The Gradient: Design, art, and the gradient between, featuring the creative output of our in-house design studio.
Check out this time-lapse video of Job Wouters at work and hear him talk about his new piece Home. See more photos of the piece here. Job Wouters Home 2013 At the Walker Art Center in conjunction with Insights 2013.
Check out this time-lapse video of Job Wouters at work and hear him talk about his new piece Home.
See more photos of the piece here.
Job Wouters
Home 2013
At the Walker Art Center in conjunction with Insights 2013.
Adam Michaels, co-founder of Projects Projects, who also edits and designs the Inventory Books paperback series (published by Princeton Architectural Press), has extended his passion for print and sound in another role: a rock(or should we say book-rock?) musician in the band The Masses. The Masses released their “spoken arts record that you can dance [...]
Adam Michaels, co-founder of Projects Projects, who also edits and designs the Inventory Books paperback series (published by Princeton Architectural Press), has extended his passion for print and sound in another role: a rock(or should we say book-rock?) musician in the band The Masses. The Masses released their “spoken arts record that you can dance to”—The Electric Information Age LP last year, as to explore the legacy of Marshall McLuhan. The LP is also an acoustic interface to The Electric Information Age Book, which is the third and most recent title from Inventory Books paperback series.
In connection to the LA Art Book Fair (Feb.1–3, Opening on Jan.31), some of the questions here revolves around the theme of books. Michaels is going to take part in a panel discussion about design authors and designer’s books during the fair, while Project Projects will share table with Paper Monument.
Left: bookshelf at Project Projects, with The Electric Information Age LP on the lower right hand side.
Right: Adam Michaels on drums. Photo: Giorgio Gori.
The value of a book is based on the combination of a number of attributes, including quality of its ideas, means of its presentation, character of its physical attributes, degree of scarcity, and so on. For me, something like McLuhan / Fiore / Agel’s The Medium is the Massage is the most valuable kind of book — all aspects are strongly conceived and implemented, but the book was printed in large enough numbers that anyone can easily locate an affordable copy.
I’ll recommend two titles from recent years that have I’ve particularly enjoyed:
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1) Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage, by Branden W. Joseph, Zone Books, 2008 2)Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance, by Simon Critchley, Verso, 2007
I recently completed Ed Sanders’s Fug You: An Informal History of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side. (I’d elaborate, but the subtitle aptly covers both the subject matter and its tone…!)
When conceiving of Project Projects over 9 years ago, Prem and I always intended to incorporate client work with non-client work, basically with the hope of producing a more integrated life / less alienated form of labor. As both our client and non-client work tends to be strongly collaborative, I find that there’s less of a divide between client- and studio-initiated work than it may appear from a distance; all gets produced through similar processes, during the same working hours.
In the case of the Inventory Books series, it was a multi-year process to conceptualize the first two books (Street Value, and Above the Pavement—The Farm!, produced simultaneously); produce and circulate a lengthy prospectus; secure publishing (Princeton Architectural Press is the series publisher); write grant applications; secure funding (the Graham Foundation has funded each of the series books thus far); then oversee and take part in generating writing, imagery, and the crossover thereof; then layouts, corrections, production; then promotion and distribution; then starting the whole process all over again for each new book. All is a pleasure to do, but the process is lengthy and consuming; as such I’m currently taking a bit of a break between the third book, The Electric Information Age Book, and the fourth book.
While appreciative of the various sorts of production techniques that can be utilized to create a physically unique book, the impossible / crazy thing that I’d currently like to figure out is something like a sustainable contemporary model for publishing. In saying this, I have my book series, Inventory Books, in mind — the most enticing impossible/dream situation that I can imagine is one in which I can fully focus on content and design for the next books, rather than fundraising…!
The LP came out of the awareness that Jeffrey Schnapp and I had of The Medium is the Massage LP, which was released shortly after the paperback book. Dubbed “The First Spoken Arts Record You can Dance To,” it was actually a nearly unlistenable mix of McLuhan lecturing with musique concrete techniques, comedy sketch bits, and the overall effect of flipping through a set of TV stations in the mid 1960s. Anyway, we wanted to take up the challenge and produce the real First Spoken Arts Record You can Dance to — so Jeffrey and I worked with our friend Daniel Perlin, a Brooklyn-based DJ and music producer, to work up a set of music that incorporates spoken elements from our book with references to the McLuhan LP. Daniel suggested we take the band name The Masses for the project, which seemed fitting on numerous levels.
You can listen to the whole album here on Bandcamp:
With the addition of Shannon Harvey on keyboards, we adapted the recorded material for live performance (not at all our original intention when working in a very nonlinear manner on the recordings) following an invitation to perform in Milan at the MiTo festival last September. This was followed by another performance at a particularly choice venue: the New York Art Book Fair at PS1, within a dome set in the courtyard there. Happily, I can report that a number of audience members were in fact seen dancing during the set.
Above: The Masses performing at Teatro Franco Parenti, Milan. Photo: Giorgio Gori
Below: A short clip from the Milan live performance.
For years I played in a number of DIY punk bands,such as Cowboy Suit from Chicago in the mid-90s,
and The Ending Again from Minneapolis in the mid- to late-90s.
Those bands each put out 7″s vinyl EPs. All the bands that I was in were part of very particular independent scenes in Chicago and Minneapolis; we had no hope or desire for widespread notice, so it was a pleasure to both utilize and mess with conventions of then-current underground genres.
It was an interesting experiment to produce music with something akin to design methods, rather than the organic composition methods of noisy rock bands. The task of situating Jeffrey’s prerecorded vocals with various fragments of music recorded by Daniel and myself was like the aural equivalent of laying out book text, interwoven with form. One other geeky side-note: the LP features a number of tracks where the sound of flipping through book pages is used as the basis for creating beats.
Given our subject matter here, I would remiss not to direct the reader’s attention to the new Inventory Books tote bag, designed in collaboration with Slow and Steady Wins the Race. This tote bag is about formats — it features pockets designed to hold a 12″LP, an ipad, an e-reader like a kindle, and a mass market paperback — all forming an Albers-like composition of squares. This is produced in a fairly limited edition, and will be for sale at the Project Projects table at the L.A. Art Book Fair. You can also purchase it online via http://www.slowandsteadywinstherace.com.
Lifelike, a Walker-organized exhibition curated by Siri Engberg, and now on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art, is documented by its eponymous catalog. I sat down last March with João Doria to talk about the making (and thinking) of the book. Transcript of João Doria with Andrea Hyde on the Lifelike catalog J: [...]
Lifelike, a Walker-organized exhibition curated by Siri Engberg, and now on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art, is documented by its eponymous catalog. I sat down last March with João Doria to talk about the making (and thinking) of the book.
Transcript of João Doria with Andrea Hyde on the Lifelike catalog
J: I have the catalog here. I was wondering if we could start with a little description of the context in which this catalog was made?
A: The context I think you’re referring to is the Lifelike exhibition, now on tour. Siri [Engberg] curated the show as you probably know. She was interested in presenting artists working with realism from the 60s through the present. She touches on various incarnations of realism, from abstraction to installation-based work like Maurizio Cattelan’s sculptures to [Gerhard] Richter’s hyperrealistic paintings. I needed to find a way to reflect these themes in the book.
My initial meeting with [the curators] was very interesting. I presented some pretty radical ideas.
J: Are they worth showing? I mean to me they are but in a blog post?
