Tag Archives: week 7

Week 7: Book as Idea

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In Chapter 3, “The Book as Idea,” in Amaranth Borsuk’s The Book, Borsuk explores how the physical appearance of the book, along with content, has continually changed alongside human culture and technology: “as the history of the book’s changing form and its mechanical reproduction reveal, it has transformed significantly over time and region” (Borsuk, 110). This transformation not only reflects materials or printing methods, but the shifting relationship between readers, creators, and the physical objects we hold. The book’s form has always mirrored values, artistic or commercial, and tells us about the world that produces it. 

In our current moment, the relationship between material and meaning has become more estranged, “as contemporary publishers seek to embrace digital technology, we find ourselves at a moment in which the form and content of a work bear little relation to one another. Amazon offers us the same ‘book’ in paperback or Kindle edition…” (Borsuk, 112). As books become interchangeable across various platforms, they increasingly lose their physical identity. “When books become content to be marketed and sold this way, the historic relationship between materiality and text is severed” (Borsuk, 112). The book, once a tangible object reflecting human touch, becomes purely information, designed for easy consumption, lacking the once physical and intimate engagement.

Borsuk brings in Romantic poet William Blake, who “undertook every stage of their production”, resisting the industrialization of books and “‘dark Satanic Mills’ of eighteenth century London that emitted toxic fumes, employed the poor and children in horrendous conditions, and made books into mass-produced commodities” (118). Instead, returning to “an earlier idea of the book—one steeped in mystery, beauty, and visionary language that bears the marks of its creator’s hand” (Borsuk, 118). Borsuk brings in Blake to show that books can be both a vessel for creativity, and “a means of spreading social justice” (Borsuk, 124). The meaning of a book can be found in how it presents physically, an aspect that we often lose today. The form a book takes can reflect care, individual artistry, and even resistance to commodification. 

At the end of chapter 3, Borsuk concludes that “defining the book involves consideration for its use as much as its form. Our changing idea of the book is co-constructive of its changing structure” (Borsuk, 195). Blake’s work demonstrates this, his books were both personal artworks and social justice statements, shaped by not only how they were meant to be read, but experienced. In today’s digital age, Borsuk reminds us what we lose when books are no longer able to be held, with physical pages to flip. 


The Artist’s Book

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As I begin each introduction, I must rewrite and rephrase about thirty different ideas spiraling in my mind, knowing that whichever sentence I end with, that’s the one. As far as this post goes, my voice exists no farther than the words on the screen. I can’t illustrate anything, speak it a certain way, nor can I even pick my font. Then, upon reading about William Blake in Borsuk’s chapter 3 of The Book, I realized how much ownership of my work I’ve given over. Going over chapter 3 and a work by Doug Beube, I pose the question: how much of a book is really our’s?

The first line that caught my attention from Borsuk told of artists “who saw the book as a means of circumventing the power system of the art world. (69)” This implies the artists are not in power already, which I personally have come by with publishers pitching unreasonable prices for their services. This idea extends so far that a term had to be invented, called an “artist’s book,” implying that the book was not already the artist’s.

One dedicated man, William Blake, found a way to circumvent the power system. While it’s noted that Blake created his printing method partly for financial reasons, it’s also important to account for his societal and political motives. Against child labor, urban squalor, and slavery, refusing to use print shops was an act of defiance just as much as a stylistic choice. In fact, his style is his defiance. We know this work is Blake’s because it represented his ideas. 

Borsuk states his work, “brought the hand back into the book. (73)” So, I wondered, is my hand missing? Rather, is my hand essential? Answers may vary, so too as times change the answer, but looking at the portfolio of Doug Beube, I understand the artist’s book may take any form, so long as the artist deems it so. This is further illustrated by the long list of book forms Borsuk includes, like Craig Dworkin’s work. While a part of me may idolize the craftsmanship put into a book, I believe the book only takes form when it truly represents you. If that comes in the form of novels written on a chalkboard or in the form of handcuffs, so be it. At the end of the day, it’s called the “artist’s book” for a reason.

