The artist book I’m working on is all about the gesticulations the book itself causes you to make as you work your way through it from beginning to end. I’ve been experimenting with pleats and folds and cuts and pop-ups as ways of provoking the hands to make various sequences of movements a couple of inches above the surface of the page.
But I’ve been having trouble because the repeated need to turn the page adds a regular punctuation of page-turning gesticulations that work on a different register from the movements I’ve been trying out. It looked like the page-turning movement was either going to get in the way (which wouldn’t do) or would have to be scrapped altogether (difficult if there are multiple pages) or would have to be integrated into the general narrative of the movements. I think I’ve found a way to make option 3 work.
From the photos you can see I’m now working with pages that pivot in a circle rather than turning right to left about a vertical spine like a normal book. The pivot movement then generates all the other movements, which are restricted by the tip of a pencil you can fix into a single punched hole in each page and then direct through the book by curved and angled slots scored into the pages. Each page needs to be manipulated in a different way to keep the book working, so there are tabs and folds (and maybe printed arrows?) selectively placed about the pages to help the movements run smoothly. After all the movements the pencil’s gone through, by the time you reach the last page you realize all you’ve drawn is a dot.
It’s still at a fairly early stage: the launch isn’t until July 12 and the final phase of production should take less than a month. That leaves me just under two months to settle the details. (Though I’ll be out of the country for one of them. Furrowed brow.) To my downright delight the Book Works studio has agreed to take on design and production of the book, and we’ll be working together with Modern Art Oxford through the coming months to make a limited edition of 200. That’s the plan for now.
But tomorrow I’m going away to New York for three weeks where I will not think at all about the book, unless in unplanned and unfamiliar ways. By the time I get back I might have changed my mind altogether. The whole thing might have a Brooklyn twang.