A: Potentially. I feel protective about them. Perhaps they will be useful in the future [giggles]. You know, as a designer we sometimes recycle our ideas. I’ve found that it sometimes happens, but unexpectedly. Perhaps I will come upon the perfect occasion to use an old idea in the future…
With that said, one of the initial ideas that made it into the book—though a in a subtle way—was the idea of the book being a collection of stolen materials. For example, instead of a half-title page, the very first page of the book is a page from a published Charles Ray book. There’s no explanation as to why it’s there, but for a very small caption on the inside front cover. The gesture is meant to throw the reader and to refer to the art in the show—there is a moment where most aren’t sure whether what they see is real or fake. I’m thinking specifically of the Fischli and Weiss’ installation that looks like building materials and debris. Is it part of the exhibition or the byproducts from the show’s installation? In fact, it is an artwork. Or the Vija Celmins installation—it looks like a mistake, a remnant. That’s what that first page is meant to do: present the reader with something that doesn’t quite fit. I wish there were more instances like that throughout the book, but because the pagination was tight, it became necessary to economize those moments.
J: Before we go too deep into the catalog, what did the curators ask you for? How did it all start?
A: During the first meeting we talked about the ideas behind the exhibition and where it was going. I knew that there would be some reprints and commissioned texts. Siri was going to write [giggles] a really large essay, and I started type layouts based on the reprints. The first reprint I received was a [Josiah] McElheny article that first appeared in Artforum, which was really useful in figuring out some of the themes of the show: Duchampian readymades and work that followed in the same vein.
J: You did other catalogs since you started at the Walker and I wonder if you have an opinion about a curators’ general expectation when it comes to catalogs. Moreover, what’s the role of the catalog here at the Walker in relation to exhibitions. Why do they usually want to do a catalog?
A: Everyone wants a catalog. Sometimes they are more wanted than needed, but for this show a book made perfect sense: it’s a substantial exhibition, it’s touring, and the show’s grouping is unique.
Each curator has different goals for their catalogs. Eiko & Koma, which was the book I designed right before this one, is a good example. The curators, editor, and former publications director [Lisa Middag] wanted that book to stake out a position for performance art within the scholarly realm of art criticism usually associated with visual arts. It hadn’t been done often in the past. So that was the goal then.
But Lifelike is really true to its exhibition. It presents the ideas behind the show in chronological order. It’s similar to the way a curator would organize the exhibition’s physical space. Its a good accompaniment.
J: Now we can get more to the object. We talked about it before and also with Andrew [Blauvelt] and Emmet [Byrne]. I noticed that recent Walker catalogs have been more lightweight. They look (but in fact they’re not) less luxurious objects and this involves many questions I think.
I remember, for instance, the Frida Kahlo book or the books in that era of the Walker design department. They had hardcovers, cloth, etc., and it’s more apparent that they were meant to document the exhibition/made to last (which doesn’t mean they will) and that makes me think about the public. I would say that in a regular situation, in a context away from the collector or a designer interested in books, the Lifelike catalog would feel more appealing. To me, I would fear it less.
A: It’s less intimidating, I agree. I see the trend but I don’t know if this is intentional. I see it more as a byproduct of trying to pare down the cost of our publication program, at least temporarily. In the future there will be bigger moments. We will have more [Yves] Kleins, more [Frida] Kahlos. I know that will happen [for example, there is a Jim Hodges book on the horizon], but in this case, to a casual reader, this book feels a bit more like a reader because of its humble production. Because it’s less of an artifact, I feel more like reading it. Kahlo and The Quick and The Dead really feel like art books—you put them down on a table and they make a sound [laughs].
Before I came to the Walker I worked on books for Gagosian and the Guggenheim through a studio. Those institutions seemed to prefer expensive, exclusive books, more an artifact than a document. That’s also a challenge. I think both are extremes and challenges for the designer.
J: How do you articulate your own language/interests with the content and budget restrictions and the intellectual decisions taken by the curators with the practical design decisions you need to make?
A: It’s always a case of priorities. In this case, we prioritized a Swiss cover and smyth-sewn binding so even though it’s a softcover it’s actually pretty sturdy.
Originally the idea was to use the second spine—as I’m calling the interior spine—and to stamp it with the same foil I used on the cover. We evolved away from this when we decided that to begin with the Charles Ray page. Initially, I was thinking of the whole book as a copy of something. I even sketched the title in the Life cereal logotype but in different crazy colors. It would have been a fun cover, less reverential to the artwork featured inside the book. Instead, we decided to put an artwork on the cover that corresponded to the Charles Ray page half-title and to add some materiality by using cast-coated paper, so that there is a textural difference between outer and inner covers.
And when I talk to the artist/curator/whoever I’m dealing with when making a book, I generally talk about those different options all out and say ‘well, I think we should try to focus on those three things’ and then maybe the other nice things need to fall out as a consequence. It’s always a balance and even when you have a big budget you’re working to fit as much into the book as possible. It’s a balance between the production aspects, the physical aspects of the book and the idea behind the book and how it’s structured.
J: I remember talking to Emmet and he told me as well that one real interesting thing about the fake half-title page is that the artist himself he had lost the notion as it is said here on… wait a minute, is your book different?
A: Oh I forgot to say! [The book tape fabrics] are different. There are three different types. We went to the bindery and they had it on salvage, so we used their extras.
J: The name of the exhibition, how did you approached it through typography? As a foreigner, I would say Lifelike has a good sound, a sort of wordplay. When you separate the letters people tend to say ‘aw, this is going to get difficult to read!’ making, naturally making the designer a little furious because we tend to believe people are more intelligent than they think.
A: Lifelike is really nice as a title because first, there is no subtitle [giggles]. Second, it’s clear and represents the show perfectly, and third, typographically, it’s nice that the words ‘Life’ and ‘Like’ share every letter but one, which gave me the perfect excuse to play around with shapes. I’ve always liked the tree and flower of life symbols. Starting from there, I created circular, triangular, and diagonal divider spreads and headers to play with the title and refer to the symbol.
Above: The flower of life, an inspiration for the divider spreads and headers (located near the gutters of each spread).
J: Now for nerdy stuff. This format is a little bigger than Eiko & Koma, so why did you pick that particular format? It’s a stupid question but…
A: …no no, not at all. I think Eiko & Koma needed to be more intimate, more like something you could read in your bedroom—there are so many details about their life and work. I feel like [Lifelike] is more like a manual in the sense that it’s main goal is to be informational, and the proportions are a little awkward, too big for intimacy but too small to be “coffee table.” An in-between format, awkward. In fact, many of my decisions were made in order to make the book feel more awkward, in part because that’s the feeling the exhibition inspires. It’s a bit wide, too. I knew that the softcover would help the book to really open and I wanted to have some good text-spreads. I also knew that I wanted to use the gutters for the page numbers and running headers so I felt like it would be nice to have a almost-square proportion, which we extended to the exhibition didactics.
…Something you said before was interesting, something about the reprints being re-purposed copy, the Charles Ray page reproduced. This duplication is also evident in the contents page. I simply took the layout from select pages and placed it there, another reference to the work in this exhibition, in that divider spreads, made smaller become literal representations of those sections of the book.
J: The grotesque typeface, is it F Grotesk from Radim Peško? The typewriter monospaced typeface, which one is it?
A: It’s called Prestige Elite.
J: When I look at the surface of your pages in this publication, I see two planes, and I feel like you use thick lines to relate to the density of F Grotesk and to everything which is heavier and thin lines to relate to Prestige Elite and to what’s lighter.
I wonder, then, when we get to the book I look for how you organized the book’s different moments and how what we said before is expressed in that.
In the contents page, the letters circling around the page makes me thing you’re trying to place some hidden message, a continuity in each divider page. In the foreword the text is set in the grotesque typeface so it feels like the more institutional texts are set this way whereas the content that relates exclusively to the work is set in the monospaced type. So this is something that may be nice to talk about—can you explain more about the structure of the text?
A: Siri’s essay is first and is divided by themes. In many catalogs, there are distinct and uninterrupted essay sections. In this case, the plates and divider pages serve as bookends to the essays. Plates correspond to sections like ‘Previous Lives’ or ‘Common Objects,’ and directly correspond with the exhibition—as I said before, the book is a perfect reflection of the exhibition space because, in a sense, its layout is the same. Entering the exhibition, you first encounter works that illustrate the ‘Common Objects’ theme, and then ‘Uncanny’ follows, etc.
