Ideas of Journeying in Novels and Artist Books
In all novels, there is the inescapable notion of journeying. The most visible example is tied into the plot of the novel, but there are others, less obvious and more abstract, dispersed throughout. The characters evolve from start to finish; they are changed by the experiences they encounter, which can be described as a journey within the self. Readers perpetuate these journeys by imagining what happens after they’ve turned the final page. The very act of turning the pages to reach the end is in itself a journey.
Readers can relate to all these instances of journeying from their own personal experiences. We can identify these ideas most comfortably with codex books, which is one form of media (along with video) that we, as a society, have grown most accustomed to use for acquiring narrative information. But there is also the lesser known realm of art books, that can touch upon this universal idea of the journey within time, space, or the self in ways that film and traditional books cannot achieve. This type of media may seem more daunting to a new reader, who may not know how to interact with an artist book or how to interpret the information presented. However, once the hesitation sometimes associated with novelty has abated, it is evident that artist books use many of the same techniques that traditional novels do, while also providing a new realm of possibility using an integration of imagery, structures, and language.
I will use five artist books to demonstrate the ways in which they use the methods I have just described to journey through time, space, and the self. We can start close to home, with an artist book that is not too different from a standard codex, titled Passage. Or if you wish, you can jump ahead to some of the other artist books that we'll be looking at. Choose wisely.
One last thing about the nature of this exhibit: take note as you make your own journey through it. You are given the opportunity to jump from page to page or click on images and links- a very different experience from physical materials like books, which is contradictory because our subject of interest is novels and artist books. Hopefully the experience of this online exhibit will be able to communicate information in a helpful way to understanding the material we are going to discuss.
