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4.6 billion years ago, Earth was formed. Meteoritic bombardments, volcanic eruptions, or ice ages occurred and had direct consequences on the landscape and life on Earth. What is the best medium to visualize this content? A format that offers a lot of space for experimentation, sequences, series and narrative stories. An object that gives the reader/viewer an experience, a feeling by touching, flipping, tearing, folding… the artists’ book. It is an art work itself. The content dictates the format and its features, following the structure of a geological timeline. The illustrated evolution of an animal comes to life within this frame, adapting throughout the various events and periods of time. Evolution hasn’t stopped. New species will emerge, continents will drift, new mass extinctions will occur, leaving Earth to the power of nature.

This project aims at understanding the evolution of the artists’ book since its emergence around the 1960’s. Artists started to create them in order to distribute their vision to a mass public in an affordable way. The book is not just showing art but is an art form itself. Interviews of artists, independent publishing houses and artists’ books collectors had shown that today publications are proliferating. Technology has evolved and so has its accessibility. For the past few years, Art book fairs, workshops, and presentations were popping everywhere. Today, they occur to discuss about the economy and the futur of independent publishing. Did the peak of independent publishing already occur or is it happening today?  How are the publications going to evolve?  The answers to these questions differ according to points of view. But what everybody agrees on, is that printing technology and its accessibility gave the chance to independent publishing to arise.

It’s book about why we are here and what the artists’ book have to do with it. Add about twenty Edding 0.1 and geology to it and you will get evolution.

 

Presentation of my project

20 slides 20 sec/slide

 

PUBLICATION = PUBLIC + ACTION*

Books have been created for centuries. They evolve with technology, human skills and human aspirations. In the 20th century, a new form of art emerged, the artists’ book. There are various roots but it is in the 1960’s that this form began to proliferate. The book not just being a platform but a medium, a form, an art work itself. Technology as well as printing has developed. Today, it is not as expensive as it used to be which opens a large field in production. For the past few years, publications have increased rapidely. Art book fairs, workshops, and presentations have popped up everywhere.
Independent publishing became the new way of promoting publications, distribution and collaborating with various artists.

This thesis takes place in a time where a lot of people are still active in the field of independent publishing. Artists, publishing houses, press houses, and collectors were interviewed on the topic of artists’ books. More precisely, on their opinion on today’s situation within their work as well as on the evolution of the publications. Did the peak of independent publishing already occur or is it happening today?  How are the publications going to evolve?  The answers to these questions differ from person to person. But what everybody agrees on, is that printing technology and its accessibility gave the chance to independent publishing to arise.

Today, a lot of talks are focusing on the economy of independent publishing. There is the need to understand and to analyze its evolution within the last few years. From this research material, the aim is to apply the results to my practical project. By realizing an artist’s book that would correspond, with the caracteristics of this evolution, and to the actual and future situation of independent publishing.

To emphasize the concept of the book as a form, my objective is to create illustrations that evolve within the page of the book. A fantasy animal that evolves from the earliest form known on earth to the future. The animal breeding only in the codex and not in any other medium. By folding the pages, another characteristic is added to the animal and vice versa, offering more than one reading on the evolution of this animal. The purpose is to interact and to experiment within the form and the pages of the book.

THE ARTISTS BOOK EVOLUTION AND ITS INTERACTION
For centuries, books have been used as a medium for artists. From the manuscript, to the novels, to exhibition catalogue or artist’s work reproductions; it’s only in the 20th century that artists valued the books as an art form itself. Called Artists’ books, Artists books or Artist’s book, this new form of art, as the spelling itself, is difficult to define. Critics as Anne Moeglin – Delcroix, or Johanna Drucker  analysed the development of the Artists books through historical, sociological and technical characteristics.

“Artists’ books take every possible form, participate in every possible convention of book making, every possible «ism» of mainstream art and literature, every possible mode of production, every shape, every degree of ephemerality or archival durability. There are no specific criteria for defining what an artists’ book is, but there are many criteria for defining what it is not, or what it partakes of, or what it distinguisches itself from.” – Johanna Drucker