Sprinkled throughout are ‘Object Lessons,’ case studies of specific works. I wanted these to be distinct, rendered in an institutional voice and differentiated from Siri’s essay.
J: The text set with Prestige seems more for reading, and what’s set in the other voice seems more like extended captions.
A: That’s exactly what they are. It’s interesting because I was thinking of the Object Lessons as extended captions. Normally, I wouldn’t choose to use a typewriter face as the body text for an entire book, but in this case it made perfect sense. Prestige in its digital form is a copy of its original typewriter-produced self. I mean, typewriter faces are anachronistic, we don’t use typewriters anymore, we’re mimicking it.
J: How did they react when you presented those ideas/justifications? To my experience, the good thing about working with curators and artists is that usually the talk gets to a level where everyday life decisions for you as a designer are understood on a conceptual level.
A: They got it right away. When I presented initial ideas—I called one of the ideas ‘The Impostor’—I mentioned using typefaces that mimic others: Arial for example, which mimics Helvetica. With Prestige I am mimicking an outmoded mode of production. It also refers to scripts, like you were saying—”this is something to be read.”
J: What about grids and stuff. What’s underlying what we see?
A: I’ve always been a fan of how the Talmud is laid out. I like the big blocks of text brutally interrupted by notes, references, asides and diagrams. These interruptions don’t break the rectangular shape. It’s the inversion of what most designers consider “good design,” with white space, unforced kerning, etc. To me, the Talmud’s modular denseness is attractive.
One of my original ideas was to make a book that looks like a different book, an iconic text that most people would recognize. It would copy the look and structure but use our content. Does that make sense to you?
J: Yes.
A: Then it evolved. But to answer your question, I changed the grid depending on the type of content. The essay has a different grid type than the plates, which was a very different grid from the object lessons.
J: I was also wondering whether it was modular or not.
A: I would say there’s a master grid and variations on that, but the variations are so big it makes for very different layouts. Before we decided to intersperse the essay throughout the book I thought that sections of the book could look extremely different from one another, almost like different books stitched together. That idea evolved into type and grid variations.
J: About the images. In the show their scales vary a lot—how did you deal with it on this book? The chairs outside, the leaves in the corner, what goes through your mind when putting it together, giving it new relationships? It’s typical book design problem.
A: It was very interesting. Initially, we had all the dimensions right underneath the plates, but we moved them to the checklist. There are other moments we try to be true to proportion, usually when I’m pairing different works on the same spread.
J: Is it more a form problem? To put things with different sizes together and to see whether they fit or not, their shapes and colors?
A: Oh yes, we have lots of problems (giggles).
J: (laughs)
A: And remember, I couldn’t reorder the plates because they all had to exist within their themed sections. That was also challenging as well. It wasn’t strictly chronological
J: One last thing… the book has an insert!
A: (laughs)
J: (laughs)
Let’s talk about this insert.
A: It’s another obstruction, another confusing element, an intentionally awkward moment. The reader flips through the book and suddenly this thing is just there. It has a caption but it’s not bound or glued. It’s not tipped-on. It’s not something you would normally frame. It’s not a complete composition. It’s just a thing, a texture.
J: And what did the artist say?
A: That’s exactly what we wanted. [Keith Edmier] didn’t really mind whether we bound it in, tipped it in, or how big it was. I think he just thought, ‘It would be interesting to give you some wallpaper’ [from Kitchen, an excerpt from Bremen Towne, 1971]. We could have done what we wanted with it. It could have been a lot of things: endpapers, a dust jacket… Instead we chose to do this awkward thing.
J: Another stupid question—being an object, something actual, did it ever come to the talks that this could be then an original?
A: No that’s a very good question. I intend to address this in my blog post about the catalog, that the insert is actually an artwork. There’s no material difference between the insert in the printed book and the wallpaper in the physical exhibition space. It was done at the same time, the same process and the same paper. It is something meant to exist in a specific space, but we took part of it and gave it to the printer to cut and insert into our book. It’s another Charles Ray page moment.
J: It wasn’t problematic then.
A: No. I think going forward though, when the show starts to tour and go other places it will be useful to talk about it…
A: Let’s conclude with the backcover. Originally, I wanted to do something like this on the back [pointing to contents page], put thumbnails from the interior on the back. Another contents-like page where I copy and resize pages of the book. But then I received an interesting email from Siri, detailing her visit with Paul Sietsema. The painting he had in his studio perfectly illustrated the idea of the exhibition.
The layout reminds me of a paperback with a blurb that screams: ‘Look what’s inside this book’—something a publisher’s marketing department would dream up—but the text below the photo is actually a really profound statement about the contents of the book, a summary of the exhibition.
J: In what way?
A: You have this trompe-l’œil effect of a nail seemingly sticking out from a still-life painting. Artists working during the time this painting was made would usually leave something like a nail out of their composition, because it was not considered art. It’s a mundane thing you don’t really paint, but here it’s rendered in such a realistic way that it looks like the painting could actually be punctured with a nail. The painting is similar to so many of the works featured in the book.
J: Now something not exactly related to this particular book but in Eiko & Koma you use the vertical text on the spine and here too, it’s so nice! Are you into that lately?
A: I actually wanted to do something strange on the spine, use the text in diagonal [sings, spelling L-i-f-e-l-i-k-e], is that what you mean?
J: Oh no, I just found a coincidence that both use vertical text—a good quirk of yours?
A: Oh yes I did do that in my last two books! I tried it the other way, but it didn’t feel right.
J: It is how it is!
A: Yes, I never turned the type elsewhere inside the book so… it’s always upright.
[Looks at phone]
J: Oh are we late?
A: Yes… We should go…
J: Miniburgers!
Drucksache is a publishing house based in Stockholm, founded in 2010 by Jacob Grønbech Jensen, Rikard Heberling and Emi-Simone Zawall. So far they have published five works, focusing mainly on poetry, linguistics and artists’ books, all by contemporary Swedish writers, except for the most recent publication: the first Swedish translation of Martin Heidegger’s On the [...]
Drucksache is a publishing house based in Stockholm, founded in 2010 by Jacob Grønbech Jensen, Rikard Heberling and Emi-Simone Zawall. So far they have published five works, focusing mainly on poetry, linguistics and artists’ books, all by contemporary Swedish writers, except for the most recent publication: the first Swedish translation of Martin Heidegger’s On the Way to Language. Drucksache releases not only printed editions but also deals with transforming these into various live activities such as performances, readings, lectures, seminars, screenings, opera, etc. At this year’s New York Art Book Fair Drucksache is a part of the joint exhibition/table Publishing as (part-time) Practice.
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Above: 1) På Väg Mot Språket (On The Way To Language) by Martin Heidegger, Drucksache, 2012 2) Darger Reviderad by Leif Holmstrand & Jonas Örtemark, Drucksache, 2011 3) Fjärrskrift by Lotta Lotass, Drucksache, 2011 4) Detail from Röda Rummet (alfabetisk) by Pär Thörn, Drucksache, 2010 5) Public reading of Röda Rummet (alfabetisk) at Skånes Konstförening, 2010. Photo by Jonatan Jacobson.
What is the last book you read?
We’re still working on the classics… If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino, Revolutionary Letters by Diane di Prima, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction by J.D. Salinger, L’immoraliste by André Gide are some of them.
What is the first book you can remember?
Mio, min Mio by Astrid Lindgren, Sagan om det röda äpplet by Jan Lööf, the Bible.
Can you recommend some recent publications to the reader?
