Coincidentally, this morning we’ve been developing our proposal for a digital “sketching tool” for collaborative book production, using content gathered from events such as City As Material. This will allow participants to aggregate and curate content from different sources, annotate and tag via themes, then automatically produce draft eBooks for shared discourse and the exchange of ideas, fostering interesting discoveries which will inform later publications.

Archizines Live starts at 8pm in the tunnel entrance, but is just one of many features of the night, this month focusing on “contemporary graphics, typography and illustration through the lens of independent publishing”. Come along!

Aside from the obvious wealth of interesting content, particularly relevant to City As Material, I think this could act as a valuable resource of inspiration and how-to knowledge for those wanting to create their own publications, thanks to the level of detail attributed to each exhibit – I can only hope more archives like this are compiled in the future.

Image by Sue Barr

]]> http://bookleteer.com/blog/2011/11/archi-zines/feed/ 0 http://bookleteer.com/blog/2011/09/london-art-book-fair-picks/ http://bookleteer.com/blog/2011/09/london-art-book-fair-picks/#comments Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:32:14 +0000 hazemtagiuri http://bookleteer.com/blog/?p=5022 I paid a visit to the London Art Book Fair last Saturday at the Whitechapel Gallery, and have finally got around to writing a brief piece about it now – we’ve been swamped in the studio.

Along with large publishing houses, the fair played host to a number of small publishers and unique handcrafted artists’ books. A few of my picks…

Ruth Martin‘s charming fold-out creations.

Vicoria Browne’s (founder of Kaleid Editions) amazing sculptural pop-up book, ‘Dark Matter’.

This interesting cork cover from a/b Books (artist unknown).

Apologies for the meagre amount of photos – after taking a handful, I discovered photography was apparently FORBIDDEN. Bah.

“THE BRISTOL COMIC AND ZINE FAIR

When: Sunday 25th September 2011, 12pm – 6pm
Where: Start the Bus, 7-9 Baldwin Street, Bristol, BS1 1RU (map)

FREE ENTRY

The Bristol Comic and Zine Fair brings UK self-publishers together for a one-day market, offering a wide array of comix, zines and other alternative publications. There will be stalls from individual creators, and a communal table full of work from across the small-press underground.”

It’s run by Bear Pit Zine, who describe issue 1, “Upheaval” as a “collection of comics, narrating various disruptive possibilities, imaginations, and alternative futures for the city of Bristol.” This strikes a chord with the sort of themes Proboscis have explored in the past, and aim to do in the future. I’ve just ordered a copy, as we visited Bristol as part of the City As Material series – it’ll be interesting to see an insider perspective.

There’s also…

THE SHEFFIELD ZINE FAIR, at Brezza, 10-14 Wellington Street, Sheffield, S1 4HD, from 11am to 6pm. Get in touch via sheffieldzinefair@hotmail.co.uk.

This couldn’t be more true for anyone viewing Ying-Chieh Liu’s reprinted sketchbooks, containing stunning, ethereal illustrations from her numerous travels. It’s an interesting concept to reproduce a personal sketchbook (in I assume, its raw form), without interpretation or much of a narrative, but when they contain such intriguing artwork it’s hard not to be engrossed.

View her Etsy store.

An offshoot of City As Material, Sketches In The City is an occasional series of observational expeditions in various locations across the capital. Mandy, Radhika and I sketch, take photographs and write poems and prose to form a collaborative eBook with underlying themes. Focusing mainly on people and interactions in public places – places that shape, and are in turn shaped, by the people in them – we’ve produced two books so far, and are working on a third.

Sketches In The City was our first attempt, created as a result of visiting the busy Victoria and Waterloo train stations – places which reveal an interesting insight of the human character when bored or stressed. Highlighting the material we collected on the day, this tidy scrapbook was an playful experiment with little interpretation or narrative, letting us take the time to view hectic environments from a different perspective than usual and refine our creative processes.

Sketches In The City: British Museum showcase the unique architecture and exhibits in the British Museum, looking at how visitors observe and interact with them and one another, as well as their grasp on the intangible knowledge that exists amongst that which we can see and touch.

Read them on Diffusion.

You can view a preview here. To get a copy (assuming she hasn’t run out, which wouldn’t surprise me) e-mail her at helenvine@homail.co.uk.

It’s available here.

Its a beautifully surreal and cinematic illustrative zine, making use of double spreads to convey an amazing and disorientating sense of perspective. I love the bizarre imagery and the shading – it’s like a dream (or nightmare) rendered in a book.

It’s available to order here.