Artists’ Books: An Exploration of the Medium

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Chapter 3 of Amaranth Borsuk’s “The Book” details the relationship between the physicality of the book and it’s content. The book continues to be a way to store information, however the expression behind the content is emphasized. This chapter goes over how many different writers and artists use books to convey messges and promote their artwork through revolutionary ways. At the start of the chapter Borsuk writes, “The clay tablet, papyrus scroll, and codex book each were shaped by the materials at hand and the needs of writers and readers. Those materials in turn shape the content with which such books were filled.” In class, we have discussed the importance of the materiality of the book. Within the pages and fine craftsmanship, there is so much information about the people, culture and regions. Each variation of the book has made a lasting impact on its evolution. There is nothing about the phsyicality of the book that is unimportant. However, in this chapter, Borsuk makes it known that the materiality of the book also alters the content. She introduces “artists’ books” which are books that convey art and defy the conventional expectations of reading a book. These artists use the book as an art medium that further conveys their messages. They play with the page’s layout, formattting, size, and technique in their artists’ books. These artists are pushing the idea of the book to the limits. Borsuk draws attention to Stéphane Mallarmé and his book, “Un Coup de Dés”. In this book, Mallarmé utilizes the space within the pages and format. The format of his book draws subtle attention to the content through which the words are printed to mimic waves. He even uses the book’s gutter to convey distance and divide. His expermental work has become influencial to the poets who came after him who now use format and layout to convery the imagery and meaning of their poems. Mallarmé utilized the physicality of the book in a new way that helped portray his story in a subtle yet clever way.

Further in the chapter, Borsuk highlights the artist, Alison Knowles, and her piece, “The Big Book” in which she uses size and interaction to bring the reader – quite literally – into the book. The reader is able to climb through the pages and explore each scene. This artist book plays with the concept of a codex’s sequential format and challenges the structure of the book. What is fascinating in this artist book is that the reader is not only interacting with the art but has become a crucial component of the book. Reading becomes a full body experience that leaves the message of Knowles’ art open-ended and dependent on how the reader views the art. Both of these artists and the many more referenced in Borsuk’s chapter three utilize the book as an art form that allows them to convey their stories and ideas. The materiality not only gives insight into stories such as region and culture but also pushes the artist’s creativity and ingenuity to the limits. The book is no longer a vessel for information but has become a work of art in its self.

The book as a stream of consciousness

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The book is not a static or fixed object, but rather a symbol of knowledge, ideas, and norms–one that is shaped by our cultural values, which have shifted and evolved since the dawn of time. This demonstrates that ideas are non-linear; through the decades, the book has changed, being adapted into different modes of media. Rather than viewing the book as a mere object, it should be interpreted as a mode of language–one that, in whatever form it takes, reflects our ways of thinking and our pursuit of truth and knowledge. One great example of this can be found in the Hebrew-Aramaic and Christian Greek scriptures: although there are different versions of these texts, they all accomplish their purpose–to guide, to educate, and to demonstrate the divinity of truth. Therefore, this raises the question: what does the book represent? It represents the conventions of human memory and guidance–something infinite that seeks to share a universal experience–offering, different ways of thinking, different ways in which we engage with the world as we know it. In this instance, we seek to deconstruct, to alienate, and to differentiate the materialistic qualities of the book and expand on the duality this represents–blurring the boundaries between media and language. “Knowles’s books, like her artistic practice, offer readers nourishment, reminding us that the book is an exchange” (Borsuk 108). In this instance, because the books exchanges with the reader it vividly paints an interaction, or more a transaction with the reader– one that creates a space for intellectual curiosity that collectively unifies individuals that seek to enrich their understanding not intellectually (not only in this manner), but feeds into the realm of human complexities– nurturing our curiosity and creativity. Further demonstrating that books are not just a vessel of knowledge but imparts in our modes of communication and exchange. Ultimately, the book lives not as an object but as a symbol for mankind– one that is present and allows us to learn , question and engage with the world in a different manner; one that interjects across our innermost needs and desires.

“Deconstruction” of the Book

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As week 7 comes to an end, my thought process behind the book as an object has become more open ended than it has ever been. Borsuk in Chapter 3, of The Book, explains “Our changing idea of the book is co-constitutive of its changing structure” `(195). This statement perfectly shows that the bookishness of a book depends on the evolution of humans’ idea of a book. Artists such as Doug Beube have pushed the creative limits of the book as a medium. Dr. Pressman has stated in one of our first times in the Special Collections Lab that artists are supposed to challenge dominant narratives and push boundaries, and that is exactly what we see in this week’s readings. Doug Beube states in “Bookwork and Bookishness: An interview with Doug Beube and Brian Dettmer by Jessica Pressman, “Artists like myself pull the book apart to show that it is no longer the only way to present knowledge and information.” In the Digital Age, we focus primarily on a book’s content and solely focus on the words written on the pages. However, Beube’s work maximizes a books fluidity and confronts the idea that a book’s durability and immutable qualities. He challenges the readers to not overlook the stories and meanings embedded in the bookishness of the book itself, especially the physical and conceptual presence.

