EXPERIMENT LOG — Book Sculptures Brief 2

Aim

Book Sculptures, Brief 2: Explore how altering the form or materiality of the book can be meaningful. 

How might I make a physical book that typographically "sings" in order to represent women's / witches' / feminists voices and attitudes? 

Precedents / context

Working off the same piece of text as my last experiment, I wanted to make something that was more explicit in its message. I am still thinking about the different directions mentioned at the end of that experiment, but this seemed like a much more straight-forward, quick exploration. Type opens up a whole new set of strategies and methods. 

"Why witches? Because witches can sing. Can I hear this singing? It is the sound of another voice. They tried to make us believe that other women did not know how to speak or write; that they were stutterers or mutes. That is because they tried to make women speak straight-forwardly, logically, geometrically, in strict conformity. in reality, they croon lullabies, they howl, they gasp, they babble, they shout, they sign. They are silent and even their silence can be heard." (Gauthier, 1980, as cited in Goldenberg, 2004)

Process / Methods

• I started gathering books, bits of paper and printed matter that I was happy to cut up. 
• Leafed through and cut out interesting pages/words/letters with an interesting shape or materiality to it. 
• Stuck them onto each other, shuffled everything around until it started to look/say something interesting

• You can start to see the compositions coming together. Visually I was struggling with colours, and everything was quite clashy. 
• Bringing the cellophane was really fun and helped everything else come together. even transferred some compositions (the 'mad' below, for example) onto the cellophane so that the words could also work with transparency

• Cut out paragraphs from this very old book about the evolution of civilisation, lovely aged paper. 
• What could go into the negative space? Also glued in a cellophane window for the text boxes. 
• Found some pink fabric, though it would add a nice materiality and softness against the cellophane. 
• Stuck pages together with double-sided tape along the inner margin 

Scans 

Reflection on Action 

• Throughly enjoyed this experiment. It felt really explorative, and I think it fulfils the aim. It's playful and uses type to create humour. It also draws from feminist punk aesthetics — the cut up type and juxtaposition of style. 
• The cellophane was a real surprise for me! I think transparent element works really well, the cover I made thicker by glueing together two sheets, and of course, the eye-watering pink! It's quite an aggressive pink; visually and sonically, which suits the tone of Gauthier's writing. 
• The title of the book I suppose, 'Wet, Mad Women'. I just cobbled together with found type but I think it's quite funny that cellophane is waterproof, and didn't even make that connection until after. 
• Reflecting on this, and my last experiment, I can see how I'm building my design and research agendas side-by-side, and through the making I'm finding methods and creating outcomes that I didn't expect or could have imagined. 

Reflection for Action

The book feels like a good length for a early experiment, but I wonder where it might go? What sort of story would it continue to tell? I could even try to typeset the text with found typography, but that seems tedious and perhaps a predictable. 

I love where this experiment has gone, but I think I will try to start pushing the form into a more generative / instructional / possibly coded space. This feels exciting to me, and like there's more scope to explore these ideas further. 

References

Gauthier, X. (1980), Pourquoi Sorcières?,  in de Courtivron, I., & Marks, E. (Eds.)Newt French Feminisms: An Anthology, New York: Schoken Books.

Goldenberg, N. R., (2004), Witches and words, Feminist Theology, volume12(2), 203-211. https://doi.org/10.1177/096673500401200207

EXPERIMENT LOG — Book Sculptures Brief 1

Aim

Book Brief: Explore how the form or materiality of the book can be meaningful.

How might I make a physical book that creates sound or "sings", in order to capture radically different perspectives? 

Precedents / context

I'm interested in the 'Witch' and the 'Cyborg' (Haraway, 2016/1985) as politically charged, feminine identities. While doing more reading on witches and their historical/literary/cultural associations with deviance, I came across the excerpt below from a french feminist journal in the 1970s. I wanted to explore how this vocal non-conformity may be transferred into a book format. How do I make a book that speaks? Defies expectation?

"Why witches? Because witches can sing. Can I hear this singing? It is the sound of another voice. They tried to make us believe that other women did not know how to speak or write; that they were stutterers or mutes. That is because they tried to make omen speak straight-forwardly, logically, geometrically, in strict conformity. in reality, they croon lullabies, they howl, they gasp, they babble, they shout, they sign. They are silent and even their silence can be heard." (Gauthier, 1980, as cited in Goldenberg, 2004)

I also had Yoko Ono's (1970) instructional art book Grapefruit in mind, as a possible way to invite the reader to participate, and create more a more absurdist experience. 


