Description
The Experimental Book Object shows why and how books matter in the 21st century. Digital and audio platforms are commonplace, and other fields of art beyond literature have increasingly embraced books and publication as their medium of choice. Nevertheless, the manifold book object persists and continues to inspire various types of experimentation. This volume sets forth an unprecedented approach where literary and media theory are entangled with design practitioners’ artistic research and process descriptions. By probing the paradigm of the codex, this collection of essays focuses on historical and contemporary experimentation that has challenged what books are and could be from the perspectives of materiality, mediation, and visual and typographic design. Investigations into less-studied areas and cases of performativity demonstrate what experimental books do by interacting with their systemic and cultural environments. The volume offers a multifaceted and multidisciplinary view of the book object, the book design and publishing processes, and their significance in the digital age.
Table of Contents
Sami Sjöberg, Mikko Keskinen & Arja Karhumaa Introduction 1. Book Matters Jan Baetens Olivier Deprez, Books and Company Emily Brennan-Moran & Torsa Ghosal Excessive Tactility of 9/11 Book Memorials Danuta Fjellestad & Sami Sjöberg Performative Materiality of Book Inserts: Two Case Studies Juri Joensuu Mutilating Writing, Damaging Books: Aspects of Literary Destruction Mikko Keskinen The Two-Layered Book and Storyworld, with Transgressions: Graham Rawle’s Overland Juha-Pekka Kilpiö Punched Pages: Holes in Experimental Print Literature Oskari Rantala Promethea: Disintegrating the (Comic) Book Object and the Narrative World 2. Book Mediations Stella Bolaki Bound to Matter: Artists’ Books and Illness Experience Kiene Brillenburg Wurth Silence as an Experimental Act in Marlene NourbeSe Philip’s Experimental Long Poem Zong! Wojciech Drąg The Self as a Database in Digital Biography: David Clark’s 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein Sara Tanderup Linkis Remediating Bookishness in Mark Z. Danielewski’s Enhanced Ebooks Laura Piippo Looking Back to Now: Book as Technology of Remembering the Present. A Case study of Jatkosota-extra by Jaakko Yli-Juonikas 3. Book Designs Leslie Atzmon Gender, Transgression, and Ritual Torah Preparation Zach Dodson Into the Bibliosphere: The Multimodal Narrative Design of KUU, an Interactive Tragedy Katherine Gillieson Performance, Embodiment, Pluralism: New Ontological Spaces of Book Design Pauliina Nykänen & Arja Karhumaa Body Text: The Somatic and Bodily in Reading Zoë Sadokierski & Cecilia Heffer Encountering Lace Narratives: Designing a Hybrid Book to Capture the Complexity of Practitioner-Research. Nick Thoburn & Nick Thurston Papercuts: How We Talk about the Horizons of the Publishable 4. Afterword Johanna Drucker Afterword
Introduction
Sami Sjöberg, Mikko Keskinen and Arja Karhumaa
Opening Experimental Book Objects: The Heterogeneity of the Codex in the Twenty-First Century
I Book Matters
Jan Baetens
Olivier Deprez, Books and Company
Emily Brennan-Moran and Torsa Ghosal
Excessive Tactility of 9/11 Book Memorials
Danuta Fjellestad & Sami Sjöberg
Performative Materiality of Book Inserts: The Case of S. and Personal Effects
Mikko Keskinen
The Two-Layered Book and Storyworld, with Transgressions: Graham Rawle’s Overland
Juri Joensuu
Literary Mutilation: Typographical and Material Abuse in Finnish Experimental Poetry and Book Art
Juha-Pekka Kilpiö
Punched Pages: Holes in Experimental Print Literature
Oskari Rantala
The Disintegrating (Comic) Book Object and the End of the Narrative Universe in Promethea
II Book Mediations
Stella Bolaki
Bound to Matter: Artists’ Books and Illness Experience
Laura Piippo
Looking Back to Now: Book as Technology of Remembering the Present in Jatkosota-extra by Jaakko Yli-Juonikas
Wojciech Drąg
The Dispersed Self, the Database and Digital Biography: David Clark’s 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein
Sara Tanderup Linkis
Performing E-bookness: Remediation and Meta-Mediality in the E-book Edition of Mark Z. Danielewski’s The Fifty Year Sword
III Book Designs
Leslie Atzmon
Gender, Transgression, and Ritual Torah Preparation
Zach Dodson
Bookish Biomes: The Writing and Design of KUU, a Paper Ecosystem
Pauliina Nykänen & Arja Karhumaa
Body Text: Exploring Somatic Devices in the Design of Hybrid Books Fun Primavera and Yours
Zoë Sadokierski & Cecilia Heffer
Encountering Lace Narratives: Designing a Multimodal Book to Capture the Complexity of Practitioner-Research
Nick Thoburn and Nick Thurston
Papercuts: The Horizons of Minor Publishing
Afterword
Johanna Drucker
Direct Objects: Critical Ways to "Think a Book"
