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Haptic Evaluation of Books

READING by HAND the haptic evaluation of artists’ books Gary Frost

Johanna Drucker’s article (Critical Issues/Exemplary Works, The Bonefolder, 1:2, 2005) has provided a great environment for evaluation of artists’ books. She has suggested models of critical review in related fields of literature and art, mapped the taxonomy of types of artists’ books and used carefully chosen terms. Much of Johanna’s attention is on the project set by the artist and measurement of just how the work transforms, develops and presents this project.

Are there any additional approaches that will assist evaluation of artistic works in a book format? I suggest that there is an additional topic that could propagate additional tools. This topic is the aesthetic consequence of a work of book art in the hands of the reader where tactile qualities and features of mobility are appreciated. This is a haptic domain where the study of touch as a mode of communication (or reading by hand) is at work. Such evaluations call up deeply embedded perceptions and sensory skills where the hands prompt the mind and where the reader’s understanding can be far removed from the intentions of the artist. With all books, a large portion of the meaning is downstream. Each reader wishes the book to act out a bit of personal theater and I suggest that book art is special in this regard. This personal possession of the book experience would help to explain the persistent, low threshold of entry to the practice of making artists’ books since the reader is well equipped to qualify anything quickly. Twenty six million people making hand made scrapbooks with artistic intentions know how to read an artists’ book. But how can we provide effective description for a more critical experience of the corporeal book? We can lift it, open it and turn a page. Is it docile or springy on opening, solid or tentative on closing? Is there a live transmission of forces through the structure or is it crippled? What instigates the reader’s ergonomic of comprehension and how are haptic features consequential to the evaluation of book art?

It follows that haptic features are consequential for considering the often unconventional and experimental formats of artists’ books. After thirty years of distribution of her flag book format, Hedi Kyle is still probably the only skilled reader of this acrobatic format. Meanwhile, the work of Susan Joy Share, featuring her brilliant performances of mobile and audible book structures, continues to present an immense challenge of understanding and assimilation for the book arts. Susan is the avatar of reading as dance. The haptic concern also follows from the peculiar essence of the book as hand held art. Books are only read at arms length and are notoriously intractable in gallery display. This is a legacy of writing as a picture of speech and its early use as a handheld prompt.(1.) And the codex echoes it own legacy as a folded letter inviting unfolding and re-foldings.(2.) The whole environment of this experience is tactile, manipulative, confined, tricky and surprising. If critically pursued, the consciously hand investigated book could induce a greater appreciation of artists’ books.

Models of review

A community of specialists should be acknowledged when considering the description of haptic and kenetic attributes of artists’ books. This is the community of book conservators and other taxonomists of collections of material culture. George L. Stout, pioneer of descriptive terminology for art conservation, categorized the book as a “corporeal, built” object.(3.) This primary corporeal nature, both as an analogy to human anatomy and as a hand-held object, provides a primary descriptor of the physical book. The “built” qualifier is useful as well. Book making is highly sequential in accord with Johanna’s emphasis on process. Entrancing descriptions of the anatomy, built nature, mobility and mortality of books are provided by book conservator Chris Clarkson. His descriptions achieve a level of critical appreciation of books and convey the deep historical perspective that Johanna recommends. Who would imagine that the graceful actions of early archival long-stitch binding could be expertly qualified as an artistic achievement or that any violation of its exemplary mobility could be expertly dismissed as a crippled pastiche? (Modern book artists using non-adhesive long-stitch structure should be challenged!) And who would imagine that much of the aesthetic attribute of the early archival long stitch book derives from tactile qualities? “A large measure of the very pleasant handling qualities of this limp vellum long-stitch binding is supplied by the supple character and velvet finish of the manuscript fragment used for the cover. The ease and good flowing action of this volume has much to do with a superb long-stitch technique. This is not at all easy to achieve…” Chris Clarkson(4.)

Mapping taxonomy

Knowing that the critical regard is out there is reassuring, but let’s suggest some further steps. To profile the haptic nature of artists’ books perhaps we should first focus on a fundamental shared orientation of the body and book. This first feature is a curious simultaneous bilateral symmetry and asymmetry; a fantastic attribute that is deeply embedded in both book and body.

