One of the firstish big NewLights Press plans for Year 14 is to launch a journal of one word poetry, fiction and non-fiction. First step: an awesome name for said awesome journal. & that’s where you come in, reader. Submit your ideas for names via email to newlightspressATgmailDOTcom, or by messaging us on our Facebook page. [Ed. Note: I don’t see contact info for comments to this blog, hence the submissions via email & FB.] We will post submissions periodically as they roll in below in updated versions of this post. We can’t guarantee a winner will be chosen from the submissions, but if there is a winner, that person will get a free lifetime subscription to the journal.
Entries! (updated on 02/14/14 at 10:00 AM)
Soli
Oddments
Singletons
Constraints
Mono
Brevity
Palabra
CROWBAIT
Unalone
Economy
Bullseye
Plop
OOZER
This journal is something that’s been incubating a long time, begun actually in 2003 with the piece below (re-posted from the NewLights digital archives). Info for how to submit to the journal itself will be coming in the near future. The plan is to get two issues out by the end of this year, then four starting next.
Showing posts with label Big Ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Ideas. Show all posts
20140211
20130219
VISTA SANS WOOD TYPE PROJECT: UPDATE
The folks at the Vista Sans Wood Type Project (see post below for more on this) have started a new, improved Kickstarter campaign to fund their book project. Now when you donate you can choose exactly which print you want. Which is awesome, because these things are fucking sweet. No really, I just saw them all at Codex. Get on this.
20121220
AGAINST PRESERVATION: THE VISTA SANS WOOD TYPE PROJECT
Hatch Show Print’s motto is: “Preservation Through Use.” When they say this they are talking specifically about their collection of historic type & image blocks. They “preserve” those physical things by continuing to use them and keeping the iconic images that they produced circulating in the culture. The idea of “preservation through use” is an oxymoron—using those blocks is not going to preserve them. That use is going to destroy them.
Generally speaking, when it comes to Book Arts & letterpress printing, I am against preservation. Not that I want to see all of our lovely tools, equipment & materials burned & scrapped. Quite the opposite, actually. I am against preservation in the sense that something that needs to be “preserved” is something that has died, that is in the process of rapid decay. The preservation impulse in Book Arts, while noble & in some ways worthwhile, is holding it back.
Letterpress printing, hand bookbinding, small/private press publishing, etc., etc. are commercially obsolete. That does not mean they are “dead”—historically over, sealed shut, capable of no further development in aesthetics and/or technology. The Economy is not the only economy. These things—these techniques, tools, equipment, processes, materials, ways of doing-learning-moving—are living things. & there is, terrifyingly, excitingly, more work to be done.
The Vista Sans Wood Type Project gets at several very important things:
1) It literally advances the technology of type production & letterpress printing. There is now a typeface that was never available as type, in lead or wood, in the world in physical form. And the type is different from traditional wood type—some of it has a very visible grain. It is not so precious anymore—it can be kerned, mortised, cut, spliced without worry. It points toward even more possibilities.
2) The project is not just about the type, it’s also about its utility & function. The functional/shareable is the new relational.
3) The project is not just about the type, it’s also about how it’s used to advance the aesthetic range of letterpress printing. You can see lots of the prints in the video above. Very few of them look like a “traditional” letterpress broadside. & that points to one very, very important thing about letterpress printing—it’s an extremely flexible & adaptable medium. The pinnacle of its aesthetic achievement was not/is not black, serifed text type on white or off-white paper.
4) The project is not just about the type, it’s about community, about this community of incredible people making incredible things.
Things like the Vista Sans Wood Type Project are absolutely crucial to keeping the fields of book arts, printing, typography, design, publishing, etc., etc. moving & interesting & fun. Tricia & Ashley have already made the type, but now they need some funds to make a book documenting the project—a book that will take the project even further. Please consider helping them out by following the link at the end of the video or by clicking here.
20110315
THE eBOOK USER'S BILL OF RIGHTS
The following was brought to my attention via See Also, a library blog authored by my colleague Steve Lawson, as part of a response to Harper Collins placing a limit of 26 library checkouts on its ebooks. "The eBook User's Bill of Rights" comes from a blog called Librarian in Black. This is a big issue, and I hope that I will be able to post more about it soon. Anyways. here's the Bill:
The eBook User’s Bill of Rights is a statement of the basic freedoms that should be granted to all eBook users.
