1. Cosmo China: 20th Anniversary Exhibition by Josie Firmin (2010)
2. It’s Nice to Make by Mah Rana (2013)
3. The UK Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef How-To booklet by Crafts Council (2011)
4. No Words by David Key (2006)
5. Whisker: Issue Two by Hazem Tagiuri et al (2013)
6. The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649) & Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (2000) by Gerard Winstanley et al & the EU (2015)
7. Knowing Where You Are by Sarah Butler (2011)

1. Reflections on the city from a post-flâneur by Ruth Maclennan (2011)
2. Le Corbeau / The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe tr. Stéphane Mallarmé (1875/2009)
3. Atomic Scientists News by Gair Dunlop (2014)
4. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729/2008)
5. Sole Rights by Roshini Kempadoo (2002)
6. I Feel Different by LACE (2009)
7. Tales of Things: Objects, Stories & Voices from the BME Communities in Greenwich by Chris Speed et al (2010)

1. The Octuplet: Story of Our Lives by Babette Wagenvoort (2009)
2. The Island Bell by Katherine Meynell (2000)
3. Pride Of The Moor – a song to Dartmoor’s tin by Jim Causley & Simon Pope (2010)
4. Marseille Mix – turn down the heat by William Firebrace (2008)
5. The Petition of Right (1628), Grand Remonstrance (1641) & Charter88 (1988) by various (2015)
6. Canyon Flow by Joyce Majiski & Zea Morvitz (2014)
7. A London Childhood 1926-1939 by Henry Long (2014)

1. H2O by Alejandra Canales, Anne Ransquin & Juan F. Salazar (2009)
2. An Agreement of the Free People of England (1649) & The People’s Charter (1838) by John Lilburne et al & The Chartists (2015)
3. The Anthropofferjist Charles Dickens: “Wapping Ghost Ship” by Steve Beard (2002)
4. Code by Gair Dunlop (2012)
5. Sea Shanties collated by Francis McKee (2008).
6. He Who Sleeps Dines by London Fieldworks (Bruce Gilchsrist & Jo Joelson, 2011)
7. The Thetford Travelling Menagerie by DodoLab (Andrew Hunter & Lisa Hirmer, 2011)

1. The Fact of the Matter by Anne Tallentire & Monica Ross (2000)
2. Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein – 4 books (1914/2008)
3. Play Guide – Outside The Box by Proboscis (2013)
4. Phantom Shifts: Performance Notations by Aaron Williamson (2000)
5. Recollections of Geo. Benford & O’Shea by Alf & Nance Wood (2014)
6. Landscape 3 Acts: Return • Dispersal • Circulation by Kathryn Yusoff (2006)
7. The New Wizard of the West by Chauncy Montgomery M’Govern (1899/2013)

1. River Gap by Ben Eastop (2011)
2. State of the Union by Robert Ransick (2009)
3. Landscapes In Dialogue: reflections by Alice Angus (2010)
4. A Manual for Maverick Machines by Karen Martin (2007)
5. – – – – by Michael Atavar (2002)
6. The Show by desperate optimists (2011)
7. Skyline & Sightlines by Simon Pope (2011)

1. Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776/2008)
2. Hard Hearted Hannah: Classics from Nowhere (Part 1 of 6) by Cartoon de Salvo (2010)
3. The 36 Stratagems by anonymous (c.1600s/2009)
4. Seven Days in Seven Dials: A Week in the Life of London’s Cultural Quarters (1 of 3) by Dan Thompson et al (2010)
5. Remix Reconvex Reconvexo by Karla Brunet (2010)
6. Towards Psychonutrition by John Hartley (2011)
7. Layered City As Material: Underside by Alex Deschamps-Sonsino et al (2010)

A few months ago I met accessibility and sensory design consultant, Alastair Somerville, who was in town to demonstrate using simple and cheap visualisation tools such as the 3Doodler pen. Over coffee we chatted about 3D printing, data manifestation and some of the tools and techniques we’ve each developed. Alastair showed me a material he has been using in wayfinding for people with visual impairments: Zy.chem swell paper, a specially treated material where the black ink ‘swells’ up to create a textured surface. Alastair had been using it to make simple tactile maps and for braille. We both then became excited about the possibilities of using the Zy.chem paper with bookleteer to create simple and low-cost braille and textured publications.

