visual fiction: transformation, translation & transgression in the form of the book
TRANSCRIPT
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P O L I N A J O F F E
M A J O R
P R O J E C T
R E P O R T
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C O N T E N T
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- 1 -
INTRODUCTION
- 2 -
THEORY
The Future
The BookContext
In The Penal Colony
- 3 -
PRACTICAL WORK
Story Analysis
Experimentation
- 4 -
REMEDIATION
Resolution
Making Of
- 5 -
CONCLUSION
- 6 -
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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- 1 -
I N T R O D U C T I O N
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R e a d i n g h a s b e c o m e
l o o k i n g a n d v i c e v e r s a .
I n f o r m a t i o n h a s b e c o m e
t a c t i l e .
(Gerritzen 2011, p.1)
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C a n t h e C o r e C o n c e p t s
o f t h e N o v e l l a I n T h e
P e n a l C o l o n y b y F r a n z
K a f k a B e V i s u a l l y
C o m m u n i c a t e d T h r o u g h
T h e F o r m o f t h e B o o k ,
T h u s C r e a t i n g A V i s i b l e
O u t p u t o f i t s L a n g u a g e ?
I could not have imagined that the above
question would have become as complex
as it eventually grew into. It appears on
the surface that it should require a fairly
simple method. I transformed the text from
being in the custom of a standard book
into an object of desire by interpreting the
text directly into the design, incorporating
tangibility and visual senses to lift the
book away from just a process for carrying
content, with some interesting outcomes.
What star ted me off with the journey into
this project is a concern of some kind for the
future of the book. It is a very contemporary
topic that possibly even too many people are
wr it ing about as is suggested in Graphic
Design Now in Production (Lupton
2011, p.59). Everyone is thinking about it,
contemplating, guessing - trying to foresee
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the future. Of course it is a popular question
as books are fundamental to our lives and it is
an exciting thought to discuss what the future
of books will hold . This however is imposs ible
to know, such is living within the present, but
that doesnt make it any less interesting to tr y
to fathom. The future flows from the present
but it is not dictated by it. I dont expect to
predict the future but I wanted to explore
the ideas and try stretching the possibilities
of the book in todays ever changing world.
The project took on a course of it s own and
I just tried to keep up with its naturally
appearing direction. I ended up exploring the
form of the book and the opportunities and
qualities that are impossible with its electronic
counterpart. I am not against e-books, iPads
or Kindles; in fact I even own a now outdated
vers ion of the la tter. The intent ion of this
project was not to take sides on the superiority
of either medium, but to purely explore the
strengths of the printed book and its form.
In order to make any practical investigations
I chose to work on the shor t novella by Franz
Kafka called In the Penal Colony. Full
of hidden meanings, the skillfully written
story leaves the reader feeling possibly in
contradiction with himself questioning basic
human values and ethics. I read the story
numerous times and studied it extensively
in order to later create an informed design
solution and reaction to the novella.
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T H E O R Y
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T H E F U T U R E
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The pace of communicat ion in the modern
world is quickening like never before,
and as technology gains more and more
momentum, more and more people are
becoming visually literate. The problem now
is that people are learning how to work this
new advancement alongside older, more tried
and true ways of communication. Therefore
there is currently a struggle to find the best
medium for common use, paper books and
electronic books being a large part of this
brawl, with music and film having similar
issues cleanly converting ethically, artistically
and practically to modern technologies.
Still in 1907 or perhaps 1908, when the camera
angles in the cinema started to vary, people
needed a special person called the explicator
to stand next to the screen, point and carry
out a live commentary on what was happening
within the fi lm. This is now hard for us to
imagine as we are used to Hollywood action
films that dont use frames lasting more than
three seconds, and the frames in many music
videos on MTV could not change any faster
or the eye simply wouldnt be able to register
them. This advancement has happened in
an extremely short space of time and is
continuing to advance with increasing speed
in many areas of life (Carriere 2009 ,p.41).
