investigating connections between the objective and subjective systems of classifying found material, I will be comparing Mark Dion’s ‘Tate Thames Dig’ with Joseph Cornell’s ‘Planet Sex’ Tete Etoilee, Giuditta Pasta (dedicace), in order to establish how the ephemeral can become precious.

IN THE LIGHT, ONE IS AWAKE

Does a comparison of Walking and Sleeping by Richard Long and Seven Walks London 2004-5 by Francis Alys reveal the differences between urban and rural walking or merely the difference or similarities between two artists who walk?

Materials can speak for themselves without words in Book Arts

OUTLINE OF ROBOTIC AND MOSAIC ART IN EDUARDO PAOLOZZI ARTWORKS CHILDHOOD MEMORIES, TEXT, FORM AND IMAGE AND THEIR PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS

Is the future of comic Books related with that of the book?

“The availability of touch in art galleries and museums” A study of today’s defined values and a personal experience from two tactile exhibitions.

Typographic Expression in Visual and Concrete Poetry How can typography successfully convey ideas of the text and add expression to printed word in visual/concrete poetry.

Imposed Passive Participation. By contrasting specific artworks by Susan Hiller and Sophie Calle I will discuss how personal artefacts are made public in order to create and develop an intimate relationship between the artwork and the viewer elicit a personal response and place the viewer into an integral part of the work as a passive rather than a passive observer. 

The Art of Book Structure – Deconstruction Book Body

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ENERGY OF HANDWRITTEN TEXT IN COMMUNICATING EMOTIONS AND IDEAS IN VISUAL ARTS BY LOOKING AT VAN GOGH’S LETTERS, CY TWOMBLY’S DRAWINGS AND SOME CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS

2011

What else besides the body, could physical thinking look like? A discussion of the intersection between art and dance in response to Catherine Wood’s article The art of writing with people.

The book, socially collaborative art.

Reading in space – at what extent does language control the space that it is placed in or is that control dictated by the space in which the language sits?

Interpretation and Categorisation of Fired Books in Book Arts: Three Books by Yohei Nishimura.

Can and should all art be considered therapeutic to the artist and viewer, and in what ways can any therapeutic benefits be further exploited?

Destructive art and auto-destructive in contemporary art is based on the dismantling of forms to create new forms, Where, then does the value in such art lie?

Five senses of book

Journey to the centre. How do contemporary artists use the device of spots and circles as strategies to individualise elements of graphic culture within their practice?

In what ways has the use of language in art changed since the 20^th century movements of Dada and Surrealism, and what is its role in contemporary art?

Silhouette Art: the aesthetics of concealedness

In what ways have time and space been expressed by artists in relation to artists books?

HOW DOES THE EVERYDAY MANIFEST IN CURRENT ART PRACTICES? TECHNOLOGY, RELATIONAL AESTHETICS AND THE URBAN LANDSCAPE

Does fashion blur the boundary of gender or not? – from French fashion to Leigh Bowery’s Art

In what ways does the writer Vladimir Nabakov and artist Joseph Cornell approach the challenge of rendering desire in their works?

Might consideration of the artists’ book prove fruitful when considering the evolution of other topics, for example happiness?

Is the repetition of daily life really boring and meaningless? Which artists convince us the repetition is both enjoyable and therapeutic?

2012

Blank But Not Empty: The hidden information of the Blank

Difficulty of dealing with personal Memories; The gap between Hiding and Sharing

The page transition in inkless books of two artists (Ronald King & Keith A. Smith)

Cultural transmission & importance of ancient books study case sutra of Mountain and Sea case

HOW REBECCA HORN AND LIN TIANMIAO, REVEAL THEIR FEELINGS OF BEING BOUNDED UNDER THE TOTAL DIFFERENT CULTURE?

What is the use of repetition communication in the works of Kusama and Warhol, and What’s the difference between communication of their works?

How does the photography worth of Helen Douglas and Michael Snow build narrative without text?

How do some artists’ books of Ken Leslie, Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck and Ronald King express thinking of Samsara

The Imagined Reading Machine: In Bob Brown’s printed experiments in optical reading, does the reader become the Reading Machine?

Representation of weeds in the works of the artists, Kim Beck I Tracey Bush I Beverly Penn I John Dilnot.

