As the coordinator of a book arts BFA program, I have recently been contemplating the possibilities for a kind of program that focuses primarily on the exploration of “the book” as it is currently situated in our post-digital world. The term “post-digital,” as I am employing it, suggests that digital technology is now so commonplace that it no longer holds the revolutionary position it once did. Consequently, a post-digital book arts program would be one in which print and digital media co-exist, no longer forced into a narrative that pits one against the other. Such a program would, necessarily, acknowledge the traditional practices of the field all the while scrutinizing the roles that they once held (or continue to hold), considering what it means to make books in an ever-shifting “now.” Such a program questions whether the “book arts” of decades past are still — and should remain — those of today. The following is a brief sketch of what some aspects of a post-digital book arts program might entail.
Thinking about this hypothetical program provides the opportunity to consider which long-standing aspects of book arts education are still relevant and which might be de-emphasized. Doing so might allow for the inclusion of some of the activities and theories circulating within adjacent fields (design, literature, publishing, digital art, &c.) that have yet to widely break into the conversation within the greater book arts community.
As much as feasible, I am curious to see a program which attempts to teach “the book” as a subject/framework dispassionate about specific media. Greater emphasis would be placed on exploring and developing a conscious and practical understanding of the fundamental conceptual underpinnings of the book, in particular those that can be observed across multiple media. Students would investigate how to enhance, combine, and otherwise manipulate these concepts to enact an idea in book form, seeking to answer that most elemental question: what do books do and how? Such resources as Keith Smith’s Structure of the Visual Book and Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read (which represent more serviceable inclusions within a less-than-robust selection of literature) could help provide a foundation of theory for such investigations and the development of a pedagogical approach.
No medium, material, or process would be considered implicit in the creation of a book within a post-digital program. Other than the elemental framework of concepts that manifest in books, such a program should take very little as given when drawing upon precedent established by myriad book arts practices and pedagogies. A “media agnostic” approach to book arts education would give latitude for decisions of media and material to arise from the development of concept and content rather than being assumed or assigned. This would require an active effort to avoid prescription and encourage students to explore media of interest outside of the context of a core book arts curriculum (a potential challenge for programs not affiliated with institutions that provide a broader arts curriculum). Additionally, it would be advantageous to advocate for the use of widely accessible media in order to help students maintain continuity in their studio practices after graduation without the need to adapt to losing access to processes with high economic and logistical barriers to entry.
A post-digital book arts program would promote active engagement in the flourishing discourse and activities taking place around the field of publishing (“traditional,” “experimental,” and as “artistic practice”). Students would be asked to think with new depth about what it means to “create a public” through a work — “the kind of public that comes into being only in relation to [works] and their circulation” [1]. They would also be encouraged to develop practices that could nimbly participate in emerging spheres of activity such as “urgent publishing” [2] or “publishing as intervention” [3]. Practitioners and theorists such as Silvio Lorusso, Paul Soulellis, Eva Weinmayr, Temporary Services, and Publication Studio, among others, would provide groundwork from which students could launch new approaches.
In this context, the weight of the concept of the edition might be lightened, making it no longer an exercise in multiplication and the attainment of technical uniformity, but embracing it as a “spatially discontinuous object” [4] shared by a public (a public which, again, is created by its circulation). Along with this, room might also be made for the version, a concept from the digital world, through which an idea can be given the time and freedom to emerge and evolve, and the hybrid or differential work [5], where content exists within a constellation of digital and analog formats with no one format being definitive.
This is by no means an exhaustive consideration of what might be possible should a program adopt a post-digital approach to book arts. Where any of the above is already happening in current programs, I am very much interested to hear how it is being approached in the classroom through exercises and projects and articulated in pedagogical discussions. That said, aspects of this post-digital philosophy have started to be implemented within the book arts program at Montserrat College of Art [6, 7] as we examine our curriculum and our vision for the type of graduate we would like to see emerge from the program.
References
1. Warner, Michael. Publics and Counterpublics: Zone Books, 2002, 66.
2. Soulellis, Paul. “Urgency Lab,” https://soulellis.com/teaching/urgencylab/index.html
3. Weinmayr, Eva. “Publishing as Intervention,” https://fk.hfk-bremen.de/eva-weinmayr-publishing-as-intervention/
4. Van Laar, Timothy. “Printmaking: Editions as Artworks.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 14, no. 4 (October 1980): 99.
5. Perloff, Marjorie. “Digital Poetics and the Differential Text,” http://marjorieperloff.com/essays/digital-poetics-and-the-differential-text/
6. Hanscom, Bill. “Approaching the Book” [Course Syllabus] http://bit.ly/2UaJMVQ
7. Hanscom, Bill. “Independent Book Publishing & Production” [Course Syllabus] https://bit.ly/2IzzYDr
Bill Hanscom is an assistant professor at Montserrat College of Art where he serves as coordinator for the BFA book arts program, and a conservation technician for special collections at the Weissman Preservation Center within Harvard Library. He also has meandering and sporadic studio, writing, and research practices.
