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news the periodical

Material Conditions: Epilogue

Last December we published Material Conditions, a set of eight commissioned books exploring what it means and takes to be a professional creative practitioner. Inspired by the title of a behind-the-scenes blog post which followed, we’ve added a new chapter to the series, continuing a discussion which seems ever more relevant in the current climate.

Material Conditions: Epilogue is both a companion to those books – for those who read it, for the artists involved – and, as a pleasant paradox, an introduction for those who are not familiar with them. Five of the original contributors – Sarah Butler, Jane Prophet, Karla Brunet, Janet Owen Driggs & Jules Rochielle and Ruth Maclennan – have created new pieces for this publication, as they look back on the series, reflecting on their book and those by the other artists. Far from mere commentary, these responses are works in their own right, and are as poetic and profound as the initial eight books.

It’s also the first publication to launch the Periodical, to suggest the kind of iterative and experimental forms we hope to see being made and shared with bookleteer. As Giles stated eloquently in his ‘manifesto of sorts’, we’re striving for publishing as conversation; despite the finality of its title, this book can be seen as only the most recent part of a process. Here’s hoping for more.

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news

ARCHIZINES World Tour – New Dates for Autumn

The ARCHIZINES World Tour is continuing its traversal of the globe, with added dates for Autumn. This collection of independent architecture zines, journals and magazines from around the world, curated by Elias Redstone, and featuring a publication from our very own City As Material, will be on show in various countries over the following weeks. Check the schedule for venues and dates.

The ARCHIZINES collection at Storefront for Art and Architecture in NYC.

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news

More recently printed books

Here’s two more books created with bookleteer which have recently been published with our Short Run Printing service.

‘We Are All Food Critics: The Reviews’ was printed for Soho Parish Primary School, so that every child who wrote a review for the Soho Food Feast 2012 could have their own copy and show off their contribution to this beaut of a book. Read more about it here.

‘Don’t Stare At Me’ is a touching book created by Joyce Majiski, documenting a community art project she and Julie Robinson undertook with the Yukon Association for Community Living’s Ynklude group.

Don’t forget: we’ve just slashed the cost of A6 printed books between 30%-50%, and our minimum print run is now just 25 copies. Keep at it bookleteers!

Categories
inspiration

Shi Cheng: Short Stories from Urban China

Shi Cheng: Short Stories from Urban China, recently published by Comma Press, gathers ten fictions by writers from cities of varying affluence, nature and distance in contemporary China, not to mention the varying styles of prose and stances of the protagonists.

Dispelling the naive notion of a vast land of unified thinking, Shi Cheng (“ten cities”) tells not the comprehensive biographies of each city, but zooms in further, allowing the reader to connect with individual voices on an almost cellular level. Yet, as the editors suggest, when looking this close it’s possible that we can all relate to the universal human themes.

The stories collected here give a rich sense of the environments and their impact on modern men and women. Acting as cultural antennae, they send back vibrations of what life might be like for those in such places – alluring whispers of real lives. Keep a keen eye out for more from Comma Press.
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news

Soho Food Feast: We Are All Food Critics – The Reviews

In May, Proboscis supported the children of Soho Parish Primary School at this year’s Soho Food Feast – a community fundraising event held for the school at which many of London’s celebrated chefs and restaurants provided signature dishes to raise money.

We designed a special eNotebook alongside Fay Maschler, Restaurant Critic of the London Evening Standard, encouraging the children to become food critics and experience the food through all of the five senses. After the event we scanned their reviews and made a sample selection to be published in a compilation eBook (using our Short Run Printing Service) which has forewords from both Rachel Earnshaw (Head Teacher) and Fay. Take a look at the bookreader version below.

Everyone’s already looking forward to next year’s Food Feast and more budding food critics!

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events

The Haunter Field Trip

The other week we fled London for serene, sunny Dorchester, joining Tim Wright and Joe Flintham, as well as a handful of intrepid walkers eager to try out The Haunter box they have developed.

