ABOUT BOOKSOFUSE My current situation — recently moved, and existing in a conscious ‘temporarity’ — changed my relation and valuation of objects. Detachment from them makes reducing them in amount easier, and raises the value of those —few— who are actually needed. The appraisement of these items are not necessarily material — this lifestyle is rather low budget. Simultaneiously— due to my master research — I work with a lot of texts: next to actual books also files digitalized through scans, copies, edited into pdf’s or shared in simple txt files. These documents — downloaded,converted, imported,exported— are mostly merely functional, and materialized for their content: neglecting aesthetics, or any terms of design. They need to be notable — even with a ball-pen —, portable in size, have to withstand unorthodox reading environments, wine and/or coffee stains and buttery breadcrumbs, without being too precious to give a concern about their ‘spotless’ materiality for the user. They are mostly printed on simple printing paper, using cheap xeroxes with smudging ink and never fitting recto-verso. Combined with the parameter that in some cases they are clumsily scanned pirate copies of otherwise also not particularly attractive books: they are predestined to be ugly. As a graphic designer it is rather challening to give these objects —which surround one and therefore triggers the wish to make them at least a bit ‘acceptable’ — a fitting form; taking their technical parameters/handicaps in account. There are a number of possibilities and experiments adressing this issue. Using lavish materials to print them on seemed to be a cruel tong-in-cheek move; not to mention the financial side of it. (Bad scans of ugly books on reproduced on tactile paper sheets made the deficiencies of the source even more conspicuous. ) Converting them into texts and designing proper books of them is too time-consuming Converting them into texts and designing
proper books of them is too time-consuming — even though the ‘labour’ invested could be seen as a good technical and conceptual proper books of them is too time-consuming — even though the ‘labour’ invested could be seen as a good technical and conceptual exercise. (Investing too few time in thinking-through and making of a book risks irreverence and provocates dissatisfaction by the readers in tis case ourselves.) These books can be therefore an amusing dummy-experiment pushing the limits of craftmanship and cost-efficiency, allowing playfulness and failures. Since we desperately need to use them; the viability of these experimental forms get immediately tested.
BOOKS IN USE ______________ / THE BOOK OF JOKES / TO A STRANGER FROM A STRANGER / THE ACT OF SILENCE / IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS / EMPIRE OF SIGNS / THE BOOK OF SHADOWS / IMAGINARY MAGNITUDE / CONTINUOUS PROJECT ALTERED DAILY + TEXT ABOUT PROBLEM / AN INTRODUCTION TO ZEN BUDDHISM / THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGICAL REPRODUCIBILITY AND OTHER WRITINGS / DOTDOTDOT / DOTDOTDOT # / PILLOWPOEM / ZWISCHENRÄUME / THE NEW ART OF WHAT MAKING A BOOKS IS BOOK / ANOTHER ARTICLE ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF EXERCISE / SILENCE IN JAPAN / SENSING THROUGH THE SKIN / MERLEAU PONTY / / / / /
/ / /
OVERWRITE LIBROFILIA THE CALENDARS FILLED IN VOID #KINDOF
A ROOM ON ONE’S OWN SELECTED WRITINGS OF LAFCADIO HEARN WHY AM I SO WISE
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF
THE NEW ART OF MAKING BOOKS WHAT A BOOK IS by Ulises Carrión Who simply rages by the idea of producing ‘normal’ spreads and sinking into the greyness of usuality. Sweating from his critical tone I set his prose as a poem, composed to de-compose alignments, making his short statements flow and jump to break the expected. Hiding page numbers, assymetrizing covers, making everything dubiously flap-over-in-next-to each other, There are 8x4 ways of relating to his work. Watch out, i have discalculia. Making this book inherently belongs to the shaping of Booksofuse, in the element of inviting the reader not to believe in the old order, and enjoy of a slightlysomething-little-new within understandable framesworks. Rough and backwards. That’s how Booksofuse likes it.