The eBook User’s Bill of Rights
Every eBook user should have the following rights:
- the right to use eBooks under guidelines that favor access over proprietary limitations
- the right to access eBooks on any technological platform, including the hardware and software the user chooses
- the right to annotate, quote passages, print, and share eBook content within the spirit of fair use and copyright
- the right of the first-sale doctrine extended to digital content, allowing the eBook owner the right to retain, archive, share, and re-sell purchased eBooks
I believe in the free market of information and ideas.
I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can flourish when their works are readily available on the widest range of media. I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can thrive when readers are given the maximum amount of freedom to access, annotate, and share with other readers, helping this content find new audiences and markets. I believe that eBook purchasers should enjoy the rights of the first-sale doctrine because eBooks are part of the greater cultural cornerstone of literacy, education, and information access.
Digital Rights Management (DRM), like a tariff, acts as a mechanism to inhibit this free exchange of ideas, literature, and information. Likewise, the current licensing arrangements mean that readers never possess ultimate control over their own personal reading material. These are not acceptable conditions for eBooks.
I am a reader. As a customer, I am entitled to be treated with respect and not as a potential criminal. As a consumer, I am entitled to make my own decisions about the eBooks that I buy or borrow.
I am concerned about the future of access to literature and information in eBooks. I ask readers, authors, publishers, retailers, librarians, software developers, and device manufacturers to support these eBook users’ rights.
These rights are yours. Now it is your turn to take a stand. To help spread the word, copy this entire post, add your own comments, remix it, and distribute it to others. Blog it, Tweet it (#ebookrights), Facebook it, email it, and post it on a telephone pole.
To the extent possible under law, the person who associated CC0 with this work has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work
20101220
SOMETIMES I’M A LITTLE SLOW
Open publication - Free publishing - More poetry
I just recently found out about the above exciting thing. What I want to draw your attention to is not the text (Flight Test by Lewis Warsh), or even the book (published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2006), represented above, but the device of representation itself. It’s a little program that comes through this site:
http://issuu.com
This could actually be extremely useful for publishers and book artists. Small edition books that have gone out-of-print could have a second (if somewhat weird and ghostly) life on the web. Or maybe not out-of-print, but brand new, and readers can actually get a sense of the interior, of the “total object, complete with missing parts” before they buy the thing. Obviously not as good as the actual book (because you lose the materiality, the wonderful physical-ness that determines a reader’s relationship to the object through its functionality) but I think more representative than a flat PDF. Of course you can print a PDF, which has its own advantages. (But you need a real website to post PDFs. I can’t seem to do it from this silly little blog.)
What I’m wondering about particularly is the capacity of Issuu to handle the altered books. Could it do a 200+ page book, of which every page is an image? The specs on the site (of the “professional” version) make me think it could. You could finally read those damn things.
There’s also something significant in the fact that I just reposted someone’s complete book. It adds new possibilities for sharing and distributing texts/books. It will help us get the words out, which is, of course, what we do.
I just recently found out about the above exciting thing. What I want to draw your attention to is not the text (Flight Test by Lewis Warsh), or even the book (published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2006), represented above, but the device of representation itself. It’s a little program that comes through this site:
http://issuu.com
This could actually be extremely useful for publishers and book artists. Small edition books that have gone out-of-print could have a second (if somewhat weird and ghostly) life on the web. Or maybe not out-of-print, but brand new, and readers can actually get a sense of the interior, of the “total object, complete with missing parts” before they buy the thing. Obviously not as good as the actual book (because you lose the materiality, the wonderful physical-ness that determines a reader’s relationship to the object through its functionality) but I think more representative than a flat PDF. Of course you can print a PDF, which has its own advantages. (But you need a real website to post PDFs. I can’t seem to do it from this silly little blog.)
What I’m wondering about particularly is the capacity of Issuu to handle the altered books. Could it do a 200+ page book, of which every page is an image? The specs on the site (of the “professional” version) make me think it could. You could finally read those damn things.
There’s also something significant in the fact that I just reposted someone’s complete book. It adds new possibilities for sharing and distributing texts/books. It will help us get the words out, which is, of course, what we do.