In every movement or period, one of the artists many purpose is to create a rupture with their past. Artists books are no exception to the rule. In the 1960s, artists as Ed Ruscha valued this form which breaks with the handmade, expensive, rare, limited edition book. The aim was to distribute their vision to a mass public in an affordable way. Technological advances have helped the artists books to expand, and independent production became reachable to every artists.
Today, artists books are usually self published and printed in few numbered exemplars. Over the years, the culture, society change and so do the standards. Technologies evolve as well as life cost.
Today, digital technologies are everywhere, that is evolution. People tend to say that books or magazines are decreasing, that electronic tablets will substitute them. There are various aspects that could be arguable. In my project, the aim is not to confront the two technologies, but to enhance the reader to an emotional, tactile relation with the publications. My project will be aimed at different audience. The first group will be people that think that books are obsolet. In that case, my intention is to give them a feeling, a sensation by the touch or the smell of the book. Together with the fact that digital and books are two different technologies, and none of them has to take advantage on the other. The second target group gather people that are already interested by publications or artists books. Here, my purpose will be to show them another facet of the book, where the reader is a component in the story and the structure of the book.
In order to understand the evolution of the artists book, I would like to interview artists that create these form of art, as well as critics and publishing houses. Giving an overview scene, Christoph Schifferli is a collector of artists books of the 20th century. Additionally, Nieves is an independent publishing house focusing on distributing artists books and zines. Within these two contributors, I will be able to understand mostly how the artists book evolved, which characteristics have changed and emerged, and what is its place in today’s culture where the digital has widely increased.
In which way can the book evolve further and be an interactive experience with its reader ?

To illustrate these reflections, I intend to create a book that interacts directly with its reader. Creating a new narration and giving the reader a role in the book from a content as well as a structure side. Allowing the reader to choose between different story progressions ( combinatorial reading ), conferring various itineraries.
Giving him the possibility to transform the content and the structure, by tearing, folding, cutting, in order to create, to discover something new. Using different kind of paper or inks, as thermosensible – thermochromatic, reacting with the heat or the light will be used. The book will metamorphoses, evolves into something else, allowing new content to appear or dissappear. The aim is too give the reader a one time reading, an ephemeral and unique experience. The process being more valued than the result itself.
Performance is an art form that involves the human being, the time and the space. From the latin, per forma, it indicates an event that take place in a certain form. It is strongly established in the process figure, based on an ephemeral sequences of events. Within this context, the book will appear as a performance; a unique reader, in a specific place, a certain time giving, a one time experience.
Transforming, metamorphosing, evolving, destroying, many terms that define the life cycle. Destruction is needed in order to have a cycle in life. I will use this principle – destroy in order to create – as my tool for my book as well as for my content. Life is a continuous loop that is constantly renewed.
To illustrate that, I would like to portray how nature and animals evolved through time; starting from the Ice Age to the future, how they have regenerated, evolved and adapted.
I will create a imaginary animal that metamorphose himself from the ice age to the future. By changing its physical characteristics with the climate and the natural environment is living into. Additionally to this imaginary aspect, I wish to represent a more realistic point of view; by picturing how the glaciers are melting or how the sea level is increasing. These two views will allow me to create a story with various paths, as well as keep the reader into something he knows, a more realistic picture.
The purpose of this story is to have a red string, illustrated by the animal, going through a time line as well as through the book itself. The story will be a statement of what happenend in the past and today, and depict the future as a utopian / distopian way.

The aim of my project is to show how the destruction is needed in order to have a cycle in life. To illustrate that, I want to portray how nature and animals evolve in time. Starting from the Ice Age to the future, I want to show how animals and nature regenerated, evolved and adapted.

Today, global warming is a major factor in the natural cycle. Climate is changing faster than the scientist can predict it. Natural catastrophes as tsunami, earth-quakes or hurricanes are going to happen more often than before. The winter is getting shorter, the temperatures as the sea level are increasing, islands are going to disappear.

The problem today is not about natural catastrophes that destroy the environment but about destroying human kind. Nature as animals will always regenerate or adapt, as we saw after the several ice ages. Are humans going to be able to adapt with the nature itself and not the other way around?

In order to show this cycle of life, I will create a fantasy animal that evolve from the ice age to the future. By changing his characteristics with the climate or the natural environment is living into. Additionally to this fantasy aspect, I would like to represent a more realistic point of view. By picturing how the glaciers are disappearing, how the ice is melting as the sea level is increasing for exemples. Animals as nature need destruction in order to create new species or regenerate.

Humans are changing the planet every day but at the end, nature is the one being in control. Nature is never going to be an exctint specie, but human kind might.

 

 

 

For the past fifty years, artists used destruction as a tool. Instead of starting with a blank canvas, they started with a photography, a painting or something already existing. Erasing, cutting, tearing, a new form of art was emerging. Artists started to question the lapse of time of a piece of art. Creating ephemeral objects, taking place in a certain time, location. The piece of art becoming a unique experience.

Our way of approaching life changed with the years and so the influences and the standards. How this destruction evolved in the time? Is the result as important as the process? Is the piece of art created in order to last?

Happenings, performances, land art, street art, all these kind of art are not meant to last. Using the forces of the nature as a second tool, leaving the final result to the nature itself. Create in order to be destroyed. The process and the experience beeing more important that the result.

I’m interested in the process of ephemeral art. The process, the experience being more important that the result. Type, photography, text, happening; these are the tools of my project. I would like to create a book that would be a one time experience, for one person. By using different papers, inks that react with the light or the touch. Tearing, folding, cutting the pages in order to discover the content. The book becoming a one person, time experience.