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF THE FILLED VOID bw Stephen Addiss 2007,Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Dumont Buchverslag, 295 p. +Glossary Japan and the West is - originallya catalogue of an exhibition, back in 2007 in Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. The exhibition itself - at least how it got presented in the book - was one of the few examples of expositions of/about/inspired by Japanese matters which don’t merely overexotifies Japan and shows it on a sentimentally superficial way, but actually grasps on some essences there. It put works of both JP and the West on display; connected more by essential ideologic/philosophic concepts, reflecting on them, instead of delivering enchanted copies. The book itself seems to be claiming a proper place in the museum. I wonder if it was made to function as a pedestal under post-modern urushi cup. It is a ‘coffeetable-book’ being the table itself. Heavy and volumnious it gives space for a lot of emptiness. let’s pictures breath and sets text to the side to accentuate the whiteness of the smooth;thick pages. The price and materiality of it makes it considerable to purchase as a furniture. A foundation brick for a temple of paper to rise upon. Meanwhile, the consisting texts made me want to carry it around and read aloud in a silent tent. First of all, I decided to strip it from it’s weightiness. The largeness of the spread made it quiet a challenge to lay flat on the scannerbed. A selection of articles framing and basing a deeper understanding to shape the perception of those, who are interested were digitalized. Secondly, the size had to be reduced, but the setting did nonetheless allowed to fit it into my pocket. Still, a fortunate spaciousness of the pages, and the spread invited to dare a vertical stretch. Arranging the content on a way, that the lines would spring from right to left gave a playful rythm to the whole. Changing pages became an act, a performance
of folding curves around the soft spine, creating an endless moebius loop. The sculpturality, hereby, got preserved, but with more wind blowing through it. The shadow of the scanbed lingers around the pages individually/irregularly as frames, altering the composition. This creates a lovely gradient at the short side of the bookblocks, and colours the bottom grey. Laying flat the pages look like being dipped in ink. The cover - stateless white eager for stains - got a cross-referencing postmodern Zen sticker with a colour of deep meditation.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF To a stranger, from a stranger by Mekhitar Garabedian 2015, AraMer&Mer,p.193 Since my first immigration I learned to understand and appreciate the works of Mekhitar Garabedian. Currently I am attending a seminar held by him titled ‘Things We don’t Understand’. The weekly meetings have been very inspirational and encouraging in my personal work. The discussions are based on the content of Garabedian’s doctorate research: To a stranger, from a stranger. Even though the subject of the text appeals to me, I refused to buy it due to the unfitting design of the book. I found the stiff hardcover, the thickness and slickness of the pages in combination with a fragile— way too small—typography inappropriate. The setting of the text does not supports the otherwise —according to me interesting— intertextuality. The book fails in it’s objecthood: becomes a brick to kill the stranger with instead of a communicating vessel between two ‘foreigners’. Simultaneously it is exactly the title of the book which suggerates a communicating situation. Opening up the stiff cover the first spread reveals a specific situation. We see the words: To..... From :....... which might remind us on the beginning of letters. This adressing, triggered a nostalgic feeling. Observing the content one encountrest fragments, and longer essays, structured on a personal constellation. This somewhat implies an association with handwritten diaries, secret books of our adolescences, or friendship-books whereby small secrets circulate as gifts. I found it important that next to all the clumsiness, the object should have sensitive and delicate qualities. The cover paper is a pale shade of pink, somewhat wrapping paper like, fragile and
therefore reacting on every touch. The more one opens it, revealing it’s contents, the more it will wrinkle, crumble: and therefore therefore reacting on every touch. The more one opens it, revealing it’s contents, the more it will wrinkle, crumble: and therefore will show how common the secrets became ‘shared’ through it’s medium. The pages are tightly bound in a folding out system: in order to animate the opening of the pages — and therefore revealing their contents— with an effort. The original book renders the footnotes on separate pages: therefore operating not always space-efficient. The technique give possibility to ‘enfold’ these additional pieces of information, leaving it voluntarily to the reader if he or she wants to consult them. Therefore an intention becomes a movement within the book. The pattern of the folds are - in this case - somewhat erratic: depending on the content. This delivers an uneven soft grey bookblock. While scanning, I allowed myself a humorous presencde within the book. At chapter ‘Diasporic Haunting’ - a rather obscure subject - i left my fingers within the scan, making the gradient darker at the same time. This is the only element where the maker, and the fact of copying is present. Concluding, the ‘adaptive design’ is THIS TIME’ light, and harmless: referring to books one writes secrets in pink canopy beds.