1st Edition

The Experimental Book Object Materiality, Media, Design

Edited By Sami Sjöberg, Mikko Keskinen, Arja Karhumaa Copyright 2023
336 Pages 63 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

336 Pages 63 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

336 Pages 63 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

The Experimental Book Object shows why and how books matter in the 21st century. Digital and audio platforms are commonplace, and other fields of art beyond literature have increasingly embraced books and publication as their medium of choice. Nevertheless, the manifold book object persists and continues to inspire various types of experimentation. This volume sets forth an unprecedented... Read more

Introduction

Sami Sjöberg, Mikko Keskinen and Arja Karhumaa

Opening Experimental Book Objects: The Heterogeneity of the Codex in the Twenty-First Century

I Book Matters

Jan Baetens
Olivier Deprez, Books and Company

Emily Brennan-Moran and Torsa Ghosal
Excessive Tactility of 9/11 Book Memorials

Danuta Fjellestad & Sami Sjöberg

Performative Materiality of Book Inserts: The Case of S. and Personal Effects

Mikko Keskinen
The Two-Layered Book and Storyworld, with Transgressions: Graham Rawle’s Overland

Juri Joensuu
Literary Mutilation: Typographical and Material Abuse in Finnish Experimental Poetry and Book Art

Juha-Pekka Kilpiö
Punched Pages: Holes in Experimental Print Literature

Oskari Rantala
The Disintegrating (Comic) Book Object and the End of the Narrative Universe in Promethea

II Book Mediations

Stella Bolaki
Bound to Matter: Artists’ Books and Illness Experience

Laura Piippo

Looking Back to Now: Book as Technology of Remembering the Present in Jatkosota-extra by Jaakko Yli-Juonikas

Wojciech Drąg
The Dispersed Self, the Database and Digital Biography: David Clark’s 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein

Sara Tanderup Linkis
Performing E-bookness: Remediation and Meta-Mediality in the E-book Edition of Mark Z. Danielewski’s The Fifty Year Sword

III Book Designs

Leslie Atzmon
Gender, Transgression, and Ritual Torah Preparation

Zach Dodson
Bookish Biomes: The Writing and Design of KUU, a Paper Ecosystem

Pauliina Nykänen & Arja Karhumaa
Body Text: Exploring Somatic Devices in the Design of Hybrid Books Fun Primavera and Yours

Zoë Sadokierski & Cecilia Heffer
Encountering Lace Narratives: Designing a Multimodal Book to Capture the Complexity of Practitioner-Research

Nick Thoburn and Nick Thurston
Papercuts: The Horizons of Minor Publishing

Afterword

Johanna Drucker

Direct Objects: Critical Ways to "Think a Book"

Biography

Sami Sjöberg is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. His research focuses on avant-garde and experimental literature, especially in relation to science and epistemology. He is an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Avant-Garde Studies and the author of The Vanguard Messiah: Lettrism between Jewish Mysticism and the Avant-Garde (2015).

Mikko Keskinen is Professor of Comparative Literature (University of Jyväskylä, Finland). His main research interests include narrative theory, sound studies, experimental literature, and intermediality. Keskinen is the author of Response, Resistance, Deconstruction (1998) and Audio Book: Essays on Sound Technologies in Narrative Fiction (2008). He has co-edited a book on the collage novel (2018) and two journal issues on “the ubique and unique book” (Image & Narrative, 2019).

Arja Karhumaa is a graphic designer, text artist, and Associate Professor in Visual Communication Design at Aalto University, Finland. Their work spans across experimental writing, visual poetry, typography, and publishing. Karhumaa is the author and designer of the artistic research Epä/igenesis (2021) featuring the artist book Epägenesis: Katalogi X, a catalogue of their experimental writing.