run for cover

A term, a quote, a life-long resonance of words that seem to be used to contextualise almost any living, made-up or distinguished character there ever was.

"Don't judge a book by it's cover". - A moral idiom bystander.

It's countless conquests in coversation, literature, and anything else that can possibly be discursive, is to be honest...

As shallow as a book cover imagine's itself to be. Don't judge me by my carefully considered dress, my fashion conscious jacket, my designed covering, hiding my content, my context, my rationale, my reason, behind this beautiful button-up blouse, which today I'm choosing best represents me, visualises my inner identity and portrays as a covering so you can understand me before you even have a chance to read any of the pages.

'Don't judge a book by it's cover I hear them say but it's too late I've got dressed, and I'm heading out to play.

Standing in line, amoungst the commercial que, the literature in this line is more than had it's due.

But why bother waiting all dressed to kill, I'm looking for the one who might stop and stare. I just have to catch their eye, and I'll be there, ready to lay myself completely bare.

So don't have a cover if you don't want to be judged, afterall a cover is a protection from the outside eyes looking in.

I'll sit here naked on this shelf all my life, just as long as you see me for me and not some other mans mind.

*don't judge a book by its cover. Project taking in quotes. Interviews and instances where it's popped up in life. I make a book and clearly design the insides, but the cover is non-existant the book is honest and naked.

What constitutes a cover? How many layers do you have to strip off before the book becomes a naked vessel of information with none of the introductory defences otherwise known as clothes.

-reference

http://www.goenglish.com/YouCantJudgeABookByItsCover.asp

draftsman

A new age draftsman. I have, now re-coined the term 'draftsman' I am very much a draftsman of the 22nd (and beyond) century.

You will probably be familiar with the term draftsman from a pre existing built, crafted, precise, and cared for world.

Unfortunately the new age draftsman (namely me, and my peers) has a far less productive use of the word, than the previous associate used to.

Less skill, more social.

Less craft, more cumbersome

Less build, more blog

Less work, more worry.

All in all, the context of the word draft in both pre- and post computerism has changed drastically. From a mans draft, his craft, his work, his skill, his career, his earner. To a mans drafts, his thoughts, compulsions, confusion, and idea's.

This post computerism world, see's men with box's (electronic boxes) full of drafts; unfinished works or pieces or merely just prepared but not utilised convulsions of text. an unfinished symphony of electronic mail that lie neatly and chronologically ordered.

Let's get back to physical boxes, with drafts; careful and accurate sketches

(this is the start of a feature article - A draft, the change of craft, the modern role of man).

Rewind

Going against the insatiable grain of daily life, can be a much harder task, when dealing with the steady flowing forward motion stream that we are all currently caught in.

Every third 25th and 50th (day to be decided) of the year I propose to take a step back and reassess everything life has given me, and is currently holding out for me. By taking this backward motion I am essentially reliving, reviving and often relinquishing idea's, notions, and thoughts that may have been lost due to my daily motion that I am in, Forward.>>

On taking a step back I can identify with what I have seen, why, where and when I saw it and what significance it might now hold this amount of time later. I like the idea of setting a timer, (for when it arrives I am to be static for at least two days), whilst I displace time and re-enter one for which I have already lived.

Whilst reliving some of these idea's experiments and often conversations with myself I hadn't possibly been aware of at the time, I started to understand more the relationship with myself, the relationships we all have with ourselves. Going back and reading what one has written on various dates through various months we understand our growth, our development and also our foundations. (Depending how far we go back completely depends on how much understanding with can gather).

- the proposal is that of every 25th and 50th (days to be decided) I will take time out to re-visit previous sketchbooks, logs, emails, text messages, diaries, sketchbooks, conversations etc. In some points I will relive them I will understand them better, or fully and I will understand myself that little bit more.

Books as a timeline, documenting the past for future gain.

The Never Ending Story (or document)

Child borrows a book that opens up a Never Ending Story.

In reality, all stories are built around a similar structure. The beginning, middle and end are statutory chapters when telling anything.

*the project.

A collaborative book that never ends.

The cover will contain a brief that will start off the whole project. After each studio, writer, poet, illustrator completes the brief they will pass it on to someone they know, or admire, or have just met (anyone really). Collaborative essay's, stories, collective chapters. (DRAFT).

The story builds,

projectile learnings

Child tries to extract knowledge from book by sheer brute force.

Kids literally try to hurl knowledge into brains

Here the Dictionary acts rather like an oldschool teacher, disciplining the student before he manages to do something silly.

Without realising here children, scolars, transform the book from a learning tool, to weapon, missile, and in some instances are just completely confused by the form knowledge is taking.

*Outcome, a series of educational books, that require the reader to extract their knowledge within, in a number of different ways.

- Triggered is the childs story when they throw the book away from them.

- Shouted are quotes about respect, dignity and other such things for the children that chose to see the book as a weapon.

- And for those that see the dictionary as a disciplinary tool as well as a projectile, I propose 'duck or get diction-ed'. A soft dictionary that declaims it's dictionary content, and their meanings upon impact. "that'll teach you!"

Print is Dead

encapsulating absolutely every, clip, quote and video, from unknowing movies, to technology guru's talking about the death of print. Publish as a series of zines.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/88mxm/

11 minutes 30

Jeff Gomez - 'Print is Dead, Books in a Digital Age' _ 2007 (Macmillan)

The Gutenberg Parenthesis: Oral Tradition and Digital Technologies

http://bigthink.com/ideas/15259

Shelf Life

An obsession it's true.

I've never considered books to have a shelf life, a sell by date, a best before date. But Seinfeld questions the use of books in just 8 seconds. Commercial shelf life is possibly the only sell by date that can be placed upon books.

An interesting notion to place upon literature though.

Jerry also manages to take away the objectivity of the book by simply saying,

"you read them? What do you need them for?"

Placing complete emphasis on a book as a capsule for content, knowledge, a story that, once taken in, has fulfilled it's purpose.

* Outcomes

A series of books that have a physical shelf life. Pages that decay, text that degenerates.

Books that question the objectivity of a book, a book as a trophy.

Books with an afterlife, once reading it, what is gained? How does the use of the book change? How does the readers relationship to the book change?

Ref.#1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Roth

layered pages

Many people talk about themselves sharing a characterful personality resemblence with that of, an onion. Comparing their human architype to that of a complex vegtable.

Shrek 2001

“Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
(Carl Sandburg)

-

I rather like this onion simily that has constantly cropped up through lives, in films and will no doubt be present, in many more explantions, break-ups, and teenagers coming to understand their own inner angst.

Pair this similied idea with that of reading, the understanding of a persons make up, with the transparent open-ness and ease of a book.

We read a book from cover to cover. However we read a person from outside to inside. digging deeper, but never finding an end, but an inner. The form of a human has no front and back, no beginning and end, but just an outside and an inside. This is probably the reason for is comparable relationship with an onion.


Outcome* The book will read like an onion, in layers. Each new leaf (page)/layer will ammit to a paragraph, chapter or next part of this story. The story will be told in the performance of pass the parcel. With each person breaking off one layer at a time, in turn shedding a layer of themselves, opening up to the group, and slowly getting to the core/answer, understanding of what they've been reading.