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Amazon Kindling
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T H E B O O K
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T h e m o r e t h e n e e d
f o r e n t e r t a i n m e n t a n d
m a i n s t r e a m e d u c a t i o n c a n
b e m e t b y n e w i n v e n t i o n s ,t h e m o r e t h e b o o k w i l l
r e c o v e r i t s d i g n i t y a n d
a u t h o r i t y . W e h a v e n o t y e t
q u i t e r e a c h e d t h e p o i n t
w h e r e y o u n g c o m p e t i t o r s ,s u c h a s r a d i o , c i n e m a , e t c . ,
h a v e t a k e n o v e r f u n c t i o n s
f r o m t h e b o o k t h a t i t
c a n t a f f o r d t o l o s e .
(Hesse, n.d. cited in de Tonnac, p.7)
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Paper books have existed for centuries around
the world and are s till in great use. They were,
up until early 20th century, the main source
for understanding. However electronic devices
are rapidly taking over the role paper books
once had. Electronic book readers (e-readers)
allow us to read and receive information
at a faster rate than by standard paper
communication as they can be downloaded
in seconds. E-readers are a lot lighter and
more transportable, the text size and style can
often be changed at a click of a button to suit
the reader and the books often can be read
on multiple platforms (eg. from e-reader to
computer) opening from where you previously
left off, as well as being read on the same
platform where other tasks are carried out, all
of which all allow for a more instant delivery
of information. Partly due to this we have
become a visually literate population, taking
in information at a faster rate, interpreting
images and skimming information like no one
could have previously predicted. Technology
has changed the way we absorb information.
The publ ishing industry has to adapt to the
readers needs and possibilities. More and
more people are downloading books straight
on to their reading devices instead of buying
physical copies of the books. This is faster,
cheaper, more convenient and takes lit tle to no
space. It is exactly these reasons that make the
printed book more special and valuable. I have
even personally noticed an increase of carefully
designed books in common bookstores like
Waterstones and Foy les. The book i s becoming
an object of desire not only for its content but
also for its tactile quality, design and form.
Due to the shift in exchange of information
via modern technology, what is le ft out
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of the equation is the design of the book
itself, as e-books often replace cover art
and book design with ease of readability
(Carriere, Eco and de Tonnac 2009).
E-books are probably better for instant
communication solely via the text; yet often
miss out almost completely on the visual
language and tangibility. The are some
ebooks that make use of this new medium,
for example the enhanced version of Alice
in Wonderland available in Apples iBooks,
however it is still screen displayed and has no
tangible quality. For this reason, it is all the
more important that a big re-design is carried
out on physical paper books, filling in the gap
e-books have now left. Books now need to go
beyond merely delivering content alongside a
simple cover. If paper books want to keep up
there needs to be a stronger change, and one
that will lend itself more to the possession
of an item than just for the content within,
by triggering other senses within people that
can help to give an extra dimension to books.
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C O N T E X T
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D e s i g n e r s t r a d e i n
s t o r y t e l l i n g . T h e e l e m e n t s
w e m u s t m a s t e r a r e n o t
t h e c o n t e n t n a r r a t i v e s b u tt h e d e v i c e s o f t h e t e l l i n g :
t y p o g r a p h y , l i n e , f o r m ,
c o l o r , c o n t r a s t , s c a l e ,
w e i g h t , e t c . W e s p e a k
t h r o u g h o u r a s s i g n m e n t ,l i t e r a l l y b e t w e e n t h e l i n e s .
(Rock 2005, p.4)
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To begin my research I studied the vi sual
grammar of books, concentrating on books
with high leve ls of graphic design inter vention,
where design plays an integral par t of depicting
the story. I thought that I wanted to create
something similar, but soon realized that for a
book where the content and design play equal
parts, the designer has to work in collaboration
with the author or be a wr iter himsel f. Many
extremely successful visual books such as J. S.
Foers novels and books published by Visual
Editions have been created in this way. It
would be fantasti c if one day I could embark
on a journey like this with an author, but
for now I needed to learn about the visual
grammar of these highly designed books
and practice my skills within that medium.
Before starting on my own experiments with
the book I carried out extensive research on
other projects that seek to make the grammar
of the book speak in unconventional ways.
