The Structure of the Virtual Book

Interactive CD-ROMs and hyperlinked multimedia networked art have a lot in common with earlier art forms. One such artform that is changing how the computer is utilized is the artist book. Artist books bring together many diverse elements including cinematic effects, storytelling, text, sequencing, conceptual ideas and traditional processes. Here I will show how computer art and artist books are linked and some works that blend the meaning of traditional artist books into the computer age.

Artist books have been popular for many artists as a grass roots method of bypassing the gallery and museums and makeing work accessible to a wider audience. An artist book is not solely a book that is made by an artist, or a collection of images by an artist. An artist book is an object that deals with or extends the function of a book. A book provides a reading and sequence of images, words and other conceptual ideas. Artist books extend upon this reading and create new ideas or structures to question or comment our traditional notions about books.

William Blake is considered by some to be the first book artist. Blake, trained as an engraver, had little other formal education. As both an artist and craftsperson he found it impossible to have his work printed through a publisher. Publishers couldn't believe he could be both an engraver and an artist. Blake began his first book There is No Natural Religions and All Religions are One at age 30 and proceeded to self-publish for many years.

Self-publishing allowed Blake to make his poetry, art and craftsmanship available for a presumably larger audience. For aspiring book artist self publishing is the means of taking their art or message to the "public". In reality "the public" is mainly a small section of the art world that is already familiar with artist' books. Blake's best seller Songs of Innocence and of Experience sold only thirty copies in thirty-five years.

One aspect that has changed in artist books but hasn't in traditional books is how text is used. For five hundred years the text block has dominated the book. Text which is fancy or decorative is frowned upon since it distracts from the essence of the words. One reason for this is that type was set by hand and fancy styles were delicate and hard to print. The text block made it difficult for images to be incorporated into the text. Images were printed on separate pages that set it away from the words. Because of the expense of printing both text and images which required different presses, Blake created his own process for printing. He used a resist to make his drawings and write his text together on a thin copper plate. This was then thinly etched to retain the small detail in his drawings and to allow him to use both sides of the copper plate, then printed on his press.

Other examples of how artists use text in artists' books include Paul Zelevansky's The Case for the Burial of Ancestors which uses rubber stamps, stenciled text and images. Johanna Drucker uses text as a visual character by itself. Keith Smith's book #120, Text in the Book Format details many possible uses for text. Text overlaps where pages are cut different lengths so that an image of text is read in combination with the image on the next page.

Space is also an issue. How does the artist use the page as picture plane to display the text? Bonnie Gordon's book, The Anatomy of the Image-Maps merges definitions with a photograph of a man. The text and image are stretched and combined together to symbolize the roots of our language. The computer has made text much more malleable than ever before. Before Gutenberg, all texts were handwritten. With movable type came the education of the civilized world. Computer type artists are now using the computer to duplicate the feel and look of the monks' handwriting taking publishing in a full circle back to its origins.

Artist books also question our traditional understanding of the book through visual processes. In a book that is primarily images, sequencing, juxtaposition, page structure, tactile qualities and even blank pages all play a part in the realization of the concept. Willyum Rowe's "Nurse Duck", is a purely narrative book using a cartoon style lead character, bright colors, a path like narrative and clip art images to lead us through the history of the world and beyond. Nurse Duck's path is like the mouse path through a linear computer piece. One can stop to look at the sights but must keep going to the end. Sonya Rapoport's book "The Animated Soul" uses "computer-like" icons at the edges of the page to allow the viewer to flip and refer to other sections or to structure your own story through the book. She also has a hypermedia version that is often used in installations of the work. Hypermedia is an outgrowth of hypertext, which is a concept originally conceived by Vannevar Bush. Bush was President Roosevelt's science advisor, and in 1945 was given the job of organizing and distributing scientific knowledge gained during the war. He envisioned a device he called the memex, which was a book composed of microfilm pages. This could store all of a personŐs records, books and letters, and would be mechanized and indexed so that a pathway of connections, or "links" could be made to supplement the mind.

Another artist using hypermedia is Tennessee Rice Dixon. Originally she produced "Scrutiny in the Great Round" as an artist book. Handmade with only a limited edition of l5, Dixon's imagery is delicate and intricate using photocopier, collage, watercolor and drawings. Her CD-ROM is an outgrowth of this, adding many layers of imagery to her book pages which act as the starting point for a new reading. As you move the mouse through her work, the icons change to clue you into the path that this avenue might take.

Another way of linking information together in the book form is through its binding. Most of us think about a book as having a cover linked to the pages by glue or binding down the left side. This is called the western codex. Many book artist explore theme and story through other styles of book making. Ann Chamberlain uses a dos-a-dos format for her book "Family Album / Album Familiar". Dos-a-dos is a book which is bound on both sides and shares a back cover. They look like a french door. In Chamberlain's book, the format is used to address issues of family identity; one side has picture of father while the other has pictures of mother. The pages can be read in different orders: reading all of the right side pages first, reading alternately left and right, or reading in any other order.

Another style of binding is not really a binding at all; these are fold books. The accordion fold is a continuous folded book that carries the reader through single pages and groups of pages stretching out the images into one field. Nancy O'Banion and Julie Chen use the accordion fold to make rooms or spaces for their book, "Domestic Science." Their book also uses mechanical pop up structures and icons sewn to extra fold pages. The structural magic that "pop up mechanics" bring to a book helps link it to other mergers and readings. The following are some other creative uses for pop-up structures in books: Anecdote of the Jar, by Clifton Meador; ABC, by Hyde Kyle; and In and Out: A Marble Book, by Richard McClintock. These books don't necessarily use the computer in their construction, but I think their linking structures share ground with hypermedia.

Yet another interesting fold structure is the throwout book. Scott McCarney has used this structure for his book SEE/HEAR/SPEAK/FEAR which was created on the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights. This book includes scanned and superimposed imagery of Jesse Helms and gay pornography. Margot Lovejoy uses fold out pages in her book Labyrinth to involve the viewer in a multi path-story, just like the maze in a labyrinth. Her engaging images are computer retouched and collaged. They originally started as a multi-media projected installation.

The book also functions as installation work. In Karen Wirth and Robert Lawrence's work How to make an Antique, the book is an integral part of the installation, which is composed of text, computer imagery, a monitor and continuous loop video tape. Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese use video monitors inside their books, incorporating the media most used by today's population. Bible Belt portrays televangelists as if they were high pressure salesmen. Peter Sramek's work In Search of Paradise, incorporates audio by the inclusion of a cassette in a book and as part of the installation. Books can even occupy the whole gallery, as in Alison Knowles' The Technological Oak Tree which has eight 96 x 48 inch pages. The book was a self contained living space with kitchen, bed, tables and chairs between its pages.