DON’T DETERMINE ON ME

The following excerpt is from the article “The State of the Book: A Conversation,” by Johanna Drucker and Buzz Spector, which is in the printed Printeresting edition of The California Printmaker (the journal of The California Society of Printmakers), p. 20. [Ed. Note: Totally worth buying and reading and owning.] This particular part is Johanna Drucker:

But as we shift towards the multi-platform possibilities that the current media environment offers, what changes will it make to our work? I find it very useful to use all media for their distinct capacities—aesthetic, production, distribution, affordability, etc.—but know […] that media only offer opportunity, they don’t determine anything. As I’ve said many times, the technical ability to produce avant-garde typography (i.e. Futurist and Dada compositions) was present in Gutenberg’s shop. The cultural disposition towards such innovation did not exist. Such work could not be conceived. Sure, shaped poetry has a long history, into antiquity, and all written language makes use of graphic affordances, but mixed font, diagonal, radically cut-up typographic work has as much to do with the bombardment of the senses in urban spaces by polyglot and multi-modal communications in verbal forms (radio, posters, newspapers, journals, advertising, film) as with technical innovation. [emphasis added]

I think that the point that Drucker is trying to make here is an important one: that any media in and of itself has no “natural” state, no “natural” progression that the work in that media inevitably follows. “Media only offer opportunity” to human and institutional agents. This is also the whole point of The Nature of the Book, by Adrian Johns, which talks about how everything we take for granted about books & print was not always so, and were constructed over time, differently in different places, through an extraordinarily complex set of conversations, arguments, laws, and practices. To cite a modern example, the Internet is not inherently and naturally “democratic,” and could/can/is be used for insidious and/or overt social control—all in the name of justice, of course.

What does this mean for us, now, in the opening stages of a possible shift from print to electronic text? It means that we shouldn’t let corporate/media/money interests tell us what the future is—it means that we must share in the active shaping of it. Which is why this is such an exciting time to be doing all of this writing, publishing, making, designing, shaping, becoming, occupying, sharing, talking…

RECEPTION IS PRODUCTION (4): MUD LUSCIOUS PRESS NEPHEW SERIES

The other day I received an email announcement from Mud Luscious Press, which is run by newly anointed NewLights author J. A. Tyler. The announcement was for the new book in their Nephew chapbook series, Meat Is All, by Andrew Borgstrom. It caught my attention for a few reasons: 1) the cover, shown above, looks great, 2) the excerpt available is weird & interesting, and 3) the edition, or the mode of production-distribution of it, was described as: “This book will be available for 90 days or until 150 copies are sold, whichever comes first.”

I was intrigued by this idea, so I wrote to Mr. Tyler asking him to explain a bit more. Here’s his response:

We take orders for our Nephew titles for either 90 days (max.) or for 150 copies (max.) and we don't print the book until we have reached one of those two points. This allows us to guarantee that we only print exactly as many copies as are ordered (zero waste, more effective production cost structures) and it also allows us to guarantee buyers that even if a title doesn't sell out immediately, they will be waiting a maximum of 90 days to receive their books (not a bad wait time for a pre-order of an exclusive title).

Then I asked him how they were actually making these books, and he said:

Our printing is done by our regular Mud Luscious Press printer, facilitated by David McNamara at Sunnyoutside - this printer allows us to do runs as small as 25 copies and as large as we like (David is fantastic!).

That’s a damn smart & practical way to handle the production of a book. And the idea of a time-based edition could yield other interesting results. Speculation aside, this approach is a concrete example of the way that new printing technologies (print-on-demand, digital presses capable of quality printing and short runs) and new distribution the technologies (the Internet) are changing the ways that small press books are produced. This kind of approach would not have been possible (at least in this streamlined of a form) 10 years ago. These kinds of innovations and changes are extremely important. And it helps to reinforce my conviction that this is the most exciting time to be engaged in textual culture since Gutenberg made that crazy invention of his.