There are in finite ways to te ll the same stor y,
exercises in style by Raymond Queneau being
an excellent example of this. It is the designers
role to figure out the most appropriate way to
communicate the main ideas. There are many
reasons for choosing to create a book with
design intervention as extreme as I ended up
producing. I hoped to not only have personal
gain through research and practice but to
appeal both to other designers, existing Kafka
readers and even attract a new audience to the
hugely important Modernist, existentialist
wr iter of the ear ly 1900 s and the novella itsel f.
The unusual look of the pieces I created can
be attractive to any visually literate people and
especially those interested in fiction writing.
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By arranging the piece into a new form a new
kind of audience can be aroused to read the
novella intrigued by the initial appearance of
the books. Current Kafka fans will hopefully
already understand the reasons for the chosen
manifestations of the story and be able to have
a new experience in reading the story visually
and translating each design decision in relation
to the text. The objects created are ones to
respect, cherish and contemplate on. They aid
in understanding the underlying themes of
the novella by reinforcing them and informing
the reader of their existence through design.
Approaches and ideologies on the ru les of
book design vary. B. Warde argues that to
allow the reader to enter book space, there
cannot be distractions and the design needs
to be transparent, acting as a window for
the reader to look through (Warde 1955,
p.94). Design intervention in the layout of a
page is inevitable but the extent of it is up
to the designer. There are numerous books
where design supports the text and even
enhances the reader experience. Childrens
books often use design to further involve the
child in the story and aid its memorisation.
This type of intervent ion is not new in adult
literature either and recently it seems to be
growing in popularity. It is seen in everything
ranging from books on design fiction, non-
fiction and anything else found in between.
The leve ls of intervent ion va ry from subt le
and near invisible to extremes, even creating
ergodic literature where the reader is required
to work hard in order to read or e ven decipher
the text. The term ergodic was first used by
Espen Aaerseth to describe the extranoematic
aspects of reading that happen outside the
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limitations of human thought. He describes
that, In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort
is required to allow the reader to traverse the
text. If ergodic literature is to make sense
as a concept, there must also be nonergodic
literature, where the effort to traverse the text is
trivial, with no extranoematic responsibilities
placed on the reader except (for example)
eye movement and the periodic or arbitrary
turning of pages.(Aarseth 1997, p. 1).
His theories on reading are extremely valuable
in relation to my major project. The notion of
cybertext that he describes in his 1997 thesis
have made me contemplate on the possibilities
of book design as a possible nonlinear piece,
comparable to a game, where the reader or
viewer is required to interact with the wr it ing
in order to gain the desired outcome, which
might also differ depending on the user as
the piece I created has no actual text in it, the
reader / viewer has to engage with it in an
unusual way. It places the raeder in a different
line of thought. The reader can be an active
part and a participant of the book. In cybertexts
the medium is an essent ial aspect of the story.
The importance of the medium is truly
immense in design and culture. I hadnt
given it much thought until I read the design
rhetoric classic by McLuhan and Fiore, The
Medium is the Message. As is stated in one
of the first pages of the book Societies have
always been shaped more by the nature of
the media by which men communicate than
by the content of the communication. This
seemingly simple statement really struck me
as a complete truth that I had previously been
negligible towards. The medium really often
is just as important as the information it
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holds and needs to be given the recognition
and consideration accordingly and as Newark
states in What is Graphic Design, the
creation of content is not graphic design any
more than acting is the same as writing a play
(Newark 2002, pg. 20). However this does
not mean that the choice of content to this
project was immaterial. I settled on Kafkas
short story In the Penal Colony due to its
strong typographic themes, and appropriate
length for graphic experimentation.
The genera l area that I worked in is
remediation. Since the remediation happened
from text to text and from book to book, it
is important to make the distinction of the
remediation. I explored the text in ways that
do not confide with the basic rules of design
as a pure means of framing information.
An examination of translat ion theory and
an analysis of its processes in unit one and
the beginning of unit two benefited my
understanding of remediation of literature into
a visual form. The exploration of a translators
methods and processes of managing the reader
experience enabled me to understand where to
apply certain methods or bring in personal
interpretations and apply these processes
into graphic design practice where applicable.