Very soon afterwards Alastair experimented with a wayfunding guide for a project he was working on for the University of Sussex’s new library, The Keep. He sent me a copy printed on the Zy.chem paper which confirmed for me that this was a material with hugely exciting creative potential. I then asked Alastair if he would consider making something special for the Periodical so we could demonstrate this to others. The result is this beautiful guide to Dal Riata, an ancient Scottish kingdom in Kilmartin Glen, Argyll which has some of the most extensive neolithic earthworks and structures in the UK.

Alastair’s book uses the zy.chem paper to impart the texture of some of the neolithic stone features of Dal Riata as well as some maps of significant sites. In addition to the tactile paper, one sheet is also printed on tracing paper, overlaying the bigger map of Scotland and Northern Ireland onto a tactile map of the kingdom of Dal Riata itself, and then providing a ‘mist’ overlaying a section about the disappearance of the kingdom during the Viking raids of the early Middle Ages. At once informative and poetic, it holds its own sense of magic and mystery within its very textures.

Alastair has posted a Vine video:

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PERIODICAL HERE
Like what you see here? Then treat yourself to something lovely – an enigmatic, eclectic package arriving through your letterbox each month. Or buy a gift subscription.
Get inspired to create and share your own publications on bookleteer to take part too – each month I select something delightful and inspiring from the publications which are made and shared on bookleteer.

Next month I’ll be travelling to Papua New Guinea to share my experiences of using our hybrid digital/paper notebooks for recording and sharing Traditional Environmental or Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Never having worked before in such an extreme climate (Tropical jungle) and in such a technologically remote setting, I’m hoping to learn more about how effective they may be and how much we’ll need to work around them and other constraints to make something locally-specific yet useful and replicable. Right now I’m experimenting with printing eNotebooks on waterproof paper stock to take with me to compare with standard paper stocks for durability and effectiveness.

All this preparation for the PNG trip, along with conversations with my old friend Brandon LaBelle, who was in London recently to teach on this year’s Field Studies summer school, has made me revisit some old concepts and plans for Diffusion Series and dust off one of them. I have also been looking into the remarkable and inspirational Sketchbook Project organised by Art House Coop in Brooklyn, NY to push my original ideas further.

A few years ago, I began to develop an idea for a series of Diffusion commissions that would take the form of a designed eNotebook being given to a number of participants who would be asked to use it to conduct and record field work according to their profession, practice or discipline. Their investigations might be around place, a subject, a process or a community – whatever they choose.
This idea for a series remained a series of sketches and notes as my ideas at the time morphed into the City As Material series of events and collaborative eBooks of Autumn 2010 (and following series). However, with my own imminent PNG field work about to take place and being in the midst of thinking about the nature of what a field notebook or sketchbook might be, the idea has returned and seems highly relevant to the concerns of making and sharing – public authoring – that are driving the ideas behind the Periodical.

Thus Field Work has formed as a new and discrete project that can exist within the framework of the Periodical – each subscriber will receive a blank Field Work eNotebook of their own to record an investigation of their own in (should they chose to do so). All completed eNotebooks sent back to Proboscis will be digitised and made back into eBooks that can be read and downloaded from bookleteer. Depending on how many we receive back, we will select and print someone’s Field Work eBook to be sent out to subscribers as part of the monthly issue – perhaps 2 or three times a year.

Why do this? There is an enduring fascination with the notebooks and sketches of artists, writers, scientists and composers etc – we see this time and again with our own modest eNotebooks for projects which take something unique and handwritten or drawn and make them into ‘shareables’, where the trace of the personal is directly communicated in the digitally reproducible. So much can be appreciated about creative process and intentions from the scribbles as well as the precision of thought, eye and hand that simply evades a ‘finished’ book, typed and formally illustrated. I think that the Periodical and bookleteer both have much to offer not just as a mode of production and dissemination of designed publications, but also as a means of sharing creative process in the raw.

When I first began the long journey towards building bookleteer, back in 2003, we built a rough working prototype of what we called the Generator. I was asked to give a presentation about my concept of public authoring at a symposium held at BT Labs campus, Adastral Park, near Ipswich – People Inspired Innovation. I presented our work on Urban Tapestries alongside the first test eBooks made with the Generator, and suggested how we might in future link them to enable both the sharing of local knowledge and data on mobile geo-annotation systems with physical outputs. One result of this presentation was a series of discussions with anthropologists Genevieve Bell (feral data) and Ken Anderson at Intel Research on how it could be used as a tool for field research : quickly capturing and sharing field work as it happens. Years later I actually got to explore this idea with James Leach when invited to help with the Melanesia Project at the British Museum.