Alexandra had suggested visiting the 4D Model Shop round the corner, to pick up some materials to work with along the walk. After acquiring  some unusual knick knacks, including miniature models of Barack Obama and the first lady, and a polystyrene egg (clearly novelty triumphs over practicality every time), we set off.

We were particularly interested in hidden flows in the city, and the alternative uses of the networks that these travel within. Alexandra speculated over what would become of BT’s phone lines in the future, once technology had outgrown their capability. Giles explained the history behind manhole and coal covers, and the abandoned infrastructures London rests upon. Our walk took us through side streets some of us had never traveled through, and the slow pace highlighted quirky features dotted around the city that are ignored in frantic daily routines.

During lunch, we fiddled around with our bounty from 4D, and after Alexandra experimented with using different props she had made against the backdrop of the Barbican, a place containing vast expanses, though also riddled with unusual nooks and crannies.

Once at the studio, we started to form the eBook, sketching the layout and deciding how the materials we had gathered during the day could work within our theme. We are in the process of creating it, so look out for the Underside eBook on Diffusion soon, and keep track of the discussion online with the #cityasmaterial hash tag on Twitter. You can view all our photos from the event on the City As Material Flickr page.

Our final Pitch In & Publish: City As Material event, “Sonic Geographies” is on the 10th of December. Book a place here.

It’s available here.

The use of purely primary colours lends a really nice uniformity and iconic tone to this zine; it’s quite visually arresting. I’m looking forward to seeing what Ryan creates next.  “Another Way” is available here.

These zines are tiny – no larger than a 10¢ piece. Apparently these are the smaller versions of Stephanie’s original Hamburger zine.

It would be great to create similar things by publishing an eBook with various ingredients that just need to be cut out and coloured in, then assembled. A cookbook for paper food – each page a different dish!

Stephanie’s burger zines are available here.

Another zine by Anthony, “theBLUEbits”, works in a similar idea; this time sticking hand cut pieces of blue paper with the images.

These have got me thinking about how easy it would be to make similar zines with bookleteer. Readers could download the base eBook, then customise it with their own materials, or a separate downloadable sheet with pre-designed shapes. Pop-up zines could also be created, in the same way that Mandy’s Tangled Threads eBook had a page with cut-out inserts and instructions. Swapping these around with other readers would be great, to see how many variations on a single template could be found.

Both zines are available here.

]]> http://bookleteer.com/blog/2010/10/le-dot-zine/feed/ 0 http://bookleteer.com/blog/2010/10/pitch-in-publish-streetscapes/ http://bookleteer.com/blog/2010/10/pitch-in-publish-streetscapes/#comments Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:20:58 +0000 hazemtagiuri http://bookleteer.com/blog/?p=2887 Last Friday we had our first Pitch In & Publish: City As Material session at the Proboscis studio, “Streetscapes”. In attendance were Giles Lane, Tim Wright, Anne Lydiat, Fred Garnett, David Jennings and myself. After some introductions and hearing participants particular interests, we started pitching, planning what we would like to see in our collaborative publication. Many ideas were inspired by personal projects, but the group soon gave birth to to some new, exciting concepts, (as well as a debate about when the first pineapple was grown in Britain) and after a brief interval of lunch to refuel, we set off to wander through the City.

From Smithfield we walked through Charterhouse Square, onto Aldersgate, and then into the Golden Lane estate. We must have resembled a tourist group; eyes skyward as the history of our surroundings was recounted by those who had tales to tell. By accident we stumbled across an unusual circular space, at odds with the towers of the estate. A haven to rest and exchange stories, we soon discovered the unusual acoustics of the circle, and formed a ring in the centre to test them. Tim recorded this unusual ritual, which you can view here, and David has also posted an audio clip, which you can listen to here.

We then headed through the Barbican, and into Postmans Park to read the plaques that form the “Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice”, poignant tributes to those that have died attempting to save others. This was an amazing place, one I had never visited before, and it served as a perfect end to our expedition.

Once back at the studio, and after numerous teas, coffees and fig rolls, we started to form our publication. We decided the brick circle in the middle of Golden Lane estate, which we deemed the “Unplace”, would be our focus – the eBook chronicling our journey there, and our experience within. Thus, the “Unbook of Disappropriation: Situated Moments From The City” was created. We liked the concept that this eBook would not just be inspired by the city, but that we would add to it as well, so we included a blank page for readers to write down their own experiences of the Unplace, then tear it out and leave it someone else. There is also a City As Material group on Flickr, and two hashtags on Twitter -  one general – #cityasmaterial, and one for Streetscapes – #ddiof, so we can continue the discussion.

Our next Pitch In & Publish: City As Material event, on the 29th of October, will be based on the theme of “River”, and our special guest will be Ben Eastop. Book a place here.