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF The act of silence The Art of silence an excerpt from David Toop: Sinister Resonance:The mediumship of the listener, 2011,Bloomsbury Academic, p 67-106. ‘Sinister resonance begins with the premise that sound is haunting, a ghost, a presence whose location in space is ambiguous and whose existence in time is fleeting. The intangibility of sound is uncanny- a phenomenal presence both in the head, and its point of source and all around , and never entirely distinct from auditory halllucinations. The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there. The history of listening must be constructed from narratives of myth and fiction,silent arts such as painting, the resonance of architecture, auditory artefacts and nature. In such contexts, sound often functions as a metaphor for mystical revelation, instability, forbidden desires, disorder, formlessness, the unknown, unconscious and extra-human, a representation of immaterial worlds. ‘ The front flap of the book carried valuable information, which is not always the case. These texts — especially on paperbacks — tend to be disappointing. Quoting the praise of the book by different magazines, whose critical approach is questionable does not tirggers one to read in the content. On the sideflaps, fronts and back covers all books are ‘the best’. One more reason not to judge by the cover. Since I am personally interested in the narrative possibilities of a sound-focused environment, I gave a chance for the table of contents. Narrowing my focus down to two chapters about silence I duplicated the discussed part of the book. This time I was responsible fro the scanning as well: my attempt was to keep the spreads within an A4 page, and position the split as good as possible in the middle. I set the scan density a bit lover: which resulted
a finer gradient at the fold. Printing the pages, this greyness induced a certain a finer gradient at the fold. Printing the pages, this greyness induced a certain finesse, supporting the content of the book. This element determined the rest of the ‘adaptive design’ process. Since my scans were taken and printed in landscape format, i returned to Japanese bookbinding. I chose to fold the pages on the middle split, creating a greyish bookblock, and a fine gradient on the two sides of the spread, leading attention to the ‘real’ one, the book’s own mid gradient. Accordingly i assembled the bookblock, and in order to create a more calm, subtle object, i cropped the uneven sides and unequal ends. The 3-point staple bounding hides shyly under the cold-glued softcover. Picking up on my commentary on the noncommunicating covers and flaps, I have chosen for a quiet literal solution. As most honest solution, and according to me the best summary: I placed the first page of the text on the cover: this time luckily including the title of the book. The spread is 90° rotated, which makes the original bookspread — respectively—appear on this pirateexcerpt. This seemed to be a practical solution in more senses: the beginning of chapters — especially in theoretic books— can be mostly seen as a sort of preface for the chapter: summarizing the content—later to be unfolded. The spine of the book communicates a triggering line: ‘sitting in the centre of the image, and she listens intently to the music’. During the finishing touches of the bookbinding this line consciously found it’s way on the spine.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF
IMAGINARY MAGNITUDE by Stanislaw Lem A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, San Diego, New York, London, 1981 Imaginary Magnitude is a collection of introductions of never-written books. Stanislaw Lem, normally operating as a Science-fiction writer raised the composing of introductions to a new literary category. His dark humor and critical language made me leave the pages as they came: grey, dirty, and dubious, shadowing a challenging future forth. Folded on the even darker lines of the mid spread, every page creates another possibility of another confusion, consequently indefinable. And unexpected, when it comes to page-lenghts… Building up frustrated future seems to be just as unclear as the indecipherable poetry of a scientific dystopia. There is shine at the end of the tunnel, the pages grade to a glowing white at the spine. Though, never to be seen on the darkness of the pages… The original format stayed, exactly, one alien-hand width…