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1) ‘K by Karl Holmqvist (JRP Ringier) 2) Secrets of al-Jahizby Daniel Heller-Roazen (part of the 100 Notes, 100 Thoughts: Documenta 13 Series, Hatje Cantz) 3) Work, Work, Work – A Reader on Art and Labour(Iaspis/Sternberg) 4) Ulysses by James Joyce (retranslated into Swedish by Erik Andersson, Bonniers)
The books you’ve published are often with some form of appendix such as public performances, readings, films and even opera. What do you see out of the gesture of including these events or even using them as an essential part of the publication?
The social and communal aspect of publishing is really important to us. We put a lot of effort in transforming the printed material into something outside of the book object, to question the traditional role of the book as a media for isolated, quiet, linear reading. Often this results in some kind of performative remix of the text, where the book plays a specific, but secondary role. Essentially we don’t see our books as end products in themselves.
For example, our first publication, Röda Rummet (alfabetisk) by Swedish writer and artist Pär Thörn, is a remake of August Strindberg’s classic The Red Room. In Thörn’s version the word order is re-arranged alphabetically, but still within the structure of the original chapters. The book was presented in “mass-readings,” organized in three different cities during the time of the release, in which twenty-nine persons simultaneously read a chapter each, creating a beautifully chaotic sound piece. So in this case we treated the book partly as a music score intended to be read aloud in groups.
We also work closely with critics and theorists as means to integrate the book with its reception and critique. In Handlingarna (“The Acts“), a one-poem-book written by Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson, we invited author and critic Mara Lee to write a commentary that turned out to be almost more relevant to the publication than the actual poem itself – designed as a kind of intro-&-outro-duction, literally wrapping around the main text.
Can you tell a cautionary tale related to the design or production process of a particular book?
All our poor books have been more or less victims of production errors, going through the violent process of offset printing, not to mention shipping. On one hand there’s not much to say about this since it’s just how things are, errors and mistakes are part of all human activity, and as long as it’s only books that are harmed it’s not the end of the world. But on the other hand it’s interesting to see the connections between production faults and the ever-changing economic cirumstances of the industry. Most printers seem to be making money off pizza menus so that’s where priority goes, at least in Sweden. Errors and the general amount of poor quality will be constant in an industry with this high demand on fast delivery, cheap raw material and labour. So we don’t have a tale in particular but the whole biz of making books is inseparable from risk-taking and the consequential regrets and rewards.
Pick five books that would be friends.
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1) Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu 2) Lars Norén, En dramatikers dagbok 3) Anders Jacobsson och Sören Olsson, Berts dagbok 4) Susan Sontag, Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963 5) Dieter Roth, notebook
Do you have a plan of publishing books in English in the future alongside the Swedish ones?
We don’t really have a plan of publishing in any particular language. If the material is relevant for us then we don’t care if it’s Swedish or English or anything else, as long as we’re capable of understanding what we’re editing. But since we’re quite drawn towards language-specific writing, when meaning is embedded in a certain framework, it’s just been interesting for us to work in a local context. That doesn’t mean we’re not open to other languages, quite the opposite, but so far our interests have been elsewhere.
Do you have any book-related rituals?
Sometimes we make pilgrimages across the world to attend book fairs.
You went to this year’s NY Art Book Fair as part of the participating publishers in the Publishing as (Part-time) Practice project, which selects some of the Swedish publishing houses run by graphic designers. Can you tell us something about this project?
“Publishing as (part-time) Practice” was a one-day seminar held in Stockholm in May earlier this year, initiated by graphic designers/publishers Matilda Plöjel (Sailor Press), and Mattias Jakobsson and Peter Ström (Konst & Teknik/Andperseand) and Iaspis (the Swedish Arts Grants Committee). The seminar brought together artist-run initiatives, both Swedish and international, in the fields of literature, photography and visual art as well as design, to share and discuss various approaches to publishing from a designer/artist’s point of view.
The project continues at the NYABF as an exhibition featuring twelve Swedish publishers who are, either partially or wholly, run by graphic designers: A5 Press, Andperseand, B-B-B-Books, GUN, Museum Paper, Nilleditions, Orosdi-Back, Oyster Press, Pionier Press, Sailor Press, Tree Fruit Press and ourselves.
Do you have any projects that you’d like to feature on our site?
Fjärrskrift is an artist’s book published in 2011 by Lotta Lotass. The work is a one-sentence poem without punctuation marks, printed on a 50 meter long telegraphy strip, or “ticker-tape” – paper surviving from the 1960s – using Telex machines from early 20th century. It was mass-produced in 100 copies, and packaged as a rolled-up scroll in a box.
Fjärrskrift was also presented as a one hour “movie” version, in which the complete poem was filmed as it was printed, and screened in cinemas around Sweden as a silent, collective reading – creating a rare situation in which a public reads the same poem together in silence, for about 60 minutes.
Now the filmed book is available online as a free, unlimited version of the limited scroll.
Describe an impossible book that you’d like to make (if you could do the impossible).
We’re currently trying to figure out how to make a book out of a tennis court.
Sandra Kassenaar (1982, South Africa), lives and works in Amsterdam where she runs a small graphic design studio. She graduated with a BA from ArtEZ in Arnhem in 2003 and an MA from the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem (NL) in 2007. Besides running her own studio she regularly teaches at the graphic design department of the Willem De Kooning [...]
Sandra Kassenaar (1982, South Africa), lives and works in Amsterdam where she runs a small graphic design studio. She graduated with a BA from ArtEZ in Arnhem in 2003 and an MA from the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem (NL) in 2007. Besides running her own studio she regularly teaches at the graphic design department of the Willem De Kooning academy in Rotterdam.
Sample of Sandra’s independent & collaborative works.
Pick five books that would/could/should be buddies.
‘The Island of the Colorblind’ by Oliver Sacks
‘Through the Language Glass – How words Colour Your World’ by Guy Deutscher
‘Interaction of Color’ by Josef Albers
‘The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Egypt – An Illustrated Dictionary’ by Manfred Lurker
I only get to four… All four great books talk about the use, meaning and value of colour in a completely different way.
What is the first book you can remember?
Together with my sister, looking at the baby albums/diaries that my mother made for us. I must have been three or four years old. Thinking back, it’s quite strange how fascinated we were with our own first steps.
What is the last book you read?
‘Through the Language Glass – How words Colour Your World’ by Guy Deutscher. A very interesting book about how language influences the way we think and see or seeing think or thinking see.
Do you agree that a book is the best medium to disperse and accumulate information?
No, not necessarily. In the past fifteen minutes I have cycled past the stock exchange display at the Beurs van Berlage, looked up ‘Happiness Machines’ on Wikipedia and used a public transport time schedule website. I’m glad that I didn’t read this information printed in a book.
In what form would “books” be in the year 2112?
There will be many hybrid mediums, but the printed book – as we know it now – will remain to exist.
Do you have a great idea for a book that didn’t happen?
No, I need a more specific context to reply to, before I can start coming up with ideas at all.
Do you have any current publication projects that you’d like to feature on our site?
Success and Uncertainty / Back Up is a publication that Bart de Beats and I made to contextualise our poster project. The publication features all 21 English and Arabic posters that form the series Success and Uncertainty. This poster series was the result of a collaborative project during a four-month-residency in Cairo from March until July 2011. The title of this work is an existing headline taken from the 12th of February 2011 front page of The Evansville Courier & Press, a local Indiana newspaper reporting Mubarak’s resignation as the president of Egypt. It was a very challenging but great project. We’re very proud to present this publication with reproductions of those twenty-one twinned posters and gives more detail on how they came together. Success and Uncertainty / Back Up is a magazine of our hard drives, containing four months in Cairo just after the fall of Mubarak’s regime.
Live from the New York Art Book Fair! Literally fresh from the Toyko Art Book Fair just a week ago, Temporary housing + shelter is a collaboratively edited project between New Zealand-based split/fountain (organized by former Walker design fellow Layla Tweedie-Cullen) and Whatever Press. Thinking about the effects of the natural disasters in Japan and New Zealand [...]