As the modern world is becoming extens ively
vi sual in it s communicat ion st yles , the people
have had to gain acuity in reading these v isual
messages. Visual literacy is a necessary
competency of members of contemporary
society (Sadokierski 2009, p.15). Visual
literacy has become intuitive and exploring
that in the relatively new territor y that I chose
to work within felt like the natural step in
investigating the possibilities of these changes.
In his article The Word Emil Ruder
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proposes, It is our task to give language
form, to lend it permanence and to keep it
that way. We often do not realize that this
task is only accomplished through the means
of form. (Ruder 2012, p183) This statement
strongly supports the set of books that was
created as the outcome for this project. There
are however concerns in these types of highly
designed books as the design can be argued
to be more intended for looking than for
reading, thus stripping the integrity of the
original text. Even though the line between
the two is fine and looking and reading share
more and more common characteristics,
there can be a danger in creating pure
decoration to frame the text, or even creating
a purely decorative object when approaching
design from such an extreme angle.
The books created through th is project
however are not purely decorative but serve
a distinct purpose and are fully considered
reactions to the text. When designing the
outcomes I had to be extremely aware that I am
only remediating the content and not trying
to make it pretty. Each detail was considered
in context and reflection to the text. The role
of the designer is not to satisfy ones own need
for creativity but to work resourcefully with
the content provided. In this project I chose
to approach design as an editor, selecting the
core concepts of the stor y to express. The story
is another persons creative material, not mine.
There are numerous works already created
in this field and the design approaches vary
from near invisible to extreme. One of the
books I found extremely related to my project
is Bloomfield an Elderly Bachelor written
by F. Kafka, designed by John Morgan and
published by 4 Corners Books. I even spoke
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to Richard Embray from 4 Corners Books
about this publication and discussed research
methods that were undergone for the design,
as well as reasons for the design choices
made. The book is heavily designed without
interference to the text and in fact aids reading
with its large margins, text si ze and ty peface.
The whole book is set in Walbaum, Kafkas
preferred typeface. Most of the book was in
fact created as a reaction to Kafkas design
preferences. After their extensive research at
the British Library, it turned out that Kafka
himself liked black books of a relatively small
format and large text and margins. He had a
clear preference for the typeface Walbaum and
it is even considered that he had written a short
story about it, drawing parallels to the shape
of its letters and the sturdy tree trunks in the
snow (R . Embray 2012, pers. Comm., 23 Sept.).
4 Corners Books - Blumfeld An Elderly Bachelor
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I N T H E P E N A L
C O L O N Y
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T h e s t o r y f e a t u r e s a s
a p r o t a g o n i s t a w o r l d l y
e x p l o r e r , t o w h o m s o m e
a m o u n t o f r e s p e c t a n dd i g n i t y i s a t t a c h e d . U p o n
h i s v i s i t t o t h e p e n a l c o l o n y
o f a n u n n a m e d i s l a n d ,
t h e e x p l o r e r m e e t s w i t h
a n o f f i c e r a t t h e c o l o n y se x e c u t i o n s i t e , d i r e c t l y
i n f r o n t o f t h e e x e c u t i o n
d e v i c e , o r a p p a r a t u s .
T h e o f f i c e r , o n e o f t h e
f e w r e m a i n i n g f o l l o w e r s o f t h e o l d C o m m a n d a n t , h a s
d e d i c a t e d h i m s e l f f u l l y
t o t h e r e i n s t a l l a t i o n o f
t h e f o r m e r , b u t c u r r e n t l y
d e j e c t e d , g l o r y k n o w n t o
t h e a p p a r a t u s a n d t h e o l d
C o m m a n d a n t s r e g i m e .T h e e x p l o r e r i s p r e s e n t
b e c a u s e i t i s h i s c h a r g e t o
a s s e s s t h e e x e c u t i o n s e t
t o t a k e p l a c e a n d t o d r a w
a c o n c l u s i o n c o n c e r n i n gt h e r e t e n t i o n o r r e j e c t i o n
o f t h e e x i s t e n t s y s t e m .