20100104
SOMEDAY THE NEWLIGHTS PRESS WILL HAVE ITS OWN STUDIO
and I already know three broadsides that I will print specifically for the studio walls. First is this classic from the eminent scholar and typographer Beatrice Warde (which seems to be required decor for every letterpress studio):
The image that you see here is from a photocopy of a version that they had in the letterpress studio at ASU. I will make a new edition.
And this, a slightly modified version of what Woody Guthrie had written on his guitar, to be hung on the wall behind the press(es):
And the last, a recently rediscovered piece of a poem by Jack Spicer, from his book Admonitions, from the poem “For Jack”:
The image that you see here is from a photocopy of a version that they had in the letterpress studio at ASU. I will make a new edition.
And this, a slightly modified version of what Woody Guthrie had written on his guitar, to be hung on the wall behind the press(es):
THESE MACHINES KILL FASCISM
And the last, a recently rediscovered piece of a poem by Jack Spicer, from his book Admonitions, from the poem “For Jack”:
Tell everyone to have guts
Do it yourself
Have guts until the guts
Come through the margins
Clear and pure
Like love is
20091120
YESTERDAY I DECIDED THAT
20091113
& THE NEW MANIFESTO &
The New Manifesto of the NewLights Press was produced in a theoretically unlimited edition. 250 copies were made in the first printing. I figured that it would take awhile to sell 250. But as the year draws to a close, the numbers are dwindling, and it’s time to start to thinking about the second installment.
[The Manifesto was important for NewLights from a production standpoint in the sense that it was the first book produced in such a way as to make letterpress printing it in a large edition just as economically feasible as digitally printing it. And now that I have the films & plates already, all I need to buy is the new paper.]
The plan from the beginning was to reprint the Manifesto when it ran out. This goes against the general NewLights policy of NO REPRINTS, so for the first time the idea of the reprint has to be considered. And of course we can never leave anything alone. A simple reprint? Why not force that work to do more work?
This problem is particularly important for this book because of the idea that keeping the same manifesto, reprinting it over and over again, will keep the press locked into the same theoretical framework. And this is important because the Manifesto itself is about resisting such ossification. A specific example: the NewLights mission statement is printed at the end of the Manifesto, but I’ve been thinking about rewriting the mission statement. So how does a new mission statement fit into a second, or third, or fourth, or n printing? How can a book like this sustain the idea of an infinite amount of printings?
Many books are revised from printing to printing, from edition to edition. So why can’t the Manifesto function in a similar way? Why not make The New Manifesto of the NewLights Press perpetually new? Make the book the living, growing, changing, dynamic object that this very text describes. Actualize, damn it.
[The Manifesto was important for NewLights from a production standpoint in the sense that it was the first book produced in such a way as to make letterpress printing it in a large edition just as economically feasible as digitally printing it. And now that I have the films & plates already, all I need to buy is the new paper.]
The plan from the beginning was to reprint the Manifesto when it ran out. This goes against the general NewLights policy of NO REPRINTS, so for the first time the idea of the reprint has to be considered. And of course we can never leave anything alone. A simple reprint? Why not force that work to do more work?
This problem is particularly important for this book because of the idea that keeping the same manifesto, reprinting it over and over again, will keep the press locked into the same theoretical framework. And this is important because the Manifesto itself is about resisting such ossification. A specific example: the NewLights mission statement is printed at the end of the Manifesto, but I’ve been thinking about rewriting the mission statement. So how does a new mission statement fit into a second, or third, or fourth, or n printing? How can a book like this sustain the idea of an infinite amount of printings?
Many books are revised from printing to printing, from edition to edition. So why can’t the Manifesto function in a similar way? Why not make The New Manifesto of the NewLights Press perpetually new? Make the book the living, growing, changing, dynamic object that this very text describes. Actualize, damn it.
20090428
FORM VS. FUNCTION
Figs. 04.09.04-05
Two forms, one for general correspondence (Fig. 04.09.04) and one purchase record/invoice (Fig. 04.09.05). More of the “Bureaucracy of One.”
20090317
(DE)COLLAGE
This morning I sent off my entry for the MCBA Prize. Below are some images from the book, followed by a formal description:
The work presented here, (De)Collage, is the latest in a series of sustained, rigorous engagements with the idea and form of the altered book. The original book was Collage: The Making of Modern Art, by Brandon Taylor (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2004), a beautifully illustrated and in-depth survey of the role that collage (as well as the related principles of assemblage and appropriation) has played in the development of modern and postmodern art. The alteration enacted on the book is one of massive excision—all text and images were systematically removed through delamination, a technique of cutting through just the surface layers of a sheet of paper and peeling them away. Only the ascenders and descenders of the text and a thin band of the outside edges of the images remain. A new text has been added, through the delamination of stencilled letters, at the bottom of each page, running into the gutters and around the fore-edge. This new text is built on the same principle as the rest of the book; it was “written” by removing words from the original text.
