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.
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.
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