Doug Spowart
Queensland University of Technology, Creative Industries, School of Design, Sessional Academic position
My interests are: the hybrid photobook / artists' book, social media influence on the photobook discipline, judging and assessing artists' books and photobooks, typography and design of photobooks, the idea of a rhizomic approach to arts practice, the theory of proximity (where one lives).SEE BLOG: http://wotwedid.comSEE WEBSITE: http://www.cooperandspowart.com
Supervisors: Dr Victoria Cooper, Dr Felicity Rea, and Dr Stephen Naylor
Phone: 61+04+12627238
Address: PO Box 3063
South Brisbane
Queensland 4101
Australia
Supervisors: Dr Victoria Cooper, Dr Felicity Rea, and Dr Stephen Naylor
Phone: 61+04+12627238
Address: PO Box 3063
South Brisbane
Queensland 4101
Australia
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As a result there is an emerging heightened anxiety for personal connection with pulse of this worldwide phenomena. Social media is the communication vehicle of choice. Everyday participants in the photobook network frenetically seek updates, reviews, new releases, post about their books and the latest gossip through social media channels – this anxiety is palpable.
This paper will discuss the frisson of social media as a powerful tool for communication and community building in the indie publishing movement of photobooks.
Participants in the artists’ book discipline have been active indie, DIY publishers worldwide for sixty years or more and many of them use photography in their books. They have well established networks, events activities, awards, critical debate and collectors both private and public.
At a time such as Photobook Melbourne where all things photobook are celebrated and discussed it may be worthwhile to consider what concurrence may exist today between the artists’ book and the photobook. How do artists consider their use of photography and the photograph in their books? Is there any sympatico between the photobook and the artists’ book.
To address these and many more questions I was supported by the Photobook Melbourne organisers Heidi Romano and Daniel Boetker-Smith, to convene a forum to bring the voice of the artists’ book into the photobook conversation. The participants in the forum were; Dr Lyn Ashby, Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison, Peter Lyssiotis, Des Cowley and Dr Victoria Cooper (who was co-opted as Georgia Hutchison withdrew due to personal reasons in the final days).
Gottfried Benn 1886-1956. ; Graeme Peebles 1955-; Christopher Middleton 1926-; Petr Herel 1943-
Melbourne : Centre for the Development of Artists' Books and Limited Editions | 1992
As a result there is an emerging heightened anxiety for personal connection with pulse of this worldwide phenomena. Social media is the communication vehicle of choice. Everyday participants in the photobook network frenetically seek updates, reviews, new releases, post about their books and the latest gossip through social media channels – this anxiety is palpable.
This paper will discuss the frisson of social media as a powerful tool for communication and community building in the indie publishing movement of photobooks.
Participants in the artists’ book discipline have been active indie, DIY publishers worldwide for sixty years or more and many of them use photography in their books. They have well established networks, events activities, awards, critical debate and collectors both private and public.
At a time such as Photobook Melbourne where all things photobook are celebrated and discussed it may be worthwhile to consider what concurrence may exist today between the artists’ book and the photobook. How do artists consider their use of photography and the photograph in their books? Is there any sympatico between the photobook and the artists’ book.
To address these and many more questions I was supported by the Photobook Melbourne organisers Heidi Romano and Daniel Boetker-Smith, to convene a forum to bring the voice of the artists’ book into the photobook conversation. The participants in the forum were; Dr Lyn Ashby, Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison, Peter Lyssiotis, Des Cowley and Dr Victoria Cooper (who was co-opted as Georgia Hutchison withdrew due to personal reasons in the final days).
Gottfried Benn 1886-1956. ; Graeme Peebles 1955-; Christopher Middleton 1926-; Petr Herel 1943-
Melbourne : Centre for the Development of Artists' Books and Limited Editions | 1992
The inventor of the positive/negative process for photography, 19th century polymath Henry Fox Talbot, was so enthusiastic about the potential for his discovery that he made a prediction for a future where, ‘Every man [would be] his own printer and publisher’ (Talbot 1839:HS/17/289). Now, 170 years on, Fox Talbot’s prediction is being realised.
From the beginning of the process the value of the photographic image as a form of communication was instantly recognised, and photographs became a necessary and popular addition to books. The design and production of these books was usually overseen by the entrepreneurial and editorial control of a publisher. Book publishing required a raft of specialist tasks to be carried out under the control of production teams. This complicated structure usually alienated photographers from engaging in their own publishing ventures.
Over time the book, consisting mainly of photographs, became known as the photobook and developed into an institutionalised form that was suited to the publisher’s production methods, design styles, workflows and the niche clientele that they sought to satisfy.
With the arrival of the digital age the gate-keeping bureaucracy of these publishing and printing industries have been swept aside. Now the photographer can totally self-publish their own books as they have access and control over a host of digital technologies that have simplified the process. These include: digital capture, computer-based software for image enhancement and book design, inkjet printers and double-sided printing papers, online print-on-demand services that include design, marketing and sales capabilities.
This exegesis seeks to address the limited scholarship on the discipline and to review the conceptualisation, design and production of the photobook as a communicative device in the digital age. This discussion is focused on the opportunity provided by users of these emergent technologies to break from the design and narrative norms of the traditional photobook. Of particular interest in this research is the role that the artists’ book discipline can play in informing the photographer as author, publisher and printer in the creation of contemporary photobooks.
This research melds emergent digital technologies with the artists’ book discipline and the author’s concepts and workflows to establish the idea of a hybrid photobook. In doing so this exegesis creates a space for photographers to fulfill the Fox Talbot prediction of ‘Every man [being] his own printer and publisher’.
Being informed: the influence of what has been before
Starting the book: the useful maquette and previsualisation
Inside-out: the book contributes to its making as an actant
The book and the haptic experience
The materiality of the book
Organising, editing and the haptics of handling
Extending the narrative
Getting beyond the exhibition in a book
Extending the narrative: photographs in sequences
Extending the narrative: the cinematic strategy
Extending the narrative: The fitting of image/text
The artists’ book and the photobook as agents for social change
Social comment and political books; humour and environmentalism
Typographic concerns in the hybrid photobook
Considering the reader/viewer
The photobook as an exhibition in a book, Images and text: the personal comment, Images and text: the social or political comment and Images in cinematic sequences