Our unique right or left handedness is the progenitor our crucial neural asymmetry of the brain.(5.) The asymmetry of the symmetrical codex is just as fundamental, but with a special twist. As the leaves change places with each other the right page becomes the left page as the clock of content goes forward. Two hands, each acting alone, hold the book and turn the page. This initially simple circumstance of symmetry/asymmetry of the body and book is opened to endless permutations of artists’ books.

I want to position features of simultaneous bilateral symmetry and asymmetry of the book at the start. Asymmetries of the weights and pliancies of inner and outermost components of the book are sometimes striking and occasionally disconcerting. I would measure proportions of bilateral symmetry and asymmetry in books to tag classical types and eccentricities of artistic production. I would observe the asymmetrical fingerings of small books and the symmetrical arm’s length approach needed for a large lectern book. I would particularly admire artists that engage both body and book and I would highly regard books that consciously interplay symmetries and asymmetries.

Next I would address and qualify mobilities. Many artists’ books have a rag doll mobility that does nothing to inform the curiosity of the hands and most artists’ books lack the engineering that provides direct response to the leverages of handling. Especially likely to be crippled is the cover-to-text attachment. Have you ever encountered a book quick to open its covers, but reluctant to open its contents? This haptic conflict says something. What about a docile, flat opening almost defying the book’s presence, or the possessed springiness of a vellum or polypropylene cover, or the stately, deep drape of a truly thick, fluffy book? Handling alone is a great way of reading books with such qualities.

The range of mobilities can be considered, from the motions needed for a single sewing stitch to the trajectory and impact of a thrown book. Is the book portable? How does it act in a high wind? Is it deformed by shrink wrapping? Does the book move extremely slowly as adhered materials cup, warp and torque?

The immobility of libraries is striking. Only the artist’s book has the opportunity to overcome conventions of the stacks. It can twirl. We should have special regard for books that move and tumble on their own. A self moving book exploits the leverage that the reader applies to the boards of the cover. This transmitted board leverage is at work to open and close the book. An excellent book artist will not waste this energy, but transform it and, so, intervene in the actions of reading.

The haptic legibility or manual readability of book is evaluated by touch, force and dwell. Some book surfaces adhere to the skin and feel warm producing an immediate pre-reading. Some books expel air on closing, others will not expel air between the leaves. Such responses can be subtle. Meaning is conveyed by the sigh of a closing Bible as well as by the yawn of a pop-up pictorial. Some artists’ books provoke a quick manual inspection while others impose a longer dwell. Pace of manual reading is linked to haptic legibility with meaning in both quick and slow passes.

Ultimately, there is a question if the artists’ book can be read primarily as a work of hand evaluated mobile sculpture. I suggest that some artists’ books can be read that way and most will benefit from such a reading as an accessory to overall evaluation. Evaluating overall legibility of artists’ books is a challenge. It can be difficult to assess them as literature and it can be difficult to assess them as art and many readers despair before trying. If artists’ books are not particularly or critically regarded as literature or art, they should at least make statements and perform the somersaults that make them a book. A book is the one art object known to everyone.

Clear terms

Clear terms improve the description of artists’ books. But this truism may not fully apply to critical evaluation of haptic features of book art. In fact the hands prompt the mind using nonlinguistic data. Historians remark on the lack of documentation of the hand skills. The needed realization is that dexterity itself is a medium of information.

Imagine perceptions that can exist without words attached. This is equivalent to reading books which lack words or pictures, which, of course, we can. At a further stretch it is saying that books predate reading, which, of course they do. But the real shift here is that all books are art in a world of subtle and critical manual evaluation. If we could delineate it, a manual evaluation or haptic criticism would lay out a physics for book art criticism, using words.

To tabulate haptic quality and evaluate given works a standard recording card is needed. This provisional card has three sectors; anatomy, action and handle. Anatomy describes the corporeal structure , action describes qualities of performance and mobility of that structure and handle describes evidence of haptic fabrication, use and function. The check-off boxes can be marked to document the observed presence and the observed absence of any given quality.

Recording card

Anatomy (6.)