(McGee 2011)
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Af ter the extens ive research into book design,
book publishing, the future of the book and its
vi sual language, I dove in to Kafkas wor ld and
the novella I chose to work with. I initially read
In The Penal Colony once and went on to
also read other pieces by Kafka in order to get
a feel for his writing st yle, reoccurring themes
and distinctive tone. I also read some essays
about the authors life alongside numerous
analyses of my chosen novella. The essays
often concentrated on the themes underlying
the narrative and studied the detached Kafkas
style of writing and the possible reasons for it.
The stor y concentrates on the workings of
an intricate execution machine, referred to
as the apparatus. By piercing with needles,
It carves the sentence of a condemned person
into his skin over a course of twelve hours,
eventually killing him. During the first hour
the condemned goes on living as before. After
the sixth hour he enters a euphoric trance
and stops screaming from pain, accepting and
understanding his fate. He then concentrates
on deciphering the movement of the needle on
his body, as the sentence has not been disclosed
to him. The whole process of the execution is
said to be extremely beautiful and as a reader
you are made to feel this way too. Blood is
never visible as the skin is specially treated to
reduce bleeding and the wounds are constantly
cleaned using water from special tubes
attached next to every needle. (Kafka 1914)
McGee writes that the story incorporates a vast
array of religious, artistic, and philosophical
elements and the popular critical analysis
seems to be that the stor y is allegorical, where
the old Commandant represents either the
God of the Old Testament, those that subscribe
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whol ly to the Old Testament but not the New
Testament, or something else related di rect ly
to the Old Testament. (Fear and Trembling
in the Penal Colony by Kyle McGee)
I had drawn extremely similar conclusions
from the text myself upon first reading it.
One of the strongest ideas in the text is the
similarity between the Commandants and the
Old and New Testaments. I believe the book is
a heavy, yet subtle statement against religion.
It takes into consideration the poeticness
and beauty of religion and existence of god,
but still refutes it. This is supported all the
more as Kafka himself was an atheist, in
a time when atheism was a minority and
outspoken criticism of religion was frowned
upon. It was only in the latter half of the
20th century when atheism was given more
support through free thinking Philosophers
such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Marx
and Friedrich Nietzsche (Alun 2003).
The stor y defies logic with comple te
conviction, and yet it also seems strangely
familiar. Many similar acts and styles of
torture have been and in some place still are
carried out, many of them as a part of religious
ceremonies or rituals. I wanted to read the
story over and over. I found it disturbing
that, against all logic I was drawn to the
novella and ended up sympathizing with the
cruel officer who enjoys torturing and killing
people. Although I could not agree or support
his actions, I sympathized and saw the artistic
va lue of it simi larly to the Travel ler in the
story. The officer believes his machine and the
torture it carries out to be of great beauty
a precious act that the condemned are even
lucky enough to experience. When he learns
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that the influential outsider, the Traveller,
does not support his actions I nearly cry,
feeling the beauty and impact of what he is
denied. There are no rules in Kafkas world
and I had a lot to learn from him. I had to
learn to have nerve, fearlessness and most
of all calm. His writing demonstrates that
there is no need for complexity as simplicity
and minimalisation can say even more.
Kafkas writing style became an inspiration
and a role model for me in its own right.
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P R A C T I C A L
W O R K
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S T O R Y
A N A L Y S I S
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i t k e e p s m a k i n g t h e
i n s c r i p t i o n d e e p e r f o r
t w e l v e h o u r s . F o r t h e f i r s t
s i x h o u r s t h e c o n d e m n e dm a n g o e s o n l i v i n g a l m o s t
a s b e f o r e . H e s u f f e r s
n o t h i n g b u t p a i n . A f t e r
t w o h o u r s , t h e f e l t i s
r e m o v e d , f o r a t t h a t p o i n tt h e m a n h a s n o m o r e
e n e r g y f o r s c r e a m i n g .
(Kafka 1924, p.11)
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To start on the process of design, I first reread
the novel and made mind maps for different
aspects of the story. I wanted to get a clearer
Idea the main thing I needed to communicate.