Process / Methods

• I started by collecting materials from what I could find around my home — different kinds of paper, surprising different kinds of plastic, fabric, etc. 
• I started sorting them out based on what they sounded like, when touched/flicked/scrunched/poked, and cut them to a roughly A6 size. 
• Thought about how the reader would "listen" to the book — perhaps they needed instructions (e.g. eat a page, unwrap it, scrunch it, throw the book, fold, let the pages rustle in the wind) similar to Grapefruit (Ono, 1970). Interesting direction, didn't follow it but may revisit. 
• Decided quite early on to create a recording as an example of how the book "sings"

• Found a significantly smaller piece of sandpaper, decided to model the dimensions off that instead. Seeing as you can't read the book as normal, what function does the size of the page serve? Instead, made it as small as possible. 

• Was planning to bind all materials together in one book, but decided to make a paper and plastic version. 
• To create some auditory variety, added texture to some of the paper — poked/cut it
• Cut everything to the new size and stitched the pages together. 
• Found a rubber band, guess that qualifies for plastic, and added it to have something a bit different.
  

• Made recording. At first I didn't speak, but after a few goes I started saying what the material was before interacting with it, so the listener knows what the sound is. 
• They're both just under a minute, but possibly incredibly dull. 

Reflection on Action 

• This was a lot of fun to think through and make. I think the size works really well, especially compared to a standard size book, which maybe gives you a clue as to what you're supposed to do with it. You are also more inclined to look at it up close, and explore it more sensorially. As mentioned, I didn't set out with these dimensions in mind, it came through the process. 
• The recordings are a little weird and nonsensical, especially without context, but I think bringing it into the auditory space (a kind of audio-book? pseudo performance art?) exciting because it is different. I think there are definitely better ways to do this and communicate these ideas, but this is a fun starting point. 
• The excerpt I worked off of brings together some of the ideas I've been playing around with, and this experiment was a way into it. It's opened up some ideas around my design (research) agenda. 

Reflection for Action

Perhaps instead of a recording, an accompanying book of instructions would be a more organic way to give the reader a guide to experience the book. This could be a way to bring about a more interactive (not just auditory) experience. I'm also interested in how these commands would translate into a coding context. Code is essentially instructions for the computer, so could you manipulate it to become part of this "voice"? Would there also be instructions/interactive prompts for the user? 

I want to keep Gauthier's words in mind and continue to materialise them. I think there's still a lot here that I haven't really drawn into these experiments. I could pursue the instructional approach, bring this into Processing and code as mentioned above, or play with typography. 

References
Gauthier, X. (1980), Pourquoi Sorcières?,  in de Courtivron, I., & Marks, E. (Eds.) New French Feminisms: An Anthology, New York: Schoken Books.

Goldenberg, N. R., (2004), Witches and words, Feminist Theology, volume12(2), 203-211. https://doi.org/10.1177/096673500401200207

Haraway, D., (2016). Manifestly Haraway, University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1985)

Ono, Y., (1970). Grapefruit. Simon and Schuster.

EXPERIMENT LOG — Book Brief 6

Aims

Responding to Book Brief 6: How might I design a reading experience for a book? 
How might I represent the passing of time(one day) alongside the narrative of the book to bring the reader in further? 

Precedents / context

I've been reading Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925). The entire book is set in one day and it follows different characters throughout London, but a constant throughout is time, and there are references to Big Ben chiming. It's not directly related to my research area but I have been thinking about it and exploring time. I also thought it was interesting to explore materially. 

Process / methods

• Sketches exploring the possibilities of a book format using cut outs and thread. How could I represent/mimic the repetitive, cyclic nature of time? 
• Thinking about how to limit the reader's access to the book in relation to the time passing. Was there a way to stop them from flicking back... to experience the time in the novel as the characters did, as finite?
• Also thinking about time and clocks, which led to these circle ideas. 

• Went ahead with the sketch above, right-hand side. I thought about how to track the time as you were reading, a sort of clock-as book. 
• Dimensions were decided by the scrap paper I had , but I like the long dimensions, that do bring focus to the circles. Landscape, it also reminds me of those monthly flip calendars. 
• Made a tracing paper template of 12 circles that get progressively bigger (as a way to identify the hour/direction of time). The plan was to cut them out, trace them onto the pages of the book and cut those out. 

