The artist's book : process, chance and activism

Abstract

As an art form the artist's book inhabits an uncertain status sited between language, sign, image and object. It is because of its characteristic ambiguity that I have made it the subject of my research and intellectual enquiry for this exegesis. Although my studio practice has often entailed working with images and language, it was through further research that my work took on a different context and with time became precursors for books. This study explores the development of the new work with its emphasis on process. The books that resulted were deconstructed fragments from a larger work on paper. These emphasised an interrupted and changed narrative and the potential for an alternative reading and interpretation. In order to establish a historical context for my studio research, this exegesis examines the concepts of chance, process and activism. These specific subject areas are central to the charged but intermittent historical trajectory of the artist's book. The influential legacies of both William Blake and Stephane Mallarme are discussed, as is the role of the Russian and Italian Futurists and their instigation of the artist's book as a voice of protest during the social and political unrest at the beginning of the last century. Within a Contemporary context an exploration of the works of John Cage, Ed Ruscha and Robert Rooney represent three diverse approaches to the artist's book. All of these artists and writers have, in various ways prompted me to think about the very nature of reading and its meaning. The results of my enquiries are recorded in the following chapters.