Some experimental images.

Working towards a style for the images in the summer section, particularly. I've used a variety of scanned images of hand-made textures, scanned in to the computer, combined with heavily manipulated photographs and over-drawing. Images after the jump.

Recording a Walk

I have decided to use three different methods to record the walks in Vectis. I could have chosen any of a huge variety of others, but I am constrained somewhat by the considerations of the medium. The method must fit into a book; so, for example, audio or video recordings would not be appropriate (although I have taken audio notes, and may incorporate audio somehow; perhaps a soundtrack to listen to whilst reading the book? A download perhaps; it needs some thought). 

The method I've been thinking of for the third section (the coastal walk) is of taking photographs facing along the coast in opposite directions (so that one is in the direction of the walk, one looking back), and placing these photographs on opposite pages. To explore this concept, I decided to employ it to rccord one of the shorter walks, from my house to Carisbrooke Castle and back. I decided to take a photograph every 70 paces, as this was roughly the length of the path from my back gate to the road. 

Spring, season colours

A spring picture, based on a new photograph; and an idea towards a unified colour scheme for the four seasonal sections. Perhaps a little twee? Perhaps there should be something more counterintuitive at work?

 

Processional I: First printing

The first copy of Processional I arrived yesterday morning.

Mostly, I am very satisfied with the quality, the colours and so on; unfortunately, the bleed has not worked properly, as can be seen in the following picture:

There are only at most a millimetre or so white margin, and only on some pages. The width of the margin changes as the book goes on, indicating that the problem might be to do with the printing process rather than my settings. I am rather at a loss, as I followed the instructions online exactly; however, I shall try setting the bleeds a little wider and send the book off again when I have some more money. The main purpose of Processional I, remember, is to sort out colour, bleed and paper quality for Vectis itself. I will also be looking at creating another book to test out the higher quality paper, which is only available in certain limited, non-ISO standard sizes.

Do You Think Culture is Order?

There is a tendency in western thought towards categorisation as the default mode for understanding reality that is, I think, inescapable. I certainly know I'm guilty of it; in fact, I greatly enjoy categorising and sorting things; making playlists of songs based on genre, for example, or identifying and discussing movements in art, which inevitably becomes a discussion, at least in part, of which artists should be included under a certain heading, which typify it, and so on. What is not as often acknowledged is that this mania for classification grows out of, and is related to, a more sinister fetish for dualism.

This may seem to be a bit absurd. After all, dualism is by definition the idea that if something is either one of two things, so how does it relate to situations where we have a whole range of choices about how to categorise something? What it is key to remember here is that an object or an idea isn't merely affected by one dualism. Deconstructing a categorisation choice into a range of binary dualisms is pretty easy. Say we have a ball that can be either red, blue or yellow. What we have to remember is that we can also say that the ball is not red, not blue or not yellow. That is to say, rather than think of a triple choice, we can also choose to say that it is affected by three dualisms, that of red/not red, blue/not blue, yellow/not yellow.

Of course, in the real world, things are a little more difficult. For a start, real world dualisms are generally not constructed logically. They impose a structure on the world, rather than arising out of the existing structure of the world. In a mathemetical or logical model, our above example works, but in reality there are an astonishing range of percievable colours, and perception of colour is bounded by different cultural and scientific models, not to mention differences in human biology. To call a certain range of hues 'red' or 'yellow' is a social construction, nothing more. This is the danger of categories. At their best, they can give us a linguistic or scientific model for discussing the world. At their worst, they offer a form of pantomime rationality, an attempt to crudely hammer the fabulous complexity of world into a preconcieved model. Dualisms, with their starkness, are particularly terrible at this.

Idle Toil

Idle Toil is the name of my 'publishing house', the entity through which my books are published. You will have seen the Idle Toil logo if you looked at the PDF in the last post. Currently, it looks like the example to the right. The idea that the name could be split up in this way was part of the thinking behind it's choosing; it came when I was doodling the logo and the name simultaneously in my sketch book. It has some obvious reasoning behind it. There is the similiarity of the second syllables allowing (with a little poetic license) the remixed words to be pronounced as homophones. There is also the fact that each couplet of letters is a word (in some language). I also liked the fact that the logo works well as a design element on a page; it is a solid block, broadly symettrical, and has a strong vertical presence. However, there is no reason to just accept the logo (which is after all essentially a first design) as a fait accompli, and there's something a little unsatisfactory about the logo as it currently stands. So, I've tried a few redesigns. I am rather fancying the one in the bottom left.

Processional I

Not much to put on the blog over the past few days; I've been working, but more on visual matters. I've also been at work on a physical model of Vectis, despite my vow not to engage in any physical bookbinding. It's wonderfully addictive work, unfortunately, and, as always when you're thinking something out practically, there have been a few false starts. Expect something nice to look at in the not-too-distant future. Until then, here's a little 'side project' book, Processional I:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ncmodkr6nlfj8c0/processionali3.pdf

It's a very simple idea; it's simply a procession or sequence, bounded by the letters of the alphabet, cycling back round through a circle in opposite directions (I was thinking about the year-based structure of Vectis). Actually, the real purpose of this book is not as an artistic expression (shock, horror) but more as a way to test out the capabilities of lulu.com, the print-on-demand publishing service which I have chosen to employ, for the moment, to produce my books. Particularly, I have not yet ordered a book from then in colour, nor have I done a book with full edge bleeds. I actually sent the order through yesterday morning (I've simply had no time to post since then) and I'll update with some pictures of the finished product when it arrives.

Seasons Don't Fear the Reaper

The idea of structuring the book around the seasons has suggested to me the possibility of using the year as a model for the book. 2012 is a leap year, consisting of 366 days; since the majority of the work takes place in this year, It would make for a book of that many pages, plus a number of extra pages at the beginning (pre-numbering) for contents and so forth; say 7, if we're going for calendar correspondences.

The book shall therefore be divided into four sections. I'll work based on the periods between solstices and equinoxes:

Spring: 21st March - June 20th:  91 days

Summer: June 21st - 20th September: 91 days.

Autumn:  21st September-20th December: 90 days.

Winter: 21st December-20th March (Including 29th Feb): 90 days.

I have been trying to set the structure out in various text files and in indesign, but I think I'll have to make a physical model of the book in order to be able to get a real sense of how this all pans out, whether this is a good idea and whether any fudging will be necessary

I will also need to pick up the pace a little on the first section, though I have photographs, sound recordings and notes on all three of the first walks; the season draws to a close. One of the interesting things about the actual making of Vectis is that, due to the writing and other considerations, the first section shall probably take the longest to produce in terms of post-production, though I already have almost all the material I need on hand. I shall be walking all three routes again in the next few days, before moving out.  Already autumn's chill is in the air. The 21st is the first day of autumn, and will be time to begin considering the longer range walks.

Prison Islands

 Another IM conversation with 'the other', that brings up some points I will write more about in the future.

To See All is to Condemn All: Prisons & Panopticism

One of the most notable features on Walk 3 is this muckle great thing.

Her Majesties Prison Isle of Wight.