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF INTRODUCTION TO ZEN BUDDHISM by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki 1964, Groove Press Inc., New York An Evergreen Black Cat Book “If in spite of this I attempt “explanations” in what follows, I am still fully aware that in the sense of satori what I say can only be useless. I could not resist, however, the attempt to manoeuvre our Western understanding at least into the proximity of an understanding—a task so difficult that in so doing one must take upon oneself certain crimes against the spirit of Zen. “ DT.Suzuki, p.11 I was staring at a tight scan of a Book dear to me. I could imagine it’s cracking back and felt my thumbs slipping off the narrow margins. Somewhat a clumsy design, but as long as it comes in the edition of ‘Evergreen Black Cat Book’, a brief smile and a bow of respect shall design it instead of a mumbling criticus. Groove Press, in fact, was one Booksofuse would love to have as an uncle. Groove Press was founded in 1947, in Groove Street in Greenwich village, and a couple of years later it became the one-and-only daring publisher of the outrageous European Avant-Garde, together with the (all of the) American Beats. When it came to conscious selection, Groove Press didn’t mind the fight with the censors about pitiful issues of politics, vulgarity, pornography, drug use and obscenity. Meanwhile, the bad boys -Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg - brought their influential Japanese Zen-monk-friend, D.T. Suzuki to sell his ideas as well under the table, bounded in a paperback series with a funky title. The scan dark and the narrowness challenging I opted for a comfortable verticality. Extra head-and-feet space incalculated for grip I slightly altered from the original format. A soft and fluid pocket book stepped into creation, one to ‘read on the road’, flipping over it’s greyish pages as the infamous scratchpads. The dutch translation for ‘mobile-pulp’; ‘Stationsromans’ inspired the
cover. The enlargement of a miniature Osaka suburban train-ticket holder encloses one’s passport to Satori. Once again, the The enlargement of a miniature Osaka suburban train-ticket holder encloses one’s passport to Satori. Once again, the reoccuring empty oval suggests what is out/behind/above; aligning with Zen terminology. The back cover suggests an extremely cheap price, to be crossed on a free-admission base. Lifting the cover up, one finds the originaluntouched-enclosed. Columns of texts, flowing over slight gray gradients.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF The Book of Jokes by Momus The Book of Jokes, written by Momus was one of my first experiments on the field of ‘adaptive book design’. The file arrived to me in a form of humble scans of the spreads of the original: published at Daikey Archive Press, by Champaign&London,in 2009. The colophon of the original next to mentioning the names of the designer (Danielle Dutton) and the illustrator (Nicholas Motte) pretentiosly states ‘Printed on permanent/durable acidfree paper and bound in the United States of America. Hunting it through the printer of my school using 90gr/m2 cheap, acid, standard A4 office paper it looked like a princess after a 7 day long party and summiting a mountain. I started to look for the pecularities of this charming state. As usual, at every page, there were marks and visual clues of the scan: stripes of the pagesplits simplified by the print to a dark smudge; gradients of the spine of the open book — reduced to a dirty spot. Every page contained a systematic, still unique ugliness. The evident impracitcality of a landscape print made the awkward laugh on this joke even louder. How to turn these handicaps into a charm? And how to bring it somewhat together with the content of the book itself? The Book of Jokes allowed me some fun. I decided to play out all the ‘tops and turves’ of the prints. Printed as spreads on a landscape format implied a particularly uncomfortable formespecially destined to be read on the go. As a proposed solutiin i folded the pages in two - creating a more portable format. The pages are folded on the previously mentioned ‘dwarfed’ gradients of the ‘mid-split’ , becoming a borderline again. These lines display on the fore-edge another ‘dirty gradient’, which can refer to the spores of use by time. Since the prints are awry
executed, these lines aren’t even straight sometimes, and definitely don’t align whith each other. It creates a ‘wild’ effect through the uneven page lengts. Folding the pages in and out gives a performative quality for the book, and opens up unexpected combinations of the text itself (if one forgets to ‘fold’). The rythm of the folds vary per 2 spread: a double-fold follows a ‘normal’ spread where following pagenumbers face each other. This ‘unequalized’ bookblock - showing all the clumsiness of the technique got a funny detail on the cover: the front cover is ‘crooked’ cut, making it shorter than the pages themselves, while the back cover is extending over the pages-cut in a resembling angle. Though, these details required some planning and careful execution, they seem like one of the topsy-turvy mistakes. The bookblock is held together with staple bound-being strangely pretty in this context. The created object is strange. Funny. Dubious. A sketchy seriousness.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF
IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki 1980,Leete Island’s Books, 56 p. ‘We need allies in inhabitation’ says Tanizaki, and he means it. In Praise Of Shadows was one of the fundamental stones of my beloved Japanese aircastle-shall never be blown up. This self-enchanted lovely Japanese gentleman pricks off any flea of Western influence from the folds of his kimono-woven from the admiration towards his country. The -retrospectively- realized sharpness of his tongue made me cut his margins short so the sides endanger the bellies of his round letters. There is alsoa few to add- instead of a cover. Created fully on the go the copymachine produced some gradients-shall it be smoke or a shadow - just enough assymetric to satisfy Jun’ichirō. The format falls fragile into a men’s hands and folds elegantly over a ladies. Soft but self-contained, fragile but well-built this booklet renders her smile from a real Geisha -shall she be a whore or a saint.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF
ANOTHER ARTICLE ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF EXERCISE by Kate McKinney Maddalena ‘I must learn new rules. No matter what I read or watch, I want to be forced to see differently.’ says Kate. Or Maddalena. This and some additional statements make me want to know her personally. I think we would get along. But what remains for us, for now, is what she shares. And she does it oh-sokindly, through a couple of textual insights into her head. ‘Another Article About The Benefits of Exercise’ is all about being in the now to condense the future. Kate talks about how challenging oneself through discomfort and confusion can prepare us for the unexpected days to come, evolving towards a potential hardness of post-apocalipse. Looking at science fiction retrospectively and observing animations to motivate unimagined workoutgoals triggered me to design this text a little out of the usual fit. One needs to flap, and combine, read and re-read the awkwardness of unintended page-combinations (which just might as well give another view just during that timesplinter one realizes the mistake), half-hidden page number, and slightly too shapy-curvy but tight font. This booklet is Aeon Flux, elegant, ‘Sporting Grotesque’, clumsily falling after a well executed tripleflip robot-shooting battle, slipping between bullets but banging her head on the ground she just did not calculated into the choraographed play with gravity. Science fiction it is, designed to suspend disbelief and producing rather knowledge than exhibiting a prototype. A slick, light attempt, sketching up a system to come.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF The Empire of Signs by Roland Barthes 1989, Hill And Wang, ’l’he Noonday Press, New York If I want to imagine a fictive nation, I can give itan invented name, treat it declaratively as a novelistic object, create a new Garabagne, so as to corn promise no real country by my fantasy (though it is then that fantasy itself I compromise by the signs of literanture). I can alsothough in no way claiming to represent or to analyze reality itself (these being the rnajor gestures of Western discourse) isolate somewhere in the world (faraway) a certain number of features (a term employed in linguistics), and out of these features deliberately form a system. It is this system which I shall call: ]apan. Reading these lines , I bursted out in a sigh, and immediatly after, loudly: ‘Yes, damn, Roland, you know what I mean,You’ve been there, You’ve seen it, and You know how to stutter all about it in fragments, as it is, what made me gasp for air-leave alone to be able to express. I wanted to stripe it, colour it with neon, and frame it in with wobbly lines of excited hands. Instead, I ended up caressing my screen making it dirty and hard to clean. This book needed a body. A body I could sleep with and note my additional thoughts before I fall into nostalgic dreams of that fictional fairyland. In order to respect what is within, very few shall be added. I liked the design of Stephen Dyer (of the original publishing) as well. Since I received it coverless, I kept it to it’s content-centered appearance. My choice of coverpaper - a slightly yellowish, lightly textured one- salutes the ‘emptiness’ Barthes was so struck by. Still, an additional ‘mistaken’ fold on the back cover added assymetry to the purity. The vacuum of the cover attracts dirt and scratches- which with time; shall become signs on their own. Just as the pictures