Enamoured with the surroundings and bewitched by the box, we followed the routes Tim had set for the day. Walking, talking, and reciting Hardy’s poems from the handy booklet Giles had created, we were struck by how much the box can change the way you engage with the landscape, and the pace and manner in which you travel through it. There’s a grand charm to bearing its burden – carrying the physical weight, as if a stone ferried from the base of a hill to a cairn, and the weight of its words, surrendering to how Hardy saw the world in his mournful state.

The box is just a prototype at the moment, but Tim and Joe are planning to add several more features and capabilities. I can’t wait to clasp it tight once more and be led through the land. In the meantime, we’re thinking of what we will create from the experience and the subsequent discussions, to form part of our City As Material series.

Tim has written an account, and uploaded a host of videos and sounds recorded from the day on his site, which should enlighten and entertain in equal measure. Here’s a teaser…

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news

Recently printed books

Greetings, bookleteers. Thought you might like to see two books which have been published recently using our Short Run Printing Service.

Axis Design Architects have used bookleteer once again, this time for ‘Community Consultation & Neighbourhood Planning’, which showcases their work with residents during design processes (they even mention using our blank Storycubes during workshops!) as well as ‘BIM and the Affordable Passivhaus’, detailing a recent collaborative project.

Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination have also created this lovely book, entitled ’37 Shadows: Listening to children’s stories from the woods’ – a collection of stories gathered from class trips to a local park.

If you’re thinking of using bookleteer to create your own books, we’ve just slashed the cost of A6 printed books between 30%-50%, and our minimum print run is now just 25 copies. Check out the price estimator to see how much it would cost you. Get cracking!

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events news

City as Material x The Haunter – Tuesday 19th June

For our next City As Material venture, we will be working with Tim Wright on his new digital public art project The Haunter, inspired by Thomas Hardy’s ‘Poems of 1912/13′, enacted 100 years after Hardy wrote his famous sequence of verses mourning the death of his first wife, Emma.

Participants will embark on walks along a specific route with a crafted wooden box, embedded with smart technology, ‘haunted’ by the legacy of Hardy’s poems. Able to speak, play recordings of poems, conversations and music, capture sounds and react dynamically using geolocation, the box will enhance and document their experiences.

On Tuesday 19th June we’ll be joining Tim and box developer Joe Flintham (amongst others) in Dorchester to try it out in the field – a day of ‘recording, beta testing, walking and talking’ – forming a book (or series of books) on what happened, ideas discussed, and creative responses to the walk.

For a detailed description of the day, check here – it would be great if you could join us.

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publishing on demand

Your Stories… So Far

To coincide with our recent price reductions for A6 Short Run printed books, and lower minimum print run of just 25 copies, we are offering 50 books for the price of 25 for anyone wanting to make and print their own pocket portfolio, using the discount code “PORTFOLIO2012″.

Giles showcased two great examples of bookleteer portfolios in an earlier post; here’s another.

The unique and much-loved theatre company Cartoon de Salvo (currently enjoying major acclaim after their recent shows Made Up at the Soho Theatre and The Irish Giant at Southwark Playhouse) used bookleteer to create The Stories So Far, an ebook of photos celebrating their production history:

They’ve also used bookleteer to document their Hard Hearted Hannah series of improvised stage stories, which you can read on Diffusion here.

Categories
news

Professor Starling’s Thetford-London-Oxford Expedition

We’ve just published our latest entry in the City As Material series: ‘Professor Starling’s Thetford-London-Oxford Expedition’ – three books documenting the investigative excursions of Professor William Starling and his research team (Lisa Hirmer and Andrew Hunter of DodoLab, Josephine Mills of the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Lethbridge artist Leila Armstrong, and Giles Lane and Hazem Tagiuri of Proboscis) during his trip to the United Kingdom in Feburary, where he sought to examine the rapid disappearance of the European Starling in contrast to the continued expansion of its North American cousin.

The first volume, Perquisitions, contains descriptions of the various participants’ thoughts on the expedition and its rationale. Congeries showcases selected items and ideas collected during their travels, and the final volume, Speculations, offers reflections and fantastical musings on the material gathered and testimonies heard.

Purchase a limited edition copy complete with specially printed ribbon here.

(Read the accounts of Thetford, London and Oxford on the blog)