Thursday, June 12, 2008

another pic...

Final Outcome






Well after much work and umming and aahing here is the finished book! Single signature binding using a hard cover with bookcloth. I'm really pleased with it. It took me a long time to work out the pagination, and I used a photocopier to print it. I decided to call it recollection because it is looking back at memories I have and things from the past. It is also a collection - of drawings, of objects, of thoughts.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Artists books

I had a session in the library looking at artists books - found some really nice books that inspired me - particularly Ed Ruscha's '26 Gas Stations'. I really like his work - I saw another couple in the V&A's Blood on Paper exhibition which inspired me. I loved how the books were such beautiful objects on their own, like Ian McDonnell's 'I Like Aerials' which consists of lovely drawings of aerials from all over the world (found this in the Design Museum shop). I really want to create a book which is a lovely object in itself.
I also went to the V&A China Design Now exhibition, and there were some lovely displays of books and exhibition catalogues with beautiful binding and stitching and paper.Inspired!

oooh old games consoles!




I discovered that one of my friends has an extensive collection of everything Nintendo. I was round his house straight away and took photos to draw from.

Coming together

So I'm more focussed now. The crits at uni have been very helpful - everyone is really enthusiatic about my ideas, and I've had lots of suggestions. One idea is to take apart the old telephones and radios I've found and look at the insides and how aesthetically pleasing they can be. But I'm too precious about the objects! Another idea is to create a technology timeline or family tree but it is now at the stage where that would take a lot of time which I don't have. I would like to in the future though - a family tree for each decade - and make them into massive posters.
So now I'm thinking I would like to collate my drawings somehow - and I'm mostly thinking I'd like to make a book because I had a bookbinding workshop with Billy Bragg from Le Gun and he taught us to perfect bind. I really loved it!

My drawings...



Evolution

I am interested in the idea of evolution, and the way trends change, and how fashion comes back around and everything gets recycled again and again. The fashion at the moment is to recycle anything from the past, any trend, and mix it with something else, the more mixing the better. And it seems the same way with music. Mixtapes are cool again, there is a record label called mixtape records who just release music on cassette. People are still buying vinyl too.
Old technology is not seen as rubbish, it is retro, and has cultural value.
This fascination with the past is what my project is focussing on - the notion of nostalgia is a major aspect of what I'm researching. Nostalgia is the feeling that lies behind all the objects I'm drawing.

Ideas


The history of print is a topic I considered - I really enjoy letterpress and screenprinting and I already have an old typewriter and the word processor. I've always been fascinated with the process involved and the imperfect outcomes you get.
I thought about how typewriters differ from computers today and the way they have evolved. Essentially computers are there to speed up process - and in doing so your work is editable and you are able to change things before you print. The main purpose of technology is speeding things up and improving and perfecting and standardising. I looked at Moore's law to research this further - his theory is that the speed, memory and capacity of computer technology doubles every two years, and the theory has not been proven wrong so far. I like the idea of speeding things up but keeping the quality you get from writing on paper, the individuality and making mistakes perhaps. So I thought I would design my own typeface based on my handwriting, using Fontlab. It didnt really work out well, so it was abandoned but I will come back to it at some point.

Research



I took a trip to the Science museum to find types of old technology and I spent hours looking at the displays down the right hand side of a huge hall. It was titled 'Everyday Objects' and I think it was roughly 1800-2000. There are so many categories of technology - domestic, telecommunications, music etc and this made me realise I have to narrow down my project. I thought of perhaps documenting music technology by drawing all the formats and types of radio, record players, up to modern day MP3 players. But still, the question is - what do I want to say about these things?
Seeing the old Apple Mac computer and the gameboys in the museum brought back memories!

Development of project

So... instead of pondering on my project for too long like I always do, I began drawing the old technology I own, and the things I'd bought from charity shops. Just simple pencil drawings, then went over them in black ink pen. I really enjoy doing this - so I decided to go in this direction instead of the other ideas I had: looking at the history of certain technology, eg the evolution of the telephone, or looking at how different types of technology have evolved into one object now - the iPhone or the Blackberry.
One main inspiration for me is 'The Lost Formats Preservation Society' created by Experimental Jetset. They have collated almost every type of format you can think of - music formats as well as video, computer etc. Have a look...

http://www.experimentaljetset.nl/lostformats/01.html