(De)Collage is, mainly, a meditation on discursive form and the strange, unstable image-text-object nature of the book. It takes as its starting point the “moment of collage,” that moment when, through the simple, rebellious act of gluing a piece of paper into a painting, art began to split into the two dominant discourses of the 20th century: hermetic, formalist modernism (that piece of paper makes the picture plane apparent, the formal nature of the medium is emphasized) and open, multiple, post modernism (that piece of paper, found and stuck to the surface of the picture, brings the rest of the world into the conversation). The act of excision in (De)Collage is an act that bends both of those discourses back into each other. The ideal, two-dimensional picture plane is exposed as a three-dimensional object. The radically inclusive, surgically specific bricolage of the art historical images and text is reduced to a series of abstract signs and traces. A simple act of deconstruction brings both discourses back into play.
The work presented here, (De)Collage, is the latest in a series of sustained, rigorous engagements with the idea and form of the altered book. The original book was Collage: The Making of Modern Art, by Brandon Taylor (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2004), a beautifully illustrated and in-depth survey of the role that collage (as well as the related principles of assemblage and appropriation) has played in the development of modern and postmodern art. The alteration enacted on the book is one of massive excision—all text and images were systematically removed through delamination, a technique of cutting through just the surface layers of a sheet of paper and peeling them away. Only the ascenders and descenders of the text and a thin band of the outside edges of the images remain. A new text has been added, through the delamination of stencilled letters, at the bottom of each page, running into the gutters and around the fore-edge. This new text is built on the same principle as the rest of the book; it was “written” by removing words from the original text.
(De)Collage is, mainly, a meditation on discursive form and the strange, unstable image-text-object nature of the book. It takes as its starting point the “moment of collage,” that moment when, through the simple, rebellious act of gluing a piece of paper into a painting, art began to split into the two dominant discourses of the 20th century: hermetic, formalist modernism (that piece of paper makes the picture plane apparent, the formal nature of the medium is emphasized) and open, multiple, post modernism (that piece of paper, found and stuck to the surface of the picture, brings the rest of the world into the conversation). The act of excision in (De)Collage is an act that bends both of those discourses back into each other. The ideal, two-dimensional picture plane is exposed as a three-dimensional object. The radically inclusive, surgically specific bricolage of the art historical images and text is reduced to a series of abstract signs and traces. A simple act of deconstruction brings both discourses back into play.
20081216
GETTING THE WORD OUT
Dear Internet,
I had an idea last night, and I am going to need your help. I was thinking about how I haven’t seen any sites that are profiling young, innovative independent presses and makers of artists’ books. Do these sites exist? Doesn’t every site exist somewhere? I know that there are other sites like the Flurry blog, which has its “Titans of Letterpress” series. But enough about the “old masters.” We will, of course, continue to learn a great deal from them, maybe even rely on them for equipment, but it’s time to look elsewhere as well. It’s time to begin to critically assess what those crazy kids are doing.
But first I’ve got to find them. That’s where you come in, Internet. If anyone out there knows of the kind of press that I’m talking about--one that’s doing interesting, experimental bookwork, in both form and content and/or production and distribution, let me know. Send me information. And then I’ll find out what I can, maybe even interview them, and write about their work, right here on this blog.
I had an idea last night, and I am going to need your help. I was thinking about how I haven’t seen any sites that are profiling young, innovative independent presses and makers of artists’ books. Do these sites exist? Doesn’t every site exist somewhere? I know that there are other sites like the Flurry blog, which has its “Titans of Letterpress” series. But enough about the “old masters.” We will, of course, continue to learn a great deal from them, maybe even rely on them for equipment, but it’s time to look elsewhere as well. It’s time to begin to critically assess what those crazy kids are doing.
But first I’ve got to find them. That’s where you come in, Internet. If anyone out there knows of the kind of press that I’m talking about--one that’s doing interesting, experimental bookwork, in both form and content and/or production and distribution, let me know. Send me information. And then I’ll find out what I can, maybe even interview them, and write about their work, right here on this blog.