Live from the New York Art Book Fair!
Literally fresh from the Toyko Art Book Fair just a week ago, Temporary housing + shelter is a collaboratively edited project between New Zealand-based split/fountain (organized by former Walker design fellow Layla Tweedie-Cullen) and Whatever Press.
Thinking about the effects of the natural disasters in Japan and New Zealand in 2011—and more importantly, the ongoing reconstruction—the publication focuses on the condition of the temporary and resourceful:
Beginning with the materiality and immediacy of emergency temporary shelters and structures, the construction of a temporary cathedral from common everyday materials such as cardboard challenges the way we conceive of ways to approach shelter and habitation in response to local conditions. As unlikely a material paper/cardboard may seem as a construction material for a cathedral, it offers a perspective on the nature of shelters as ephemeral.
Editor Bopha Chhay continues, explaining their approach the design of the book:
Temporary housing + shelter within seeks to explore the limits of printed matter as a ‘support structure.’ … With their combined interest in experimenting with different modes of publishing methodologies, the project seeks to reconsider the way we approach space through the idea of temporary shelter, not just within the binds of printed matter, but the relationship of printed matter to the spatial practices and methodologies of design, contemporary art and architecture.
Composed of pages of various sizes nested together without any kind of binding technique, Temporary housing + shelter is the result of a series of projects undertaken throughout the course of the Tokyo fair. They range from “A Typology of Simple Things Which Support the Human Bottom” (a series of sketches of proposed seating configurations made from a variety of materials) to “Umwelt of crows”, a particularly lovely example of how nature, like man, also adapts to immediate surroundings and conditions, in this case, crows collecting unused (or possibly stolen) clothes hangers to integrate into their nests. As one washerwoman complains, “This is their work. I’m convinced the crows are responsible…” It is an exploration of architectural potential, social space, and sites of production and its relation to sustainability and civic responsibility.
After this weekend, Layla and split/fountain make their way to the Vancouver Art/Book Fair in October, and will feature their own publications, along with Artspace, DDMMYY, Index Press, Michael Lett, The Dumb Waiter, The National Grid, The Silver Bulletin,Vapour Momenta Books, and selected artist editions.
[It is currently not available on either split/fountain or Whatever Press's site, but we'll update you when and where you can get a copy!]
It was probably sometime in 2003 when Eric Wrenn and I noticed that we were the only ones on LiveJournal that had “Josef Müller-Brockmann” as a shared interest. This is something that still is both a badge of honor, and perhaps, an embarrassing fact. But what was fascinating was the combination of our obsession with [...]
It was probably sometime in 2003 when Eric Wrenn and I noticed that we were the only ones on LiveJournal that had “Josef Müller-Brockmann” as a shared interest. This is something that still is both a badge of honor, and perhaps, an embarrassing fact. But what was fascinating was the combination of our obsession with Swiss modernism in a medium for teenage bloggers. Fast forward, Eric still likes to mix the high and low as an established designer and art director in New York, and is most known for his work on the music publication ‘SUP. And now that we’re both finally professionals after all these years, I had a chance to catch up and see how the magazine is going, and what else he’s been working on lately.
I’ve been working a lot with a new fashion label, Eckhaus Latta—logotype, invitations, website, hangtags, packaging for some upcoming collaborations, and actually a print that made it into their last collection. And lately I’ve been doing some freelance work at Wolff Olins in New York. I like what’s happening right now and I’m looking forward to the future.
I’ve worked with Brendan Dugan, the creative director, on a bunch of projects at his studio, An Art Service. I started working on ‘SUP maybe 5 or 6 years ago, now I’m working on it mostly at my studio, and we go back and forth. The magazine evolves with each new issue. There were 21 shoots and interviews. I just got back from the press check in Belgium.
A lot of really great magazines print at Die Keure for a reason. It was a really great experience—they’re passionate about what they do. Plus, why print somewhere conveniently located?
Marisa Brickman, the publisher, started it in 1998 when she was in college. The first issues were photocopied – its gone through a lot of visual iterations, but it stays true to its “DIY” spirit.
Do you have a say in the editorial process?
We all live in different places so we use a google document and work collaboratively to set things up. I’ve assigned interviews, chosen some questionable pull quotes.
There’s never a theme, at least consciously. What ends up in each issue actually has a lot to do with artist availability.
At a certain point it’s about actually sticking to a deadline. This time we had the book fair.
I think of ‘SUP as a mixture between Interview and Bop, two magazines I really like. ‘SUP has a lightness to it, but it’s dense. We’ll run seven full-bleed photos of Grimes alongside a six page interview with Genesis P-Orridge. Also, we don’t publish reviews or use pre-existing press photos, which is really unusual for a music magazine.
There’s less demand for music magazines than in the past—we have the internet now. Have you looked at Rolling Stone recently?
Totally. When you flip through a really nice magazine—the weight of the paper, the way it sits in your hands, the consideration of the margins, the smell—there’s nothing really to say about a PDF.
No thanks.
Sure, I think different circumstances call for different solutions.
I guess in both situations I strive for editorial involvement.
Robin Cameron approached me during her first year of graduate school at Columbia. Before school she was working as a graphic designer, but she wanted to erase that part of her practice and be an artist—a big underlying theme of the book. We ended up working together deeper than either of us had anticipated on the structure of her writing. In the end what we came up with (a three-act play) defined what the book would look like.
It just seemed like the right thing to do based on the way Robin’s writing was going.
It’s funny that you say the design of that book is quiet, I think it’s pretty wild. The book has three “curtains” that open and close each act. There’s a spotlight. The stage is a metaphor for graduate school. The Book That Makes Itself has no cover—the clear dust jacket shows the skeleton of the book, making itself. I think bold moves can be subtle and meaningful. On the other hand, sometimes with ‘SUP the boldest thing is the dumbest thing.
Not at all. I’m into dumb stuff.
Well, it’s not a cynical thing.
Real Fine Arts had an idea about the aesthetic they were looking for – they wanted a glossy white cover, so we started there. The catalogue was made for their booth at the NADA art fair in Miami. They wanted to sell some art and show their history, so the book showcases “Work” that was “Available”, and press releases from all the exhibitions they’d had up to that point. The two sections, “Available Work” and “Press Releases”, are separated by a full-bleed page of cell phone party photos from their openings. All the type is set in green.
Haha. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of things I could be doing with “design”, but sometimes I think it’s more interesting to not design. In some circumstances it’s just not appropriate.
I’ll be showing a collection of self-initiated printed objects. There will be postcards of Milan Zrnic’s photos that appear on my website in a spinning tourist shop postcard rack, a piece of stationery based on a flattened walkman, a zine of BlackBerry photos I took on a European vacation, a deconstructed Comme des Garçons advertisement poster, some stickers. Everything will be small and super affordable.
It just feels good to make stuff. And I think it’s nice to get something in the mail.
I think designing for a space is like designing anything – arranging your apartment, choosing your outfit, designing a book. You deal with ideas, pacing, composition, space, color.
And it all comes together. Thanks Eric. A couple of beers after this?
Yes, please.
Issue Press is small independent publisher and Risograph print shop based in Grand Rapids, MI. began as an extension of George Wietor’s poster-making practice in 2010 and has expanded to a variety of print endeavors, focusing primarily on artist-made publications and print editions. The following is an interview with George Wietor as part of [...]
Issue Press is small independent publisher and Risograph print shop based in Grand Rapids, MI. 
began as an extension of George Wietor’s poster-making practice in 2010 and has expanded to a variety of print endeavors, focusing primarily on artist-made publications and print editions.
The following is an interview with George Wietor as part of the Over-Booked series:
What is the first book you can remember?