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

& THEN THERE’S THIS

Half Letter Press, a publishing and distribution venture for artists’ books and other interesting things, brought to you by Temporary Services. The books that they’re making and selling look great, but the way that they are doing that making and selling is important too. Check out all of the info, the FAQs, the bartering, etc. This is a politics of reception/distribution.

RECEPTION IS PRODUCTION (3): LIBRARIES, CIRCULATION, CHANCE

The last post related a story, my personal experience, to the thoughts behind the New NewLights Press Library Policy. In light of that post I have been thinking about libraries, about how we, as (re)searching, potential readers, interact with libraries, and how the physical space of the library affects those searches.

It is important and necessary for libraries to have Special Collections containing artists’ books and small press books. Those collections are a great service both to the public (who now have access to amazing work, for research or just because) and to the artists and publishers (economic support from collecting institutions).

But there is one downside to having one’s work in Special Collections. Although it is (in most cases) accessible, it is not “out there.” Only the librarians and a lucky few others are allowed to browse the shelves of Special Collections. (But everything “back there” is usually stored in archival boxes, so browsing the shelves isn’t really that much fun anyway.)

That browsing, that wandering, is for me one of the most important aspects of the experience of a physical library. I rarely go to the library unless I need a specific book. I look that book up online, before I even set foot in the library, and write down the call number so that I can go right to it. And when I get to the library, I do, usually, go right to it. But then I wander, in the area around that specific book, to see what other books have been grouped with it, by the subject and by the way the collection has been alphabetically distributed across the physical space of the shelves. Looking, reading, looking closer, reading closer. The experience is often overwhelming. The wanderer in the library stands in the channel of the discursive flow, with a cross-section view of that channel, able to navigate through any plane that they choose. (This is both similar and different to than standing in front of a shelf at a bookstore, where the reader is simultaneously subject to, subjected to, the flows of discourse and of economics. In the quiet land of the library, where every book is free, money fades into the background. In the pulsing land of the bookstore, money is the river that has caught everything in its current. (What about small bookstores, used bookstores?))

And so in that wandering the reader finds books that they did not know existed, that can contain and lead to new thoughts, new directions. Wandering like this has led me to unimagined books, and some of those books have become extremely important to me.

If there are artists’ books and small press books in the library, in general circulation, they have the potential of both being searched directly and borrowed and of being discovered, of being a marvelous, convulsive accident that can reorient a reader’s relation to language and to how that language is distributed through culture. Books live (they always and only live) out there, in the active hands and desiring minds of readers.

RECEPTION IS PRODUCTION (2)

[& so now infused with new old memories. & so now back again and subject to the flux, again. There is much to be done. Where did we begin?]

Recently the Pacific Center for Book Arts opened up registration for their annual printers’ fair. And the meetings for planning the 2010 San Francisco Zine Fest are underway, with registration opening soon. The CUNY Chapbook Fair hangs indeterminately in the future, and the 2011 Codex Fair, a year away, is moving as fast as it can. And all of these upcoming fairs, oddly, make me think about fairs.

Over the past few years art fairs have become a big deal. A lot of money gets spent on them, and even more money gets spent at them. For the moment of the fair the spectacle can expand and infect every piece of culture held up in sacrifice to it. And so we need not concern ourselves with such fairs. [If we ignore the raging and ravaging of the spectacle, will it cease to exist, cease to have power? Doubtful. We must produce against it. Hold your labor like a knife, like the blade of a plow. Cut into the spectacle like it was the land, it is the first land of culture.]

The concern then is small fairs, sometimes local fairs, sometimes not. (Sometimes one gets lucky and an international fair happens in the city where you live.) Fairs have become, over the past few years, my favorite mode of public display for the work. Mainly because the format allows one to sidestep the issue of “display” altogether. The books are there, on the table in front of their maker/seller, and they are there available for full perusal. No gloves and no cases. And if you like one, and if there’s more than one of the one that you like, chances are you will be able to take one home.