While browsing through Doug Beube’s remarkable artwork, I found myself seeing the book through a completely new lens. I no longer saw the book as a container of knowledge, but as an artwork that embodies its own narrative. I was particularly drawn to his piece Cuff. Before reading Beube’s explanation, I wrote my own interpretation “One is shackled and confined by the need to acquire all knowledge. One who is consumed with needing to know all will not feel the liberation of life.” I learned that Beube’s own description mirrored my definition. He interprets the work as reflecting how the censorship and restriction of knowledge parallel the culture of bondage and dominatrix, where readers experience pleasure through the restraint of knowledge itself. Beube’s work ultimately invites us to question not only how we consume knowledge, but also how we are bound by our search of it. In this way, the book ceases to be a mere object or container. I now truly see how the book is a living form that continues to evolve with our relationship with information, creativity, and artistry.

Week 7: Carrión’s Bookworks

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In a section titled, “The New Art of Making Books,” in this week’s chapter of The Book, Borsuk discusses Ulises Carrión’s concept of the bookwork. Borsuk gives a few definitions of such a work. Bookworks “refuse the book’s function while interrogating its form” (145), while encouraging authors and readers to pay more attention to both, and pay more consideration to the whole object. This definition was not entirely clear to me until I began digging in the Notes.

Borsuk mentions a video of Carrión speaking at The Evergreen State College in 1986. In the quoted section of the video, Carrión calls libraries, museums, and archives “perfect cemetaries for books” (145). This idea intrigued me, so I went looking for the rest of the video. While the link in the notes no longer works, I was able to find the video on YouTube.

This isn’t just a video of Carrión lecturing at a college class, though. According to Carrión’s own title cards, it is also, “A selection, both limited in scope and quite arbitrary, but nevertheless of great significance, of bookworks from Ulises Carrión’s Other Books and So Archive.” In the video, between brief clips of Carrión speaking, we get to watch him flip through bookworks from his personal archive.

In the video, Carrión describes his selection process for works entering the Other Books and So Archive. He says, “In order to present only bookworks, we have been forced to exclude a lot of artist books which don’t embody a statement on books in general” (31:33-31:51). This gave me a clearer understanding of bookworks. They’re not just artist books or non-traditional books or some ephemeral message of mindfulness. A bookwork is an object which specifically embodies a statement on books.

Borsuk, paraphrasing Carrión, says that, “Bookworks take on greater importance when the codex itself seems to be imperiled.” (145) The codex certainly seems to be imperiled today. If you look at BookTok, it seems like people would rather speed through stories than spend a lot of time deeply reading one book. If you look at Amazon, it seems like people would rather buy cheap, AI-generated “slop” than books written by humans. It’s a rough landscape to be looking towards as an aspiring book maker, but the challenges of this zeitgeist are also opportunities. In this era of AI slop, over-consumption, and the growing feeling that books are worthless, book artists are tasked with creating new bookworks which can embody a meaningful statement on these “worthless” objects.

On the Topic of Artistry

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In chapter 3 of The Book, titled The Book As An Idea, we’re introduced to the “artist’s book”. The book defines the artist’s book as “a zone of activity by artists and writers who create books as original works of art that “integrate the formal means of [their] realization and production with [their] thematic or aesthetic issues.” Essentially, artist’s books are books that have been entirely designed by the creator, and can be anything. Through my studies, it’s clear by now that quality and customization in books has been reduced due to the mass production commercialization of books. That is known, and not surprising. So I find it interesting that these intentionally designed books are called artist’s books. In the modern day, if you want your book to be traditionally published you have to give up some artistic control over things such as the cover, bindings, or font. For these authors, the “book” is the text. I’ve always viewed books as works of art, so I don’t want to say that these books aren’t artistic, because they are! But a mass market paperback was made to be read, not to be displayed or to challenge the book as an object. There are quite a few authors, poets especially, that play with the page, or the letters. I don’t think the commercialization of books has killed books as art.

As the chapter continues, Borsuk writes “It represents a conceptual approach to bookmaking, and one that relies on the viewer’s interaction with the object to make meaning. For this reason Carrión called such works “anti books”—because they refuse the book’s function while interrogating its form, separating the idea of the book from the object.” I really like the phrase anti-book. These artist books have been meticulously designed to take advantage of every aspect of the physical book. But to say they’re anti-book? This is a direct result of books being about content. Reading, or understanding, these artist’s books require you to think more creatively. There are no page numbers telling you where you are, or table of contents pages so you can flip to your favorite chapter. You have to do more than read how you were taught. You have to be willing to do things wrong– and you have to accept that no way is right. You have to consider parts of the book that you had never gave a second thought, because you didn’t buy the book for its binding, or rather the glue along the spine. It is the job of the artist, and the writer is an artist, to push boundaries. And while you could consider artist’s books as going back to our roots of individualized books, I would say that going against the current status quo will always be necessary.

