The instructions will likely be complicated, perhaps with a time-code or a stave running along the foot of the page, and a key to decipher the symbols. I think it will be a book you have to rehearse a few times and finally perform when you’ve got it right.
This morning I’ve done something quite simple and anthropomorphic, which isn’t exactly what I had in mind but it’s a useful experiment. The circles are where you plant your fingertips. You walk your hand over the page and hesitate at the edge, turning the page like a precipice. The thumb comes in to steady the operation at the last minute, then the fingertips plunge down into the next page. The second picture is where they land, with the thumb still in place on the page before. The circles would need annotating before they made any sense to a reader: this is where the key or the time-code would come in.
But really I want the hands operating on their own, doing the kind of things hands do anyway, and using the paper as a guide to movement rather than as a stage. I would prefer them to be working in the air around the book rather than against a flat surface, and I want to use the malleability of the pages to allow for this.
So far I’m working with 110gsm paper but I’ll have a go with some thinner paper too, to permit bends and folds in many directions at once. It might be good to bind several papers together – different papers for different movements. I have a stack of A2 papers on my desk at the moment, the corner of each marked with a different weight in the pencil of the binder I met in January.