The first book that I can remember having any kind of meaningful interaction with was Paddle-to-the-Sea by Holling Clancy Holling. My dad, who had his own St. Lawrence Seaway boating adventure as a young man, gave it to me when I was very young and it’s the only book from my childhood I still have. Even though it takes place mostly in Canada and along the St. Lawrence, there is something really Michigan-y about it that still resonates with me today.
What is the last book you read?
I am currently in the middle, or first third or whatever, of Haruki Marukami’s 1Q84. But that doesn’t really count, I guess, as I am not quite done. I recently finished all of The Hunger Games Trilogy, which I loved almost up until the end.
Describe a person you think might dig your books?
I’d like to think that the things I like, and subsequently publish, have a pretty broad appeal. I don’t see any of them as having a specific audience.
Do you have any book-related rituals?
In real life I am one of the messiest, least organized people you could ever meet – but when it comes to my collections, I try to be very meticulous about sorting and organizing. I worry that I will never find what I’m looking for if I don’t. Sometimes I’ll file something away before I get a chance to read or listen to it, just to make sure I don’t lose it in the long run. Usually I can circle back to those ones, but that is probably a bad habit to get into.
Do books start to look like their designers? Do designers look like their books?
You know, I never really think about what the makers of the books I consume look like. Maybe I should? But, I don’t know, there is something nice about only knowing someone by their cultural output. When I think about the people I know who make books and things, and I look at their objects I am not usually surprised by what I see. When I work with an artist on their book layout, I obviously try to think a lot about their personal aesthetic and not solely just what I would want to see in a book. Books start to look like their designers, and that is probably a little performative.
What publication are you working on right now?
GATHER by Grand Rapids-based printmaker Todd Freeman. I feel like it is the most “complete” thing that I have published. It really stands on it’s own. I love it.
This is probably cheating, but I would also like to revisit ’s first publication: B. Sanders, ‘89 – ‘98 by Patrick Lelli. In that project, Lelli explores the famous Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders through the fan memorabilia he collected in his childhood. There is something interesting about looking at an athlete, or any celebrity for that matter, solely through the remains of the disposable material culture created to celebrate and sell that person, because, apart from the raw stats, that’s all that remains at the end of a career.
Do you have a great idea for a book that didn’t happen?
Oh man. Good question. I started , ultimately, to publish my own work but that hasn’t happened as much as I would like as I have ended up focusing on putting out work by other artists I really love. I have tons of (well, some) at least passable ideas for books that haven’t happened. Hopefully they will! Maybe after a little more research…
What should others know about the community and things happening around it in Grand Rapids (or West Michigan in general)?
Grand Rapids, and West Michigan, has an INCREDIBLE design history – particularly with regards to the furniture of Herman Miller, Steelcase, and others. A lot of great design is still happening in that sector, but outside of that, it can be a struggle. In Grand Rapids we trade a relatively low cost of living for almost no opportunities for locally-based creative employment. Which makes it difficult for anyone wanting to seriously pursue a career in something art related that isn’t secondary to a part time job in food service. There is also very limited support for artists. Our arts council, for example, recently dissolved after over 30+ years of lukewarm programming and virtually no funding opportunities for individual artist projects. The arts funding that does exist seems mostly consumed by large events that favor spectacle over substance. So on one hand, the low rents make it very easy to experiment and try things out, but you have to do it completely on your own and you have to be REALLY motivated about it. Because of this, Grand Rapids is just bursting with evidence of independent culture.
A nine year old all-volunteer run collective music venue, art gallery, and community space in Grand Rapid that emphasizes open access. You plan it, the DAAC will host it. Full disclosure: I helped start and continue to help run the DAAC, but my involvement has taken a significant backseat to .
A brand new artist book store, vintage shop, design studio and gallery run by Patrick of Barry Sanders fanzine fame. Miscellany is the only place in town to pick up the newest Nieves publication, some blank cassettes, an awesome drawing, and a pair of swim trunks all at once. My favorite place to have a book launch.
Paul Wittenbraker’s ongoing semester-long experiment in site-specific, research-based art production. And failure. It is class in Grand Valley State University’s Art & Design program, but it is open to students of all disciplines and from any institution. It is easily the most important and valuable class I took in college – particularly as a non-art student.
Hands down my favorite restaurant in town. A worker-owned, collectively run vegan/vegetarian diner that is open late and lets you trade meals for a couple hours of dishwashing or a mixtape. They are about to open an attached combination pizza shop and VHS rental shop called Cult Pizza. I can’t wait.
Cabin-Time is a roaming residency that brings artists from Grand Rapids and elsewhere to remote places to produce new work in an environment of intentional solitude. The work created at the residency, or based on it, is then presented at a culminating exhibition a few weeks later. I have been really honored to print all of the “field guide” publications that coincide with the exhibitions and to publish the last two. The newest of which will be released at the next exhibition, opening Friday the 21st at Miscellany. This is by far our most ambitious book project yet.
An incredible drop-in center for making art and working out ideas in a safe environment. Heartside serves all neighbors regardless of training, skill, mental or physical health, or housing situation. With some of the rawest, bravest work around. I really recommend visiting whenever in Grand Rapids.
Basically all you need in a record store.
“Punk Island (Grand River)” note from author. If I’m remembering correctly George had a lot to do with the creation of viget.
The last remaining island in this part of the Grand River (a defining physical characteristic of the city). Unsettled, mostly, and wild. The land of possibility.
It looks like a weird convenience store because, well, it is. It’s also a great place to get an “East African hot lunch.” I recommend the vegetarian combo platter, which is basically whatever they felt like making that day.
Grand Rapids has a great house show music culture, and a new group, Grand Rapids DIT, is looking to bring it all together.
The best tacos in town.
Basically the only place in town to see contemporary art cinema. I am really attached to that part of the organization.
…Circling back to the support for artists thing. There have been some great new developments that have come along with a change in leadership at some larger cultural institutions. The Grand Rapids Art Museum, for example, has recently started to pay more attention to local artists who are also currently alive. This type of relationship is very needed and it is really exciting to see. Overall, apart from some weaknesses – mostly the weaknesses of any mid-sized american city as related to the arts – I am really glad that I live and work here in Grand Rapids. It is really easy to feel as though you are a part of “making something happen,” and that is encouraging thing to feel. You should visit.
What challenges or advantages have you run into with becoming a publisher and starting a press outside one of the major cities in the U.S.?
Well, for one thing, there is certainly a lot more postage involved. But one huge advantage is that everything is made around here. French Paper, generally my favorite paper, is milled just two hours South of my studio, and a lot of the equipment I use is made within a few hundred miles. While the risograph printers and consumables I use are all made in Japan, there is something really nice about knowing that I can drive somewhere to get replacement parts for most of the machines that make possible. There a lot of people in the rust belt with a real working knowledge of what makes these things tick, knowledge that I don’t have, and that is really valuable. I don’t feel as though I have been set back at all by working where I do, but I am probably missing some cool parties.
What other projects/organizations/happenings are you involved in outside of issue press?
Apart from my volunteer duties at the DAAC, my day job is at a place called Community Media Center (711 Bridge St.), which is this amazing hybrid organization that includes public access television, community radio, a 100-year old historic vaudeville theatre, media education, nonprofit IT Support, and a platform for citizen journalism called The Rapidian.
I also help organize Sunday Soup in Grand Rapids, which locally is a project of the DAAC. Sunday Soup is part of an international network of meal-based fundraising initiatives. Basically people get together, pay five dollars, share a meal and listen to a series of project proposals. The diners vote on the project they like the best, and the winning proposal gets all of the proceeds from the meal. This is our own small way of tackling the community’s lack of artist funding that mentioned previously. So far, we have raised a little over $3,300 for 18 projects in 2 years. The idea for Sunday Soup was initiated by our friends at InCUBATE in Chicago and there are now at least 76 similar projects around the world, including FEAST MPLS there in Minneapolis.