Book as Text – Text as Art

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Within their respective text’s, Borsuk and Drucker identify an “artist’s book” not as a strict definition, but rather, a “‘zone of activity’ by artists and writers who create books as original works of art that ‘integrate the formal means of [their] realization and production with [their] thematic or aesthetic issues’… as long as the impulse is to create an original work of art through the accumulation and juxtaposition of these materials…” (Borsuk 115). I love this definition because it leaves so much room for interpretation. The key word being the “zone of activity” is denotatively vague. The emphasis is not on the end product, rather, the way in which the product is created–the activity. Even the wording of “zone” feels fluid–zones change, they imply social construction.

Later, Borsuk identifies the dialogical nature between reader and book, revealed by how “artists’ books continually remind us of the reader’s role in the book by forcing us to reckon with its materiality and, be extension, our own embodiment” (147). The wording of materiality and embodiment imply non-living and living. Books are made of material, people are made of bodies–thus Borsuk makes the argument the dialogue is between the book and the person reading it. When reading a book for information, one is reading to understand what the author is saying. In other words, they are seeking a conversation between themselves and the author. Borsuk contradicts this notion using artists’ books. The dialogue is not between what information the author is trying to convey and the reader. Otherwise, it would not be an artists’ book. The dialogue is, rather, between the book and the reader. The material and the body.

Artists’ Books vs Bookwork

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In Chapter 3 of The Book, Borusk engages with the idea of a book rather than the concrete materiality of what makes a book, as explored in the previous chapters. Borsuk explores the idea of a book by going into numerous examples of artists’ books which ultimately “highlight the ‘idea’ [of a book] by paradoxically drawing attention to the ‘object’ we have come to take for granted” (pg. 113). Reading this chapter reminded me of our first book lab, where we questioned the qualifications of a book by looking at various book forms, from a book in a can to a triptych of poetry. This chapter expanded on the idea of the first lab as Borsuk introduces us to Stéphane Mallarmé, Ed Ruscha, Alison Knowles,  Michael Snow, and many more who play with the form of a book and the effects of the space of a book on their art or literature. 

After reading Chapter 3, it was interesting to read the interview between Prof. Pressman, Brian Dettmer, and Doug Beube, as Dettmer and Beube explore their artistic processes, but not through a necessarily literary lens, as has been presented for the majority of the readings, and certainly not through an artists’ book lens. I thought it was interesting how, when asked about their work in relation to artist books, both Dettmer and Beube rejected this categorization of their work. But once, Dettmer explained his perspective on how “artists’ books use the book as a canvas and the work exists and operates within the context of a book,” and Beube said, “artists’ books still function as books… In contrast, in my work, I challenge the way we interact with and think of these objects,” I understood why they were so adamant about their distinctions as doing bookwork rather than creating artists’ books. When considering books like House of Leaves or Nox, both still work to tell their written story, but in an enhanced way. But the bookwork that Dettmer and Beube do focuses on how one can play with the form of a book and “to think differently about the media we use” (Brian Dettmer). 

With each class and reading, I am being taught and reminded that books are more than blocks of text; they are an entryway into a conversation about the society they were made in, the time period of publishing and distribution, and cultural significance. When interacting with a book, more questions are being brought up in my head and it’s interesting to see where my mind takes me and how much more I look for in a book. I enjoyed learning about how people have pushed the boundaries of what a book is, as it brings new life to books and inspires art.

The Book as Idea

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The excerpt from Johanna Drucker’s work and Borsuk’s third chapter recalibrate the thought process of understanding the artists’ book as an idea. Near the end of the Drucker’s excerpt we read she states, “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.” (14) There is a profound importance in recognizing that the idea of a book is woven from the artist’s vision and transferred to the reader. The reader then recollects, shifts, and begins anew within the mental space of their mind but only after physically interacting with the book.

Likewise, I found myself further contemplating the the power of the book as an idea as I worked through Borsuk’s book. In the section titled “The Book’s Ideas” she writes, [on examination of artists’ books] “Thy remind us that books are fundamentally interactive reading devices whose meanings, far from being fixed, arise at the moment of access.” (145) In our modern world where everything is commodified, it becomes natural to assume that a book’s meaning is limited to what is inside of it. That could not be further from the truth. The role of the reader is designated to ask the right questions and consider the book outside of the text and in its materiality. By doing so, there is a recognition that the entire book in its form, materiality, and content, require a reader to decipher and further contribute to the book as an idea.