The relationship between the structure and content in three artists’ books (A Maze in Book, Out of Sight, Daily Mirror)

ARTISTS’ TRAVEL BOOKS AND THE READERS AS TRAVELLERS How do artists manage to create journalistic travel book artworks with elements for reflecting both personal impression and objective awareness of the destination?

Interactive Aesthetic Experiences in Food-related Arts

Search for a reform consumer society

Can Tom Phillips’ ongoing art work A Humument provide us with clues as to the conceptual form of books in the future?

The Renaissance of Writing

Between mark and script: ambiguity

Healing the fabric of the universe : an imaginal approach to arts practice through the works of Atsushi Takenouchi and Louise Kenward.

How might the book function as a transformational object? Can the theories of D. W. Winnicott and Christopher Bollas help to determine the use of the book as a transformational object in works by Graham Rawle and Henry Darger.

2013

Material in book arts: exploring the relation between material and the body of artist books
Repetition in Artists' Books
How have the foundations of Collage influenced the Assemblage of Book Art?
Variable readings: A throw of the dice will never abolish chance.
"How frame and time work as a tool to depict the landscape"

FORGETFUL MEMORY, UNREADABLE BOOKS.

Diary as Art: exploring Dieter Roth’s diary works in relation to Fluxus

How are the formal and structural elements of the comic book utilised by creator and reader in the construction of time?

The interplay of movement and bookstructure: movements interplay with book structures in relation to readers by comparing Ed Rusha’s Every Building on the building on the Sunset Strip and Stephanie Ognar’s Flip Book Bath

The Physically of the Book, The Richness of Reading Experience

How the content of Keith Smith’s Snow Job and Susan King’s Lessons from the South are enriched by creating the text’s visual form on typography and book structure

Quality abstract in photography exploring the photos in Paris shot by William Eggleston regarding the notion of Geometric abstract painting

Memory and Memorial – an evaluation of their relationship with the textile object.

Paper Fanzines: Nostalgia for Golden Ages of Rock Music, or a Quest for Authenticity? What drives modern music fan to reach for increasingly obsolete tangible media forms?

How are the issues of ‘place, voice and subject’ more successfully communicated in Get Here (Imogen Stidworthy, 2006) through focusing on the participatory nature of the work?

How does the inclusion of text add to the narrative dimensions of photography? Looking at the work of Clarissa Sligh, Duane Michals and Shirin Neshat.

Marching Backwards into the future. Or why does McLuhan, Flore and Agels’s The medium is the massagefeel so now?

2014

The implication of Conceptual Art in books – Is a book could be a tool to convey the concepts as an art form to bridge artists and viewers

Examining spiritual experience as the purpose and function of art: Tracing numinous in the work of James Turrell and Giuseppe Penone

The relationship between artworks and environmental protection – How artwork as a tool to remind people of the environmental issues

‘Faceless self-portrait’

The possibility of book to represent place

How the places could change artworks display?

2014

How are the different interpretations of place and memory reflected in the imagery, design and structure of two different artists' books?

THE ART OF NOTATION: THE MUSIC DRAWINGS OF TOM PHILLIPS

Image: consciousness and bliss A play of Visual Perception and Meanings

THE INVISIBLE BOOKPRINT

How book artists represent memory of a place and how these memories are translated to communicate with the readers

Eastern Art Philosophies Influencing John Cage and Western art Influencing Huang Yongping Xu Bing: representing the characteristics of their time or acts of imitation

The work of Seance: How materiality affects absence in translation in Anne Carson's Nox and Christian Hawkey's Ventrakl

How do Kenneth Goldsmith and Simon Morris use compositional strategies of copying to produce new works within the context of a digital age?

2015

Nothing Matters: Situating the Audiences' Experience of Katrina Palmer's 2015 Artangel Commission on Portland

Behind the Line Comparing and contrasting approaches to Mathematics applied in the work of Agnes Martin and Cam Wong

What are the different aspects of Interactive arts, and is it still possible for artworks to be interactive without the use of technology?