20081207
ON THE (ENTIRELY THEORETICAL) NEWLIGHTS PRESS WEBSITE, ETC.
The NewLights Press has existed for about 8 and 1/2 years. Throughout those years, everyone has told me, "You should have a website." And they are absolutely right. There have been several provisional attempts in the past (see OTHER SITES OF INTEREST on the sidebar), but this time I am finally getting serious about it. What follows is a vision of what the site will include.
First of all, the site should not be a simple "portfolio" site, as used by many other artists, mainly because the production of the press, though channeled through an individual, is purposefully different from a traditional studio artist (even one working in "non-traditional" media). So instead of a portfolio site it will be a new publishing arm for the press. It will have the usual trappings: a list of the books and their specs, a list of artists/authors and their bios, links to various resources, and background info. But on to the good stuff.
As a way to further the life of the books (almost always in a limited edition or unique) I want to include viewable, readable, and downloadable PDF files of the books in their entirety, from cover to cover and every page in between. Some of the longer and bigger altered books will be too much for the website, though. But I have another idea about that (see below). These digital versions (with the consent of any collaborators) will be free and released under a Creative Commons license.
There will also be a central place to download the NewLights DIY Books, a series of free books that are set up as pre-designed packages, with printing and binding instructions. There will also be general binding instructions, separate from the individual books, for personal and/or classroom use.
And finally, to further the NewLights critical and pedagogical mission, a place to publish essays on the following general topics: book arts, printmaking, experimental art/literature, intertextuality, collage/appropriation, book/print/art pedagogy, functionality in art, art & politics, and art & economics. There will be an ongoing, open call for essays, so if any of you have any thoughts about these topics be sure to let me know... I would like to publish the essays under Creative Commons licenses as well. (This blog will also be a place where essay subjects may start as sketches).
The first step to implementing all of this is to re-learn how to build a site. The plan is to have the first iteration of the site up by February 1st. We'll see how it goes...
Other Big Ideas floating about in the Press-Mind:
New DIY books: William Blake's poetry, Make This Book, a series of essays about artists' books by yours truly.
Electronic releases of the long altered books, distributed on CD. High res images of every page, expanded text, maybe extra layers of commentary, hand printed and constructed (but simple) packaging.
New NewLights manifesto.
New altered book (in the works).
But I suppose that everything is always in the works.
First of all, the site should not be a simple "portfolio" site, as used by many other artists, mainly because the production of the press, though channeled through an individual, is purposefully different from a traditional studio artist (even one working in "non-traditional" media). So instead of a portfolio site it will be a new publishing arm for the press. It will have the usual trappings: a list of the books and their specs, a list of artists/authors and their bios, links to various resources, and background info. But on to the good stuff.
As a way to further the life of the books (almost always in a limited edition or unique) I want to include viewable, readable, and downloadable PDF files of the books in their entirety, from cover to cover and every page in between. Some of the longer and bigger altered books will be too much for the website, though. But I have another idea about that (see below). These digital versions (with the consent of any collaborators) will be free and released under a Creative Commons license.
There will also be a central place to download the NewLights DIY Books, a series of free books that are set up as pre-designed packages, with printing and binding instructions. There will also be general binding instructions, separate from the individual books, for personal and/or classroom use.
And finally, to further the NewLights critical and pedagogical mission, a place to publish essays on the following general topics: book arts, printmaking, experimental art/literature, intertextuality, collage/appropriation, book/print/art pedagogy, functionality in art, art & politics, and art & economics. There will be an ongoing, open call for essays, so if any of you have any thoughts about these topics be sure to let me know... I would like to publish the essays under Creative Commons licenses as well. (This blog will also be a place where essay subjects may start as sketches).
The first step to implementing all of this is to re-learn how to build a site. The plan is to have the first iteration of the site up by February 1st. We'll see how it goes...
Other Big Ideas floating about in the Press-Mind:
New DIY books: William Blake's poetry, Make This Book, a series of essays about artists' books by yours truly.
Electronic releases of the long altered books, distributed on CD. High res images of every page, expanded text, maybe extra layers of commentary, hand printed and constructed (but simple) packaging.
New NewLights manifesto.
New altered book (in the works).
But I suppose that everything is always in the works.
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