I am really lucky in that my day job and all of my extracurricular activities get to be about supporting personal and creative expression on your own terms.
We’re both fans of Marüshka and I know you have an amazing collection of their work. Can you maybe share some of your favorite pieces from your collection?
Maybe I should provide a little context for these things. Marüshka was an often imitated screenprinting company based in Grand Haven (Where Grand Rapids goes to the beach) that made these amazing stretched canvas wall hangings from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. These were a bit of a West Michigan phenomenon, but were really popular wherever people had a second home or cottage. It’s perfect cottage art.
In their heyday, Marüshka’s designers made over 500 different styles, many available in several colorways. I have been collecting them for about a decade and have several hundred now in various conditions. These are some of my favorites:
Recently, Marüshka has come back to life as the Michigan Rag Company, and is still based in Grand Haven. They have brought back a few of the old designs.
Special thanks to Jaimé Johnson who is responsible for many of the photos above!
A book has four dimensions. Or, in the words of Ulises Carrión, “a book is a sequence of spaces”, involving both temporal and spatial aspects. Without books, Art, Design & Theory would be nothing. Books are as vital to the visibility, validation and appreciation of thought and practice as museums, galleries and schools, yet tend [...]
A book has four dimensions. Or, in the words of Ulises Carrión, “a book is a sequence of spaces”, involving both temporal and spatial aspects. Without books, Art, Design & Theory would be nothing. Books are as vital to the visibility, validation and appreciation of thought and practice as museums, galleries and schools, yet tend to be utilized more as a means of documentation and dissemination than as sites of enquiry, exhibition and discovery.
Booksfromthefuture is a summer school in London run by artists/designers/writers Joshua Trees and Yvan Martinez. For two weeks, twenty international participants were each asked to produce a catalog for artist Jaime Gili, one of which would be chosen as the final publication, while the other proposals would be displayed at a future exhibition of his.
As straightforward as that sounds, the two were not interested in producing something conventional. They tasked students to approach the book design conceptually, creating something that explores the aesthetic and physical aspects of ‘bookness’, and open to critical investigations of context and function. The following is a recent interview I had with Joshua and Yvan about when a book is more than just a book, and what they learned this summer.
We live in the London Borough of Hackney; De Beauvoir Town, to be precise.
For the past fifteen years we’ve been collaborators. Alongside Booksfromthefuture, we both teach at Central Saint Martins and the London College of Communication.
Ever since we started teaching we’ve talked about opening a space that functions as a counterpoint to both education and industry; where the hierarchy between student and tutor and between designer and client is flattened into a collaboration of equals; and where the criteria for the success or failure of a project is determined together.
In the United Kingdom, many tutors prefer to play the role of ‘facilitator’ rather than ‘art director’, which is cool but it’s a false flatness because at the end of the day the tutor is the one giving the grade in relation to often inflexible criteria.
For us, striving to flatten the hierarchy is ultimately about the negotiation of outcomes, allowing for experimentation with the relationship between user, content and system. We would like to think that if there is a genuine exchange of ideas going on between all participants, it will be reflected in the final outcome.
The morning usually kicks off with either an editorial meeting or discussion of a reading, followed by a freestyle working session with both tutors and students working and taking turns orbiting around to answer questions or troubleshoot technical issues. It’s a bit like Pee-wee’s Playhouse with visiting practitioners popping in at various points to give a presentation or to offer feedback. In the afternoon we rotate between a variety of crit styles to push the work to its fullest potential. Some days are more theoretical than others, but we try to maintain a balance between thinking and doing.
We see Jaime Gili as a ‘comprehensivist’, a term that Buckminster Fuller coined to describe cross-cultural and transdisciplinary thinkers and doers. Gili’s painting knows no boundaries and thrives on any surface at any scale — poster, motorcycle helmet, boat, barrio, train station, private residence, squat, skyscraper, industrial storage tank, you name it. This, coupled with his open-mindedness about us bringing a conceptualist approach to the formalist genre of the artist monograph, made him an ideal candidate for investigating the book as yet another site for expanding and experiencing both his work and ours.
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We analyzed both genres — artists’ books and art catalogues — in order to avoid them. For this particular workshop, we weren’t interested in the book as a means of documentation or historicization. We consider books to be spaces in their own right that can offer a unique, more direct or intimate interaction between artwork, text and reader than museums or galleries which tend to be very hands-off-the-merchandise environments, even today.
Our thinking is aligned with Ulises Carrión, who conceived the category of ‘bookworks’ for ‘books in which the book form, a coherent sequence of pages, determines conditions of reading that are intrinsic to the work.’ By intrinsic, Carrión meant coherence between the work’s messages (content), appearance (form) and reading process (rhythm). Bookworks may at first glance look like ordinary books, but upon closer inspection, embrace and exploit the sequential and physical aspects of books as spaces and modes of interaction, as opposed to neutral containers of content.
Digital technologies continue to transform how books are accessed, produced and experienced, but this presents the perfect opportunity to rethink and perhaps free printed books from their former functions, towards a different kind of reading experience.
We’re all for the revolution of publishing and reading, and in fact, the books that were produced during our workshop are being printed using both fringe and popular methods. The final book is being printed with a risograph stencil duplicator, and the rest are being printed digitally via print-on-demand for Jaime Gili to showcase in one of his future exhibitions. Would that be an exhibition within an exhibition?
In this particular scenario, yes. Exploring the book as a space involved two interconnected curatorial frameworks: macro and micro. The macro was about defining and structuring the opportunity. For the micro, Jaime’s entire digital archive (over a decade’s worth of material) was handed over to the participants with the request to curate and display the collection in relation to the macro, including a title for the book.
Now that such accurate and immediate forms of documentation exist, maybe artists and curators should use the book format as a portable extension of an exhibition rather than a means of reproduction, enabling people to appreciate the work from different perspectives or even offering content unavailable within the exhibition.
‘Conceptual book design’ can be used to describe a diverse range of historical and contemporary publishing activities from artists’ books and fanzines to performative lectures and information environments. All have helped redefine how information and ideas can be experienced.
For our workshop, we focused on books that explore ‘bookness’ — the aesthetic, structural and material properties of reading, whether print, digital or spatial. Based on this definition, it is difficult to trace a specific history or tradition aside from the legacies of advertising, conceptual art or Dutch design, all of which have been blending conceptual thinking, reading and culture for decades, often through graphic design.
Some of our favorite books that have explored bookness include: A-C-R-C-I-T by Guy de Cointet, an unpronounceable newspaper with articles appearing in braille, Morse code and other forms of encryption, which he distributed through local news outlets to provoke thought about the legitimacy of information; For Fans and Scholars Alike by Ulises Carrión, a book that Johanna Drucker has neatly summarized as the “genre of self-conscious codex”; Essential Word and Phrases for Tourists and Travellers by Diesel, a clothing catalogue that poses as a foreign language phrasebook; The 2010 Gerrit Rietveld Academie prospectus by Hanne Lippard, for which she carefully stacked and arranged scraps of wood from the school woodshop as abstract ‘sculptures’ to represent each academic department (instead of showcasing student work) while the page information rotates in response to each configuration; and Une etrangére lit L’Étranger (An outsider reading The Outsider) by Makoto Yamada, a new edition of the novel based on the words highlighted by a previous reader.
Place and context were definitely important factors. In London the growing popularity of the risograph stencil duplicator has inspired a graphic design scene that is renewing the appreciation for printed matter, especially books. There are at least five official risograph print houses operating within the city, and many more below the radar. We decided to use risograph for our book to support this local culture but also to achieve an imperfect print quality that is no longer achievable through offset printing after the invention of film-less direct-to-plate technology. We felt this was in tune with Jaime Gili’s work since he references Modernist utopias that are still alive today.