RESPECT TO NATURE A brief analysis of land artists' Natural consciousness - take Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long as example

Haptic Communication of Imagination and Reality

Toys of Imagination: Exploring Joseph Cornell's artwork in relation to appropriation and the arrangement of collecting material imaginative interact with viewer

Mapping in the work of Victoria Brown, Zero Per Zero and Becky Cooper

Impermanence in the work of Helen Chadwick, James Turrell and Olafur Eliasson

Nothing, yet everything

An analysis of lines and lines movements, using ideas in Ingold's book on the line and relating it to Keith Smith's 'Book 91'and Sol Lewitt's book Circles & Grids' and how they explore this idea.

Reading in space, using the books as materials -Exploring Brian Dettmer, Georgia Russell and Guy Laramee's works.

Deconstructing Physical and Metaphysical Space: A structural investigation into humanistic metaphors applied to the use of Deconstructivist language within the spacial arts of Daniel Libeskind

2016

Compressing Multi-Dimensional Narrative into Two-Dimensional Plane: An Analysis of how time, space and movements have been illustrated into plane canvas by modern artist.

What can the use of Synesthesia in the work of Rachel Morris & Terri Timely tell us about the future of physical books?

How do the works of Richard Long and Hamish Fulton differ in the way that they replicate the experience of the natural world within the context of an art gallery?

CAN THE DOMINANT ART WORLD ENGAGE IN 'SOCIAL SCULPTING' AS A CRITICAL METHODOLOGY FOR ITS INTEGRATION IN THE SUSTAINABLE MOVEMENT? extracting effective strategies from artists Crawford & Cross and David Cross' work

Could photography be used as a tool to help improve memory and repress development of the disease dementia

The potential of space and its accessibility to the public

The Space in the Fold and Folding

How the Use of Thread Helps Artists Enhance Their Projects' Narratives

How does redaction increase reader participation in creating meaning? a comparison of reworkings of: Un coup de Des Jamais N'abolira Le Hazard and John McDowalls MASK.

2017

What is the relationship between text and page in the bookworks of Thomas A Clark?

Unconventional approaches to magazine editing - The role of two avant-garde magazines, 0 to 9 and Decoll/age in the 1960's -

A discussion of the coexistence of humans and surveillance, through the study of surveillance artworks.

Shhhh!: Investigating Bob Cobbing's Whisper Piece and the impact it had on the Artist's Subsequent Practice.Time as the subject of the artwork: Exploring the connection between time and artwork about time.

Found Objects in Sophie Calle's Works and the Building of Narrative Behind Them

In what way does the work of Jenny Holzer, Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries and Barbara Kruger disrupt reading habits and spaces within a specific medium and or place, making use of the medium's intrinsic meaning, and promote critical reading and thinking?

HOW BOOK AND PERFORMANCE ARE PRESENTED IN RELATION TO EACH OTHER, AND WHAT IS THE IMPACT ON THE AUDIENCE OF DOING THIS?

2018

How does the Materiality of the Artist's Book Help to Augment an Understanding With Respect to Creating a Narrative About Memory and Identity?

The Separated Hand  Comparing and contrasting how the principles of sign language and gesture have been used to create narrative and meaning in Propaganda Posters, the works of Wanda Bernardino and online advertiser/content creator, Gelcream

Between art and erotic: A Visual analysis of homosexual publications based on Queer Theory

Weaving Words Give some examples of the ways in which weaving has influenced the English language.

Optical Illusion

Investigating successful models of collaboration in the UK's art publishing activity.

How has control of process and outcome been given away from author to the audience in the contemporary book art?

Contradictory Thread

Misery as an inspiration for the creation of art Comparing and Contrasting the work of Tracey Emin and Louise Bourgeois

2019

Artist's Sanctuaries

How far have Collaborative Networks between Artists Succeeded in Undermining Censorship and Commodification of Art in Literature and Publishing?

Art and Memory

How memory influences the artistic experience of the audience

How have artists used their experience of physical trauma and Long term recovery to expand development of their art practices.

In what way was an identity created for Irish women through Celtic Revival art in the first half of the 20th Century?

Explore whether artists can use the process of creating art to reduce the pain of illness

CRAVING INTIMACY: The diary

How does the book form renegotiates the theme of intimacy?

How does book as creative space change person's understanding of the content?

Lost and Found Language in Visual Poetry To what Extent does Visual Poetry use Code-Switching to Engage Multiple Sensory Modalities of Interaction in the work of Caroline Bergvall and Lind Nordenstrom?