Al l the research I had undergone made me too
fearful to actually start experimenting and all
ideas I had seemed to disrespect the author
or the text. I didnt want to do anything to
distract from the text and only wished to
create the perfect crystal goblet that would
confide with the positions B. Warde had
put forth. Warde 1955, p.94). Even reviews
on experimental book design I had read
scared me, paralyzed me and left me unable
to start the design process. Reading essays
by J. Tshichold, B. Warde and E. Lupton
made me feel like experimental design, and
any distraction from the text was not worth
embarking on. However I later decided that
I needed to take advice from B. Mau and
begin anywhere, as this might be my last
chance for freedom in experimentation. I
have always felt that the university is a place
for experimentation, fun and seeing what
happens without worrying of failure. It is an
opportunity to work and explore problems
that arise and s earching for solutions. In order
to ask questions a problem needs to be found.
The way I ended up approaching the so lution
for my major project does not compete with
the text but merely remediates it, similarly
to how a filmmaker or theatre director
carry out with a given narrative. It is not
trying to be the same text. The novel is
great, modern, minimalist, horrifying and
calm at the same time. I decided the design
of my book should reflect all of that. The
design reflects the authors intention. I am
merely a translator of the words into form.
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Though the resu lt might seem expressive,
it is in fact a purely rational analysis of the
text. Each detail is considered with great
care and detail in relation to the novella.
I did extensive research into the biblical
themes of the novella, as they are a prominent
part of the story. I researched the history of
flagellation, mortification and other inflicted
pain as part of religious rituals. I also read
about different execution and torture devices
not as directly associated with religion. Torture
and burning of witches, hanging, drawing and
quartering and other forms of torture and
execution were all still justified and supported
by religions. As in In The Penal Colony
crowds, including children would gather to see
the horrific executions, cheering and clapping,
enjoying the cruel justice being served. Slow
slicing or Lingchi is a method of torture
that I found to be the closest to the way of
execution described in in the Penal Colony.
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E X P E R I M E N T A T I O N
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In unit 2 I had started from the simplest
experiments I could think of. The first thing I
did was set the whole text on one spread and
only leave the most integral words for reading
the story. I looked at blocking out the text and
looking at it as a form as well as reorganizing
the text by character actions. After these qu ick
experiments I abandoned the approach, as I
didnt see it taking a valuable direction. I did
however uncover some interesting aspects
about the writing style through this method.
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I then did simple interventions into the
typography by overlaying it twice and shifting
it slightly, achieving discomfort for the
reader, similarly to what the story itself does.
From these experiments I produced my unit
2 submission. The version was subtle with its
intervention. The simply set text subtly, nearly
unnoticeably turned from black to bright red,
symbolizing the gore and simplicit y of the story.
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Af ter unit 2 I concentrated on research,
much of which I have already talked about. I
attempted to look at the story from a different
angle, dropping the themes of blood and
concentrating on the body and skin. Theseideas were also dropped ver y rapidly as I didnt
see how to take this further and realized that
I was overcomplicating the ideas and should
return to the more obvious themes of the
novella, turning back to the topic of blood and
hoping to also integrate the religious aspects
into the experimentation. I tried smudging
text on a page, paper marbling, dipping paper
into red ink and simply letting ink seep
through pages of a book. After conducting
these experiments I felt in contradiction with
what I felt towards the novella. It was neither
gory nor scary. It was detached and subtle.
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I stepped away from blood and gore and
wanted to find a simpler and cl eaner
approach. This is when I stopped creating,
being too uncomfortable with any ideas I had.
I thought of creating a book in the form of abible that reflects on the minimization of the
story by having only a few sentences per page,
following the rhythm of reading, and having
the rest of the page covered in holes. I soon
realized this was once again overcomplicating
a simple idea. This is however the ideafrom which the outcomes then followed.
