Category Archives: Course Stuff

Present Shock

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In my sociology class we are reading a book called: PRESENT SHOCK: When Everything Happens Now, wherein Rushkoff introduces the phenomenon of presentism. Rushkoff argues that we no longer have a sense of a future, of goals, of direction at all. We have a completely new relationship to time; we live in an always-on “now,” where the priorities of this moment seem to be everything. He talks about how in our current culture we have learn to distinguish between data flows (like Twitter) that can only be dipped into, and data storage (like books and emails) that can be fully consumed. The artist books seemed to be a step backward from this technological progression which was refreshing. Instead of perhaps blogging about their interpretations of a book or poem these artists were able to use their ideas to make a new book form.

The was something to say about the tactile quality of many of the books. I felt as though I really had to immerse myself in the books because I wanted to fully understand what they were all about. As opposed to my traditional scanning on a webpage or quick view of a momentary status or tweet.

Cell phones

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When were talk about the printing press, it is hard for us to imagine a time before it because it precedes us by many decades. However, while the cell phone is a pretty recent device, it is hard for us to imagine life without it. I often wonder how texting and tweeting has impacted the way we read and write. I found the artist book that came out of the cell phone relevant and interesting to this conversation. In Japan, in 2007, a new “genre” of books emerged. According to this article this was the creation of the cell phone novel. Additionally this reminds me of a young adult novel I admittedly read that was written as a long text message conversation. It is interesting to think that if you traveled back in time and gave the texting book to someone it would be like a foreign language to them.

Making of a Renaissance Book

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Yesterday I watched the first part of making a Renaissance Book. I was not aware of all of the craftsmanship that went into creating one small type letter. When the narrator was explaining all of the different parts of the letter mold the list of parts consisted of many more items then I had anticipated. It is so easy to change fonts in a word document or even to download a new font from the web. I definitely take this action for granted. I never really considered how the first type was created or the fact that someone had to invent all of the different styles and sizes of fonts we use today.

The Making of a Renaissance Book

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Before beginning the short, 20 minute documentary, The Making of a Renaissance Book, I mentally prepared myself for what I believed would be an extremely boring video experience.  Much to my surprise, I found the documentary to be more interesting than I thought it would be. The documentary is in black and white giving it an older, more almost vintage, feel. The music they play throughout the documentary is enough to give you a headache, making me at times, want to turn it off.  The documentary really shows you how precise and time consuming making the letters that are to be used in printing is.  Until seeing craftsmen carve out the letters, I hadn’t realized just how time consuming the process is.  This made me appreciate all the books we saw at class.  When we went to EPI we only printed a sheet.  We didn’t have to lay out the letters which is also a time consuming process.  Until seeing this video, I hadn’t given as much thought to the process of making the letters as I had to other aspects of printing.  Craftsmen had to neatly and precisely create letters of different sizes and fonts.  Today, we simply just type away on our computers, just as I am doing now, with a multitude of fonts and sizes to choose from.  I always took this for granted.

Lab Assignment

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For today’s lab assignment, I watched the documentary The Making of a Renaissance Book.  While the demonstration in the Experimental Printmaking Institute made me more appreciative of the hard work that goes into printing, this documentary enhanced that feeling of appreciation immensely.  The documentary shows many clips of artists creating the individual letters of the typecast for printing by hand.  From setting the mold to carving the letters, these jobs took an enormous amount of technical skill and artistry that I was previously unaware of.

The filmmaker did an excellent job of portraying these artists as real people.  Many of the shots focused on the artist’s hands as they were working, but the filmmaker also made sure to focus on the faces of the artists as well.  The documentary also included diagrams of the various objects used in printing that explained the parts of those objects.  This aspect of the film helped demonstrate how these objects worked and arouse even more appreciation for these artists and engineers of book history.

Unique Books

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In class yesterday, I was fascinated by all of the different books.  Some books, more than others, stuck out at me.  When I went to look at the Alice in Wonderland book, I realized that if I hadn’t been told which book it was, or chapter for that matter, I would never have guessed chapter 5 of Alice in Wonderland. The artwork was so unique and I was blown away by the artists interpretation of that particular chapter of the story.  In Dr. Jekyll and Mr.  Hyde, I loved how the words became harder to read and more elaborate as the main character goes more and more insane. By the end of the book, I was unable to make out the story.  The Macbeth story also stuck out to me.  I found the little summary of the story to be quite comical.  This led me to do some internet browsing and I stumbled upon this website, which is by the artist of the Macbeth book, and shows some other stories done in a similar way.   In class, we asked the question, what is a book? After seeing all these different and interesting pieces, it has become much harder for me to answer that question.

What if?

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One reason the church was so powerful was the fact that clerics (church officials) were largely the only ones who could read. This meant that the common people had to rely on the priests to tell them what the Bible said, and what God intended them to do. Since most people were illiterate, they did not have access to the works of the great thinkers, such as Greek philosophers and Roman historians. Since the ideas of most great thinkers are built on a foundation of the thoughts of other great thinkers, the common man had no means of either reading or writing great ideas that did not come from the church. I wonder how history would have been different had the church not been so powerful. What if literacy had started in another group or religion had come to hold power because of it?

Tuesday’s Class

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In Tuesday’s class we talked a little more about a books history.  It was really fascinating to learn about the different places each book has been and how it ended up in our special collections department.  I particularly found it interesting that the Dickens set, which was beautifully bound, contained the original covers and spines within the books, or at least within A Christmas Carol.   It made me wonder if that is something that many people do when they replace original binding.

“what if”

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“What if” some of this later technology had been available at the time of the earlier books we’ve seen, like those printed from a hand press?  “Senefelder created a press in 1817 that both wet the plate and inked it automatically, making the process practicable for mass production of images” (Howard, 131).  Had this press been available much earlier, works done by the hand press could have been much more easily mass-produced.  Saving both time and energy lithography also could have increased the amount of images in books as well, perhaps changing the character of some of these books.   Not only would more of the same book have been in circulation, but also books with more images within them.

E-books and the rise of self- publishing

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I have been thinking lately about the ways in which ebooks have changed the book market. There was a recent article in the New York Times about Apple’s iBookstore and their recent launch of a “Breakout Books” tab. This banner will showcase books from popular self- published authors. My first experience with a self- published book was when I was nine at a yard sale. I remember picking up an odd sci- fi novel about aliens and the end of the world. My dad inspected it and then told me that the author himself had paid to publish it and jokingly told me that it was definitely a “rare” find. However, thanks to ebooks, self – published books have more of a chance of receiving notice and much less of a chance of ending up at a garage sale.

The medium of ebooks allows writers to bypass the cost of hiring a publisher in a revolutionarily profitable manner. Most importantly, on an ebook there is unlimited shelf space. Bookstores can only hold so many books. In the past, writers would depend on the status of their publisher and marketing campaign to reach the shelf. Additionally, ebooks are immortal. In the old world of publishing, if a book sold poorly at first, the retailers would have to return them to the publisher. From an economic standpoint, if the quality of these “indie” books is up to par, then the ability to bypass the cost of the publisher leads to lower prices. According to the article publishers pay authors 25 percent for retail sails while self- published authors earn 60- 70 percent of the list price. I have noticed more and more self- published books appearing on my kindle and there is a recent surge in self- published ebooks becoming best sellers.