• Once cut out, I attached thread to the first page's circle, looped it over and through the next and so on. I tried different ways to do this, but this was the most restrictive in "binding" the pages together. 

• Cut thread when there was enough for the book to lie flat on each spread.  

Reflection on action

• I was really excited to start, but as I went through the process it seemed a bit pointless. 
• Everything went as planned except that I drew one circle too many and didn't realise until the end, which threw the incremental progression off, but it's not too noticeable.
• I think it was that didn't feel like there was room to suddenly change course and keep thinking through making. 

Reflection for action

• I need to revisit my research topic, any vague contextual anchor I have so far, and look further. Find material that I have a clear connection to, that incites thinking and experimentation. 
• I think it would also be helpful for me to keep these experiments very rough, so that I feel able to change / abandon it if it's not working. To not feel so precious about it! 

References Woolf, V. (1925). Mrs Dalloway. Hogarth Press. 

SEMINAR SUMMARY #2 — ENDGAME: SPECULATIVE DIAGRAMS ABOUT SPECULATIVE FICTION

**half-baked seminar summary from pre-isolation Week 2. Had this as a draft for days, though I would just post as is to get it out of the way and move on. 

THOUGHTS
- really interesting seeing the progression of a project, both the design and research agenda and how they did inform each other and push it forward/ into different directions
- I keep thinking about fiction and the possibilities latent/present in words and language... the Maddaddam project was an example of how design + fiction can bring about interesting conversations together --> a greater lenses of environmental and biotechnological futures

- Also similarly, I have never really tackled diagrammatic layouts and 'information design', but starting to unpack the conventions of this type of design, and how it is constructed, it's something I'll keep thinking about.  
- The really structured formal processes of thinking through, and the recording of, your own work, and hearing Zoe talk through it, and even writing these seminar summaries and experiment logs, is helping me understand the kind of practice that I am building towards. Critical practice is rigorous, and my process has never really been consciously structured in a way that actually feeds my own ability to reflect, and engage in 'criticality'. And in this strange in-between of classes, i'm itching to consolidate some of these ideas and generate my own experiments. 

I found the ideas presented here around Johanna Drucker's Graphesis (2011) very insightful, and having read part of it now for Friday's Theorisation class, I do better understand how 'thinking through making', and playing with the subversion of meaning, offered a certain kind of insight into Drucker's argument.

EXPERIMENTATION LOG — TEXT ANALYSIS 2

*This experiment log was done completely retroactively, but I have tried to explain my aims and decisions independent of the results.*

Aims
What kind of new and/or latent meanings can be drawn from a text through visual methods of research?
How can I show the similarities between these texts in an provoking, insightful way?

Precedents / Context
Focused data mining and exploratory data mining as a design research method for text analysis. (Sadokierski & Sweetapple, 2014)

I was talking to Navira about this exercise and this is her idea. We talked specifically about drawing connections between our texts and she shared how she was going to show this, through cut-outs. As I started doing it, my method diverged in response to my interest in fiction and the playing with words. This method ended up being both focused and exploratory, but perhaps more generative than analytical. 

I was also influenced by various examples on the 'Close and Distant Reading' Pinterest board, particularly ones with cut-out text and using material exploration to create meaning. 


Process / methods

• Cut the nouns out of both texts, to take out the most evocative/crucial words
• I then laid the cut-out sheet over the other, whole text, so that the spaces are filled up with different words with a completely different context
• Did the overlay with the texts switched around too. 
• I tried different ways of scanning it to bring another layer of materiality into it. The versions below have 2 sheets of tracing paper between each text, but I also tried just one sheet, and also coloured cellophane 
• I edited and colorised it on Photoshop, attempting to create a clearer distinction between the top and bottom layer, again testing different colours and textural qualities to enhance the strange, hybrid fiction that is created. 

The Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway, 2016/1985), with The Resident (Machado, 2017), underneath. 

The Resident (Machado, 2017), with The Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway, 2016/1985) underneath. 