And not only do potential readers get to handle and interact with the work, but I get to interact with all of those potential readers as well. And “the crowd” at every show is actually made up of two groups: the people that come in to see the show, and the people that are there exhibiting as well as looking. And we are all there together, a community is visible, the connections are felt. And the community always gets a little bit bigger with every show. It reminds one of the necessity of kindness in this endeavor.

[Hold your kindness like a knife, like the blade of a plow…]

RECEPTION IS PRODUCTION (1)

Richard Artschwager. Book. 1987. Multiple of formica and wood. object: 5 1/8 x 20 1/8 x 12 1/16" (13 x 51.1 x 30.7 cm).

A tremendous amount of thought/energy/force/potential goes into the production of books. An activated book is like a channel through which that force passes, and that force builds, becomes more productive, with every reader that it lodges in, passes through. If a book cannot be read, then its energy, its potential, expires in its pages.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last week a call went out to various book artists inviting them to submit work to an open call (non-juried) gallery show. One of the lines describing what they wanted for the show and how it would work caught my eye—it said, essentially, that all work in the show was going to be available to be handled, and that artists should take that fact into consideration when submitting. A day or two later a second email went out, noting that due to a large amount of complaints about that policy, they were now giving artists the option to choose whether their work should be handled.

A few years ago I decided that whenever I show NewLights Press books, that they would be shown so that they can be handled. Even the unique books. Even the really fragile, really labor-intensive, really expensive, unique books. I would rather have them completely destroyed through use than preserved, untouched and unread, in a perpetual, pristine, vulgar state of undeath in a glass case or in a vault somewhere.

Many years ago I saw a lecture by the artist Richard Artschwager. During that lecture he stated one of his guiding principles: “painting is art that you look at like this:” (mimes standing in place and staring) and “sculpture is art that you look at like this:” (mimes walking around and looking at an object). Neither of those mimes, of those modes of looking/reading, works for books. Books are different from other forms of art because they function differently in the world.

I understand why the gallery went back on their initial impulse to have all the work available for perusal, and I don’t fault them for giving the artists the option to choose how their work is shown. But I do wish they held that line as a curatorial principle.

RECEPTION IS PRODUCTION (INTRODUCTION)

Last night there was a broadcast of a talk by Wendell Berry, the author of The Unsettling of America. The talk (actually a “conversation” with Michael Pollan) was mostly about farming and food, but it was also about labor and community, and the economy of interactions between all of these.

Berry talked a lot about the idea of the local—particularly of “local adaptability” and of small, local economies rooted in the particular strengths and abilities of the land. These small economies would be adaptable to the needs of the land and of the community, as opposed to giant, “universal” modes of production and distribution that impress upon the land & community a destructive sameness to all other lands and communities. Same in the sense of “one size fits all,” destructive in the sense of a gradual annihilation of the resources available there, leaving wasted and empty spaces.

What are the relations between labor, community, and economy, in the arts and particularly in the book(ish) arts? How do the modes of production and reception of books differ from the modes of production and reception of more conventional or dominant forms of art? How do those modes offer alternatives to established channels of distribution? How have those alternatives changed in the last 40 years? (I’m thinking in the context of the “democratic multiple” debate in artists’ books, and the subsequent rise of the Internet, print-on-demand, and the art fair.) Is economic sustainability an issue in the arts? How can a young artist bring their practice, their finances, and their overall happiness into alignment? Is it always about money? (Those last two are pressing, personal questions for me, but I think that they are also pressing, personal questions for many people.)

And with this post and these questions begins another line of inquiry, a new series, RECEPTION IS PRODUCTION, where we will try to expand upon these notions of reception (what path does the artwork take in the world?) community (in what part of the world are those paths traced?) and economy (what forces determine these paths?). And ultimately, can those paths begin to constitute a world?