within, reproduced until the border of not-anymore-recognisability - on the way of becoming traces of a dynamic flung of a dark-within, reproduced until the border of not-anymore-recognisability - on the way of becoming traces of a dynamic flung of a darkinked brush. Flipping the cover open, one might have a look at the staples hiding shyly behind the jacket protecting and revealing them at the same time. My annotations became the part of the book eventually-grey, and erasable: humble conversation I wish I had with Roland.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF
JAPANESE SILENCE by Edwin R. McDaniel Japanese Nonverbal Communication: A Review and Critique of Literature Japanese Silence is another one-of-a-kind academic paper. Coming from the times of typewriters, it immediately gains a nerdy charm. Personally educational it sums up, and reveals the mechanisms behind the infamous Japanese Silence. Given a spacious format for soundless debates, lingering around the dubious page numbering, there was few to add to the turvyness. A cover, an enlarged mouthmask straight from Japan wraps any words unutterable.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF
SENSUOUS KNOWLEDGE by Alex Arteaga The direct goal of Booksofuse reached on suggestive ways is to propose an alternative way to look at/handle/perceive books. For this reason all efforts are made to research the practical and theoretical background of alterated physical perceptive ways. Phenomenology provides in-depth explanations for all what can happen between an object and a subject, a person, and a thing, being eventually-all one. Sensing through the skin enlights the process of how aesthetic experience emerges. The article patiently explains every potential verbal stumblestone, and eventually connects them to form a coherent and clear web. Being a stateless academic paper, design decision were far restricted. Glancing first at the difficulty of the terms made broad margins (for further explanative notes)a logical step. The crystal clear scientific language proved this carefulness superfluous. Considering this; head and foot were tightly cropped, leaving the page numbers just slightly out of comfort zone. The cover stabbed around this fragile staple of paper is a huge enlargement of a tiny book, ending with a quote ’There are three keys to create a better future: ‘Learning, learning, learning.’ Shall this be a motto for a second. A serendipituous coincidence: the cover falls itself into repetition: ‘old, old, old’ is to be read. Catching on this humorous accident, a game of meanings begun: learning=future=old. My future me might be as well wise then… A playful solution was therefore born: the first and last pages of this compact booklet were scaled 49%: the age of the author. Sensuous knowledge, therefore, illustrates the fluency and working method of designing Books of Use, adapting to material, and content on the go.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF
#KINDOF by Karl Holmqvist 2018 04 14, Brussel, NICC, 40’ #GUILTYFEETGOTNORYTHM lasted an A3 page, 2304+1001 words and 40 minutes, and was performed half-assed sitting on a white table, nevertheless looking into the eyes of the audience, with ever-changing cadance and rythm, feet-wrapped into leather ankleboots, in a semi-wet leather jacket, by Karl Holmqvist himself. In the intimate distance of 2 meters a NEXUS 5X with scratched white back cover rested on laps trained 90 minutes on a daily basis. Allegedly the time and space this event has spanned itself in was the first-ever-occuring when the performance got an introduction. The reason might be, that at that nightrainy it was-politically loaded clouds made the air heavy, and the topic was author’s rights. Therefore Karl found it needed to credit the sources of his words, and provide an anecdotical background for what was to come. The pioneer of the never-existed northern DADA handed us a dryly designed sheet, and started to recite-as described. Later on, transcribed and edited-the introduction lines parasited over the original scores, merging in but popping out, messing with optics and brains. For the ocassion of this unique case audience comments were also added. By this publication Booksofuse admits it’s piracy and plays with questions of adoration and appropriation. As Mr. Holmqvist does.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF
ZWISCHENRÄUME Wozu Aflösung? by Claus Pias Aflösung arrived to me from one of those poetic inbetween places of not yet and not anymore. The hand-held pages occured to be a mind-breaker when it came to materializing the vaguely scientific content - and reading it on a language I distantly connect with (though, approaching it with feline seductive qualities). Given-up, I placed my ever-worn-off nailpolished fingers over the two-dimensional ghost-thumbs, and the solution was born. The pages vertically flipping into each other looped under themselves, creating folds to slip one’s middle finger into while holding this light and shady object. The environment of the spreads merges into the surroundings of the reader - creating another In-BetweenAnalogy. A book-fragment, floating spontaneously into the body of a real one reveals it’s pages, qualities, gradients, mid-spreads and page numbers - without actually becoming them. The cover also-respectively-only halfway flaps over the content: overstriping and meaningfully revealing the first sentence to be read: ‘Vermeidung ist. Während nämlich Signale auf der physicalischen Ebene…’ Very physical, indeed, a light body to finger, flap, caress and not clearly, completely understand…