So, working towards a very simple initial template for an eNotebook (i.e. not so highly focused as with some of the ones I’ve designed recently, such as the Soho Food Feast We Are All Food Critics notebook or one I designed for Tim Wright & Joe Flintham’s The Haunter Field Trip) we will send out a printed copy to each subscriber to take part in building up a library of field notes and sketch books. I am also thinking that some field studies and trips – extending the work we’ve done with City As Material – may also form part of this project and would love to hear from anyone interested in taking part or helping organise some.

‘Tangled Threads’ was an eBook designed to act as a film storyboard, as part of Proboscis’ Sensory Threads project. Scripted by Karen Martin and Alice Angus, and illustrated by Mandy Tang, the book is a series of intricately rendered scenes and captions, but the real draw is how Mandy has incorporated pop-up inserts at the back which the reader can cut out and assemble, adding new layers of depth to the pages.

You can have a peek at the digital version below – minus pop-ups, of course – and read posts from Karen and Mandy explaining how it was made.

Download, make and read ‘Tangled Threads’ for yourself.

• A free bookleteer account

If you haven’t signed up for a free bookleteer account yet, do so here.

• A4 single label paper, suitable for Inkjet or Laserjet printers

Full sheet label paper, available from any decent stationers (Avery code: DSP01).

• Blank StoryCubes

Read about StoryCubes, and order blank packs here.

Firstly, design your StoryCube.

Sign into bookleteer. If you’re a new user, read the help page.

Design your cube using the bookleteer templates, export the file as a PDF, then upload to the Create A StoryCube page, or upload each image individually.

Select Generate StoryCube and download the file, from the top right corner of the screen.

Next, print and make.

Print using the label paper, and cut around around only the faces of the cube, not the tabs – it should look a crucifix (You can also protect your cube by using adhesive cellophane, by affixing a layer on top of the label sheet, then cutting out).

Peel off the backing paper, and stick onto a blank cube.

Fold your StoryCube, and voila!

You can even use this method to make your own A3 size StoryCubes, without even owning an A3 printer.

Simply crop the A3 cube PDF into two documents, so that it can be printed across two sheets of  A4 paper.

Then, cut out the two segments as shown, to form a two-part crucifix shape.

Stick onto to a blank A3 cube and fold…

… and you now have an A3 cube, using a standard home printer.

If any bookleteers discover more clever ways to make StoryCubes, do share!

“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.

If you’re aged 13 – 19, bring your ideas and digital content – photographs, stories, text, art – on a USB key drive, or create a Dropbox account and share the relevant files, and we’ll sign you up to Bookleteer, help you create your eBook or Storycube, then print and make it, for you to take home on the day and share online.

We’ll be there on Monday 25th July,  from 2 – 4 pm, at:

Platform
Hornsey Road Baths
260 Hornsey Road
London
N7 7QT

Read more here. Hope to see you there!

Preview it here, and buy it from 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 showcases 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.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Du9XaMN5hM&w=640&h=390]

They’ve also animated scenes from Maurice Gee’s novel, Going West, using the actual pages from the book. This one beggars belief.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBec95Mv8G8&w=640&h=390]

These remind me of Karen Martin’s previous posts that featured similar concepts, particularly pieces by Yuken Terya and Brian Dettmer. Oh, what humble paper is capable of.

Xavier Antin has constructed an extraordinary printing chain made from a stencil duplicator (1880), a spirit duplicator (1923), a laser printer (1969), and an inkjet printer (1976) – spanning almost one hundred years of technology. Each uses a single ink from the CMYK colour model, which explains why the book printed through it resembles a series of hazy retro 3D images ; a disorientating, yet impressive effect.

Abigail Reynolds collages different images of the same building or scene, then cuts and fold’s portions of the overlaying paper to produce new representations with depth and occasionally dizzying perspectives. A similar effect could be created with eBooks, by printing on both sides of the paper, and manipulating the top layer. Getting the orientation right would be tricky, but the end result could be intriguing. Anyone up to the task?