Just attended a really interesting artists’ books conference at UWE. Lots of good ideas thrown up and talks by Francis Elliott, Maria Fusco, Dr Jackie Batey and Linda Newington & Dr Maureen O’Neill. A really interesting mix of attention towards new publishing and promotional material and things libraries do. Dr Batey’s site, www.dampflat.com was a really good example of how to do an artists’ book site and I really look forward to seeing more of it and hopefully talking to her about her work sometime in the future. Linda Newington & Dr O’Neill’s work on their collections sparked off some discussion about how books were served by their representation on such sites. Obviously noone wants to replace them, but we were able to begin a discussion about how they might be more and more useful. I was glad to see such a site with such a clear intent of opening up the visibility of collections. Well done!
Maria Fusco’s talk was also interesting to me because of all the talks we heard, this came nearest to my own current concerns to do with artists’ practice and mediation. She mentions not only De Certeau and McLuhan, but also talks about ‘ideological circuits’- which patches right into what I’m talking about in terms of book history (My book history reader even has a whole section on the book distribution ‘system’ as a circuit, so I gt right into that). Fusco’s talk edged towards discussing how books ‘piggyback’ things in on the book circuit, accessing many things (Including, per my current essay, the ‘promise of reading’). Oh, yeah, I’m writing an article ostensibly for submission to the Blue Notebooks called The Promise of Reading about making-reading rather than making books. the idea is that a slight cognitive shift in how one perceives artists’ books practice makes them less physical and more about the shared world of reading and all the societal attachment and stuff that throws up. There’s more, but I’ve got to see if I can get some of the hot air ironed out!
Francis Elliott’s talk centred around the establishing of a book about the artists’ book canon on wikipedia. He spent a while showing us around the controls and we got into some talk about editorial control and versions and the like. Perhaps this is a good way of creating and archiving points of view about the canon, but I think a forum is also needed, since editorial decisions to add or excise material don’t have to be explained. There’s no cut and thrust of debate, just the cut and paste of editing. However, I think that wikipedia is going to be an invaluable tool as a site for such arguments to show themselves, but I’m afraid that it’ll not really record the way things get to be that way. in a debate format like a forum, one gets to see stuff actually happen as people make their points and counterpoints. This might be another one of those things where the map is not the territory.
Cakes were good too!