Central section of the book

ZOOM VIEW

This is the central section of my book, up until this point the narratives and images are being developed in my prototype book. The structure of this prototype book served as the constraints within which my story could evolve. At this point I am now moving on to plan the rest of the book including the ending externally from my original book, I will do this in my research journal. it will be interesting to see how this change of approach affects the evolution of my story. Hopefully it will not be too noticeable to anyone else but me. The reason I want to plan and render separately to my original prototype is because I feel this will be a more beneficial in reaching the endpoint of the story. I feel now I have understood and accepted the constraint of the form of the book it would make sense to free myself from the physical constraint of working within that tatty badly bound prototype.

Accordion Books

The  concertina format lends itself well to a linear open-poetic reading this is why I want to utilise this format for my project




There  are some more great examples in this brilliant blog about all things concertina;

http://www.accordionpublications.blogspot.co.uk/

The Birth of the Machine Consciousness by Jonathan Rosen 

This is The Birth of the Machine Consciousness by Jonathan Rosen A beautifully made concertina book that we have in our cabinet in the studio.  the structure of this book influenced my decisions on how to construct my final book. I really like the white on black embossed drawings on the coverings,   this is another good example of way   concertinas  lend themselves to an open poetic reading.

Wall Book

My wall is my sketchbook. It is an evolving sketchbook that unfortunately I failed to document much.  it serves its purpose very well for me. At the end of this project I will take all these scraps and place them in a book. this will not do justice to my constantly changing, ever useful wall book.


Today I took my wall book down. This is not a sad day,  new beginnings! ywaa.

Vilém Flusser talking about thought - transript

Untitled (Book) Philip Guston 1968

Thought is an absurd process. We think, in order to think no more, we talk, in order to stop talking. Thought is absurd, but it is what makes us what we are, thinking things, humans. To be human is to be absurd. To be human is to be expelled from the innocence of Paradise, to be expelled from integration. To be human is to be an outcast, a being in banishment, in short: a thinking absurd being. Let us accept this absurdity, let us think as much a possible, let us doubt on as many [levels] as possible. Rilke says that the foundation of our existence has expelled us, risking us. Let us accept that risk. Let us refuse to be made prisoners of the tired and boring conversation now under way in the Western civilization, that tedious conversation called “progress”. Let us not be afraid of new words and new thoughts. Let us open new openings and experience new amazements.


HA whats his problem with progress, what all the fuss. I know. I think I know.

I like this quote

The “uncomfortableness” of the voice and text in music and art

This will be the title of my essay, I will be looking into one tiny aspect of how we use and understand language, concentrating specifically on the relationship between the recorded voice and music. I will be seeking parallels between that and the relationship between printed image and text.

My approach will be a reductive one, as I am not an audio scientist or skilled musician nor am I a language theorist. I sing and record songs and I am a drawer and printer of image and text. In my work I am interested in the way images and text are loaded with external connotations.  I like to play with these connotations; fitting pieces together in combinations of text and image in order to explore the way I read image and text.  My personal standpoint as someone who struggles with written language that at times can appear completely alien towards me but for which I have an immense enthusiasm; this is a motivating factor in the desire to incorporate language into my drawings. Maybe by adopting language I hope I can persuade myself to accept it? Or more likely I hope that it will accept me?blabllalabab!


So is it is my uncomfortable relationship to language that motivates me to seek out and define as positive a 'uncomfortableness' in the way language operates? 

I'm not going to attempt to prove any link between music and art, what I will concentrate on is a parallel “uncomfortableness" that I perceive between the ways we integrate language into these two aspects of our culture. A clunkiness  in  the way we use language as a conveyor of meaning and thought and as an element incorporated into our creative practice.

What came first music or language?

Which came first the hummingbird or the talking egg? Music or language? For answers to the questions of prehistory we have to look to the assertions of scientists. Charles Darwin was a scientist.

In his book "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex" Darwin argued that there existed a 'musical protolanguage' model that existed before the use of ordered vocal patterns to convey meaningful instruction.

Hello can you understand my ordered vocal pattern?

Statement about my current project

Statement about my current project

To remind myself in a few paragraphs how to explain what I'm doing.

With this book I am playing with the idea of coincidences. I'm taking well-known figures Col Gaddafi, Elvis Presley and a slightly unknown ex ice hockey team owner from the 5th largest city in Germany with the intention of discovering significant coincidences in their lives and links between their stories. I chose these figures in a relatively arbitrary fashion with only two links initially in mind; a place; Germany and a date; January 8^th 1935, Elvis's birthday.  

Upon further research and subsequently drawing upon the further similarities I discovered my intention was to utilise the way coincidences resonate and are understood to show a world in which actions or events can be seen as part of a larger pattern or structure. Although slightly absurdly straightforward I find this idea reassuring, every individuals life events as part of them and as part of the whole mesh in the pattern, possibly. I will key into this perceived pattern with the visual and physical structure of the finished book. There will be multiple ways of reading the book as will follow from the pattern of things and events depicted in the book. These multiple ways of viewing the pages will offer new juxtapositions between images and text when the book is extended accordion style.

My attempt is not prove anything pseudoscientific or spiritually enlightening. I am perceiving pattern in the life stories of well-known others because I'm looking for it; as if interpreting forms from patches on a wall or clouds in the sky. Pattern only exists because we attach so much significance to that which re-occurs, happens again. What I find really interesting is the way intuitively we can attach significance and read meaning to these patterns. It's funny which ones we pay attention to and which ones we don't.

The tone of the book should hang somewhere between the absurd and something resonates slightly meaningfully. Hopefully.

Rejected figures for book

The Pope, Niccolò Machiavelli and Paul Kammerer were all initially considered for my developing narrative but they have all now been rejected, I think it is important to note this at this time.

Language is a virus from outer space

Language is a virus from outer space said William Burroughs but who said;

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

this website with bright green text on a black background does not know for my upcoming essay i will be writing about music ( and image and thought) here is a quote and some thoughts;;;

"the gesture of piano playing is not, in fact, totally alien to writing. It is, like writing, a linear gesture, although the lines it produces are composed of acoustic vibrations, not of letters. It may therefore be held that if we type we still engrave (at least as far as the intention of our gesture is concerned), and that the ‘piano quality’ of our gesture stresses this fact: we no longer engrave with a stick, but with a series of hammers."

- Flusser on writing

Maybe it would be good to start by drawing comparisons between the action of typing from its origins as an action that operated hammers that "impressed text upon sheets of paper" in drawing comparisons between this and the act of playing the piano; maybe here the way the piano is a device that impersonates the voice in the same way the typewriter is a device that impersonates the act gesture of writing physical writing."


Possibly taking the quote above in mind that the relationship between the voice and the piano the musical instrument has similarities between that of the spoken word and the act of engraving letters. The piano as a reductive tool that takes the sound of the voice converted into musical notes fire a series of hammers possibly I could draw comparison with the typewriter as a device that takes the meaning of the voice and converts it into symbols via again a series of hammers.

Contemporary Illustration

I fear contemporay illustration. Here is a list of contemporay illustrators;

Luke best

Tom Gauld

Adam Simson

Laura Carlin

I'm not sure what constitutes contemporary illustration. I think i may be thinking about the marketplace.

Here is a typographer;

David Pearson is giving a talk as part of our MA lecture series His work is really clean.