• I wanted to take the words themselves and also create something out of all of these disjointed, adjacent words.
• The words are highlighted because I was thinking about mixing them in with the nouns of the other text, and need to differentiate by colour, but I ended up just using one on its own.
• Ended up grouping the cut-out nouns from The Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway, 2016/1985) excerpt according to theme and repetition. 

Left to right, Beings and Life, Fiction and Constructions, Politicised concepts/objects

Reflection on Action

• This experiment felt rather aimless for me (partly because I didn't set any definite aims prior to doing it, and my intentions were rather broad anyway). 
• I think what I've ended up with is starting to be interesting, but it could've been pushed much further. I did get frustrated throughout, and it took me a long time because I kept on being confused about what I thought I should be doing and what I actually wanted to achieve.
• It has surprised me how the materiality of the process and methods adds layers of meaning. For example in the textures of the scan, and tracing paper, and the irregular shape and placement of the cut out. I'm able to better grasp the value of research through design, thinking through making, having done this. 

Reflection for Action

I think for future experiments I need a much more solid through-line so I understand why and what I'm doing. This is crucial to make the most out of the making process, for decision making and also to stay open to any happy accidents that come up along the way. I'll definitely go about it as instructed, starting with the aim and precedents and work forwards, not backwards.

I have started to think more about fictions and generative possibilities through this experiment. It's an area/method I find really exciting and playful, and I think there could be pockets of interesting ideas and contradictions if I looked much more closely at these experiments. 

Sadokierski, Z., & Sweetapple, K. (2014). Drawing Out: How designers analyse
written texts in visual ways. In P. Rodgers, & J. Yee (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Design Research (1st Ed., pp. 248-260). Routledge.

Texts used:
Haraway, D., (2016). Manifestly Haraway, University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1985)

Machado, C. M., (2017). Her Body and Other Parties, Graywolf Press.

EXPERIMENTATION LOG — TEXT ANALYSIS (STUDIO)

*This experiment log was done completely retroactively, but I have tried to explain my aims and decisions independent of the results.*

Aims
What different forms of knowledge can we draw from texts, through visual abstraction?

Precedents / Context
Visual Abstraction as a design research method for text analysis 
Exploring the idea of rhythm across different texts
(Sadokierski & Sweetapple, 2014)

Process / methods

• Studio exercise to pull out the key words, adjectives/descriptions, notable repetitions and citations/references through the text. 
• Key for each category can be found at the start. 

Scans of marked up excerpt of A Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway, 2016/1985)

• Explored inverting this visual technique by blocking out the words that are unnecessary to the overall meaning, such as 'the', 'more', 'and', etc.
• Leaving behind the keywords and essence of the text
• The marker bled through the paper, its flipside showing the visual rhythm without the noise and interference of text

Scan of the same excerpt from A Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway, 2016/1985), using this method

Scan of an excerpt from the short story The Resident, (Machado, 2017) using this method

• Iteration: typeset both texts in the same size and manner, for consistency across word count and size.
• One A4 page each, same method of marking "in-between" words out

The Cyborg Manifesto (Haraway, 2016/1985) left, The Resident (Machado, 2017), right 

Reflection on Action

• I knew reading both texts that they are quite different in the use of language, and the density of the writing, and I think this last method illustrates this well.
• One is a non-fiction text, which uses a lot of quite specific language, thus the amount of white space in its abstraction. The other is a fictive short story, which is more casual and narrative focused, showing a more even mix of adjectives and nouns, and conjunctive words. 
• It was a surprise to flip the page over, and see that the bleeding of the permanent marker, without the presence of text, was a much clearer representation of the findings. 
• That moment, and looking at the second iteration now, conveys the impact of visual abstraction to me very clearly. There is definitely a rhythm that you can observe, especially when comparing with the other text.

Reflection for Action

I think it would be interesting to explore the visual inverse of this method, and flip the negative and positive space as a more direct representation of the texts' content and density. There is also potential in creating different criteria for comparison and analysis. The abstraction method could be very effective and more insightful with an iteration of categories and across different types of texts. 

Sadokierski, Z., & Sweetapple, K. (2014). Drawing Out: How designers analyse
written texts in visual ways. In P. Rodgers, & J. Yee (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Design Research (1st Ed., pp. 248-260). Routledge.

Texts used:
Haraway, D., (2016). Manifestly Haraway, University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1985)

Machado, C. M., (2017). Her Body and Other Parties, Graywolf Press.