Symmetry/Asymmetry: [ ] static, mostly symmetrical [ ] balanced [ ] falling over, mostly asymmetrical Structure: [ ] classical [ ] hybrid [ ] experimental Folds: [ ] crease [ ] set [ ] jut [ ] yawn Stitch tension or fan splay: [ ] consistent [ ] erratic [ ] broken

Action (7.)

Mobility: [ ] stiff [ ] mechanical [ ] tumbling and wily Transmission of leverage: [ ] inert [ ] crippled [ ] gymnastic Opening: [ ] docile [ ] cranky [ ] springy Leafing: [ ] syncopated [ ] sporadic Closing: [ ] conclusive [ ] tentative [ ] given to gape Tossing: (8.) [ ] bounce [ ] no bounce

Handle (9.)

Evidence of hand craft: [ ] lean [ ] moderate [ ] rich Evidence of use: [ ] pristine, un-touched [ ] read, habituated to use [ ] possessed, consumed by use Evidence of function: [ ] bewildered [ ] vernacular or liturgical [ ] poised, practical

The use of such a card must be validated with many recordings of actual books. It will also be necessary to monitor manipulations associated with each measurement. The books must be actively read as the hands prompt the mind. An elegant expression of this process is provided by Adrian Johns. (I have inserted the term “artists’ books”) “The reading of a book is no less skillful, and no less local, than conducting an experiment. To understand the transformation of science (artists’ books) into an apparently universal culture, then, we need to create a history of the reading practices surrounding scientific books (artists’ books) as detailed and intricate as the appreciation we already have of the experimental practices surrounding scientific instruments.” Adrian Johns.(10.)

References

(1.) Chapter two, “The Written and Spoken Word”, Martin, Henri-Jean, The History and Power of Writing, discusses this relationship. (2.) The conjecture here is that circulation and copying of epistles among sectarians of late Antiquity is associated with the development of the papyrus codex. The impositions and securing ties of folded papyrus letters is suggestive of the early, single quire codices. See Papyrus, Parkinson, Richard and Quire, Stephen. (3.) I recall this characterization of the book from a 1972 lecture. It is in early AIC PrePrints. (4.) “The Conservation of Early Books in Codex Form”, Clarkson, Christopher, The Paper Conservator, Volume 3, 1978. This graceful manifesto of the early book as the exemplar of past craft skills and sensitivity provides a basis for haptic evaluation of any book. (5.) This precept of connectivity between asymmetrical use of the hands and subsequent neural distinction of the hominid brain is presented in Wilson, Frank R., The Hand, Pantheon, 1998 and Calvin, William H., The Throwing Madonna, McGraw-Hill, 1991. “Of all the known lateralizations, sequential muscle control seems most central to the others, such as language. And what could have resulted in sequential muscle control residing primarily on one side of the brain? Well, an important muscle sequence involving primarily the opposite side of the body, rather than both sides equally or alternatively. Say, hand writing or throwing or grooming or tool use. Surely handwriting wasn’t the first.” William Calvin (6.) Taxonomies exist that organize the structure of books, but these will lap other metadata entries. (7.) The tools here could possibly be augmented by models of choreographic notation or motion description. (8.) One strange evaluation of mobility involves toss testing in which the book must be thrown. This method is deeply embedded and goes all the way back through the hominid series where it is associated with the behavior of projectile predation. The book is a projectile thrown across time and cultures. “In the 1970’s and 1980’s I often demonstrated the essential strengths and character of limp vellum bindings, and how vulnerable parts of the book were protected, by throwing model structures high in the air and letting them bounce on the floor.” Introduction to 2005 Reprint of Limp Vellum Binding, Chris Clarkson. (9.) No artists’ book is as rich in handle as the demonstration copy that the artist uses in explanation. Think of a carpet salesman’s swatch book or a limited edition binder’s dummy. This charm has little to do with the bibliographic topic of the “materiality of the text” which examines the physical book in culture contexts, but it does cross over with the bibliographer’s interest in provenance. In codicological investigation evidence of use is primary; a fundamental attribute of a book. (10.) P.48, The Nature of the Book, Johns, Adrian, University of Chicago Press, 1998.

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