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF
PILLOW POEM / I’M NOT IN LOVE IT’S JUST A BOOK by Aeon Frux and Elsie Von Tease ‘Dear A’ the words begun and poured from our chat histories on the pages. Poeple we have been dear to confessed with shaky fingers their bests. It ended up as a chronologic, endless list of whispers vulgarized by forcing them into letters. Writing stripped them nude, vulnerable, and shaming about their emptiness. Skipping over the satisfactory nakedness, impulsive as it goes, we heartlessly laughed and cut - sensual shapes following the superfulous spaces. Two columns, two bodies, layed on the scannerbed begun their obscene movements. Ever-changing positions, wrinkling sheets and back-and forth moving shapes breathe in a speakingwordless spreads. Very few left over for poetics, these shapes turn and melt, connect and turn backs, embrace and reject, touch and not, creating a typographic Kama-Sutra emerging from the darkness. Always the same, always different. Night after night, spread after spread, until semantic satiation kicks in and the Homo Sapio rebels. The format forces a touch, a fully considered movement and a slide over the paper. The halfway flap crinkles and cuts over the title - creating a hiding-revealing game of what is to be discovered. Just like Zwischenräume. Dear A was, written, edited, and produced eliminating computers, fully physical, with the mediation of a black and white printer.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAPERBACK EDITION OF SOREYU designed by Junichio Nakahara One day during my residency in Japan, a silent friend of mine - Nanami Hasegawa - took my hand, led me to the library and layed out a magazine carefully in the front of me. We spent hours, turning the pages of this publication which we both appreciated differently. She was intrigued by the content - which - being written in Japanese - I could not understand. From then on, I got fascinated by the variety of the spreads, the design, the colours, the integrated illustrations and the seemingly layered but for me undecipherable subject. Little by little I started to research the how’s and what’s of ‘Soleil/ Soreyu’. Strangely enough, there was scarce information available in English or Japanese. From the bits and pieces of information I collected it appeared, that Soleil was the first magazine with a feminist approach. In a country, where traditional gender roles are cautiously preserved, the remaining hints of an ever flaring ideology got muted away - as a way of surpressing the topic. Later on, strolling the second hand bookshops of Tokyo, diligently looking for an original print - mentioning the title of the booklets made the shopkeepers ladies eyes shine, while their mans frowned and asseverated it’s nonexistence. The designer of this seemingly banned periodical - Junichi Nakahara - had indeed the comfort and the rising of a feminine self-esteem in mind while assembling it’s pages. He was born in 1913 and raised by his mother and his older sisters. Seeing their daily struggles his life mission became to make women’s everyday life better, encouraging them to dream and take an active part in shaping of their own life. As a painter, fashion designer, hair and makeup designer, stylist, editor, illustrator, puppet maker, writer and interior designer he applied all his talents
to create a ‘gesamtkunstwerk’ to advocate young ladies life quality after the devastating shock of the war. His designs were liable even with the scarce resources of the post-war Japan. In the midst of the westernizing of Japan he adapted Japanese materials to Western schemes, and provided for sewing patterns for western dresses constructed from the silk of kimono’s; or wrote manuals to transform Japanese homes in a western fashion. Through providing in-depth lifestyle advices for ladies he provided the possibility for women to educate their man in Western manners - changing their archetypal position of a ‘passive’ wife. His characteristic drawing style gave a new face to the dreams of the Japanese housewife. Through analyzing ‘Soleil’ and recreating the inventive and ever-changing layout I intended to pay hommage to his body of work. The ‘emptiness’ of the pages suggests the ‘banned’ status of Soreyu. On the other hand I recreated the aspect I truthfully appreciated about it: the design. The format, and the following order of the pages were respected.