The final book, Jaime Gili: Repetition, designed by Hyunho Choi, departs from tendencies that can be observed in Jaime’s work: repetition, scale and simultaneity. Hyunho’s design was chosen for having the most consistent and coherent integration of concept and form, for encompassing all four dimensions of the book, and for exploiting the risograph printing process (misregistration, halftone screens, etc.) Readers can experience Jaime’s work from different vantage points through a sequence of recurring (after)images that echo and bleed across consecutive pages while changing at varying paces through color, cropping and composition.
No two books were alike. One participant transformed an interview between Jaime Gili and Pablo León de la Barra (recorded during a train ride) into a travelogue interspersed with glimpses of the work being discussed while requiring readers to zigzag across the recto/verso page divide. Another participant manipulated Jaime’s work to the point of becoming something else, which was fascinating to watch so many thresholds being tested at once — fidelity, accessibility, legibility, etc.
We’re of the mindset that if we cater to existing audiences we’re likely to produce more of the same, but if we investigate the things that matter to us most, hopefully that will resonate with people with similar interests, or better yet, create new readerships.
In Spring 2013 we will be running a ten-week (rather than ten-day) version of the workshop in collaboration with Darren Raven and the Design for Graphic Communication course at the London College of Communication. This time we will design and publish a book on design education. We’re currently looking for contributors and a call for entries can be found on our website soon.
We acquired a deeper understanding of ‘conceptual design’, by which we mean: design in which form-follows-concept, design that questions itself or its surroundings, or design in which the investigation or experience of a concept is its function. To some extent, all design is conceptual but not all design is concerned with the utility of concepts, or the strategic use of aesthetics and materials as a means of experiencing and appreciating concepts.
Wayne Daly is a graphic designer at the Architectural Association, London, an independent school of architecture founded in 1847. Working with a small team of designers and editors in the AA Print Studio, Daly’s activities encompass the design and production of the school’s publications and other printed materials. With Zak Kyes, he co-founded Bedford Press [...]
Wayne Daly is a graphic designer at the Architectural Association, London, an independent school of architecture founded in 1847. Working with a small team of designers and editors in the AA Print Studio, Daly’s activities encompass the design and production of the school’s publications and other printed materials. With Zak Kyes, he co-founded Bedford Press at the AA in 2008, a private press with the dual purpose of establishing an on-site facility for the production of printed matter and to create a new typology of publications that extends beyond the Architectural Association’s existing programme.
In 2011 he founded Precinct, a micro-press concerned with publishing and distributing short-form critical essays on music, as well as books touching on architecture, art and their allied activities. Precinct succeeds an earlier publishing platform, For Further Information, established in 2008, and continues to use print on demand facilities to probe new channels of circulation.
Daly recently participated in the touring exhibition Zak Kyes Working With…, and designed the accompanying catalogue, published by Sternberg Press in September 2012.
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1) ‘Heaven is Real’: John Maus and the Truth of Pop by Adam Harper, Precinct, 2011. 2) Wayne Daly in conversation with Alexis Zavialoff, Architectural Association, 9 December 2010. Photo Scrap Marshall. 3) Zak Kyes Working With…, Sternberg Press, 2012
What is the first book you can remember?
The first time I can remember a book having some kind of significance was seeing a microfiche bible on a school trip to a book fair. Seeing the most iconic of books reduced to a grid of grain-sized specks was magical, and probably also offered early lessons in economy and levity.
What is the last book you read?
A handful: a critical study of the BBC TV series Edge of Darkness by John Caughie; the manuscript for Ahali, a book by artist Can Altay that we are soon publishing with Bedford Press at the Architectural Association; and I’m in the middle of reading issue 2 of Cannon, a magazine published by graphic designer Phil Baber.
Pick five books that would/could/should be buddies.
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1) Puckoon by Spike Milligan 2) How German Is It by Walter Abish 3) Infinite Music by Adam Harper 4) Directory 1979 by John Cooper Clarke 5) The Use and Abuse of Monuments by Sean Lynch
Describe an impossible book that you’d like to make (if you could do the impossible).
Having recently moved home, it’s tempting to wish for hard copy books that can only be read once, before evaporating, relieving the owner of the burden to add yet another book to their collection. It might also promote hyper-focused reading. Or perhaps the self-organising book, which will always locate to its correct position on the shelf. I also would like to test the possibilities for dust-repellent paper, as seen in Back the Future II (1989).
Do you agree that a book is the best medium to disperse and accumulate information?
Yes, even more so now that ‘book’ has expanded to encompass other formats besides a bound paper hard copy. E-books are valuable and efficient in different ways from a hard copy, and it is becoming a necessary role for the designer to question and exploit these avenues of possibility. I think it’s a promising time to be producing books.
Do you have any current publication projects that you’d like to feature on our site?
Public Occasion Agency 1–22, published by Bedford Press, is part of the ongoing archive of activities conducted by the independent event bureau Public Occasion Agency (POA), founded by Jan Nauta and Scrap Marshall at the Architectural Association in 2009. The book is a collection of essays which respond to the first twenty-two POA events, including texts by Pier Vittorio Aureli, Shumon Basar, Mark Campbell, Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange, Henderson Downing, David Greene, Samantha Hardingham, Ingrid Schröder, Nicholas Simcik Arese, Silvana Taher, Tom Vandeputte and Carlos Villanueva Brandt.
Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music by Ferruccio Busoni, (originally published in 1907, republished by Precinct, 2012) is a daringly progressive statement about the necessary freedom and future of music, its broad and prescient outlook all the more fascinating for its having arrived so early. Busoni was a composer, composition teacher and virtuoso concert pianist of early twentieth-century Europe, born Italian but working in Germany, and a highly respected figure in his time. Sketch was written immediately prior to his mentoring of avant-garde composers such as Arnold Schoenberg and Edgard Varèse, whose ground-breaking work came to define twentieth-century classical music. Yet Busoni’s writing is steeped in ornate, deeply poetic language, in nineteenth-century philosophy and Romanticism. As a bygone era metamorphoses into the new one that will stretch all the way to John Cage, he even brandishes news of the first keyboard-based electric sound synthesiser with enthralled delight. This edition features a new translation into English by Pamela Johnston, a foreword by Adam Harper, and includes the rare and remarkable Epilogue, an abstract imagining of a ‘Realm of Music’.
Methods of printing/communicating changes with technological advancement. What do you predict after this digital epoch?
I’m especially interested to see how developments such as flexible e-ink paper can be exploited; I also read recently about successful tests to project onto the world’s thinnest screen, a membrane composed primarily of a soap bubble called a colloidal display. E-readers are already getting less expensive, so it will be interesting to see how these new kinds of capabilities will influence the technology over the next couple of years. We will likely see a continued increase in niche publishing – in print and electronically – as publishing tools become ever more accessible and consumer-friendly. It would be nice to think though that this amplified book democracy will be weighted with a more heightened critical and editorial awareness; though that seems uncertain. Perhaps most importantly will be the ways in which book sellers continue to respond to these recent market shifts; larger chains may no longer require vast expanses of physical retail space in a near-future era where e-books dominate sales. This implies then that there will be a fight for some other kind of visibility and to obtain significant stakes in new distribution channels. Even more interesting will be how smaller, specialist art book stores, which in general seem to be flourishing right now, will also engage with these changes, either directly or indirectly, which seems entirely necessary given that there are already many art publications and magazines, as well as experimental artists’ books available in e-book formats.
In what form would “books” be in the year 2112?
I don’t think that books will be fundamentally different in 100 years, in terms of their primary use; there will simply be a wider array of available formats and reception channels. Technology might allow for novelty additions, like sensory e-books for instance, but I’d guess that people will still prefer their reading material to be delivered in a structured and finite form – however they are delivered and displayed.