I k d ll d d f l l k I f h f h
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I kept dropping all my ideas and felt like I
was star ting from scra tch ever y time. At the
London Book Art Fair I saw a book about
Lucio Fontana and his art philosophy of
specialism. I got excited by these ideas andwent on to experiment by making cuts , holes
and piercings in books. Again, something was
not completely right but there seemed to be
some rough integrity in the coarsely pierced
booklet. I realized that the machine in the
novella is not making holes into the skin of thecondemned but small piercings, and this was
exactly why the latter experiment felt more
successful than any of the others. Still uncertain
of what the outcome might be, I nonetheless
still wanted to test making holes in Bibles in
va rious ways using circular saws and different
sized drills. Though interesting outcomes,
they were less fitting with the narrative and
were abandoned. I had found the main idea
for the outcome of the project - piercing.
I ill f l i d b l i ll
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I still felt unconvinced by leaving all text out
of a book and experimented by underlining
with pierced holes to restate the import ance of
the text. I used a needle pointed tracing wheel
generally used for pattern making to realizethis and even though I managed to achieve a
relatively precise outcome, it was impossible
to control with accuracy. For this experiment
I also opted for subtle color to emphasize that
the story, generally considered horror, was in
fact somehow quite light in feel. I also usedBible paper to reference the Biblical themes.
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4
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R E M E D I A T I O N
R E S O L U T I O N
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R E S O L U T I O N
I now felt confident that the approach of The remediat ion I created is designed as
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I now felt confident that the approach of
piercing and treating the book as a human body
is treated in the story was the right one for the
resolution. I created a complete remediation
of the textural narrative into the pure formof the book. The outcome demonstrates how
far graphic intervention can go in order to
add greater depth to a story, a counter act
against electronic books and more modern
forms of communication. The remediation
in this way tells the reader or viewer the corestory using the form of the book as a form of
expression and separate medium of its own.
The body of each book is treated like the
human body. Each book represents one hour
of the work of the execution machine or theapparatus, and in fact also took about one
hour to pierce. I took on the role of the officer
in operating the machine with artis tic integrity.
The remediat ion I created is designed as
twelve books, shaped to look like bibles to
demonstrate the strong religious depictions
within the book that the stor y hinges on.
Each book portrays every passing hour thatthe condemned suffer. The first six books
contain thicker paper than the last six to
demonstrate the change in the condemned
mans thoughts, as he eventually accepts
his fate mid way through the process.
I believe I have succeeded in using graphic
design intervention in depicting the
narrative text of In Penal Colony into the
form of the book, expressing the minimalist
qualities of the third person narrative,
the method of the machine that lies atthe heart of the story and the religious
allegories that appear all throughout the text.
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M A K I N G O F
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M A K I N G O F
I created a bed of nails that I intended to press
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p
into books to create my outcome. However the
experiment didnt work as intended and I was
unable to find a press that would be able to
push the nails deep into the book, or even away to take the na ils out. It is nevertheless
an interesting looking piece that could
even work well on its own. I realized that
the piercings had to be created one by one.
I then adapted a drilling machine, in a sense
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p g
recreating the execution apparatus from the
novella. Instead of a drill I put in a needle
that was thick enough to not snap when being
pushed into the body of the book. The machinedidnt require being turned on, as I didnt need
a spinning needle, but I used the handle for
accuracy and force of piercing. I created a grid
for the book to be used for all twelve of them
in order to get the place of the piercings exact
each time. The twelve hours of the working ofthe machine were divided by the thickness of
the books, and so the needle was pushed in 1,5
mm deeper for each book. As in the story, the
first hour leaves the body nearly as before, but
by the 12th hour the person is killed and to
show this in the form of the book this is whenthe needle goes through the book completely.
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5
C O N C L U S I O N
I wanted to retell the story the author and truly visual side using the form of the
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had intended by using a different media
but at the same time keeping it within
the media of the traditional printed book.
I feel that what the reader, or more literally
viewer, can get from this book largely depends
on the attention they decide to dedicate
to it as an object and how much effort they
wish to put in to it to decipher what I and,
from research, others find to be the strongestideas and meanings within the story In
The Penal Colony . As this is now a mixed
media of sorts it allows the remediation
to be appreciated on many different levels.
The piece I have created is a stand on theimportance and possibilities of the printed
book against all that is lost with its electronic
counterpart. It is able to express the tangible
book to express meaning conveyed within the
text, making it an object of desire and value
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