Assignment 4 : Altered book

Assignment four
Altered book

 

I knew that this assignment was about turning a book into a more physical piece of work, in a very visual way.  With this idea of transformation in mind, there was really only one choice, one book with a very simple concept that is about a transformation; Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

I know there are many metaphors and different readings of this book, but the physical surprise from the very first sentence was an impression I wanted to show in my physical interpretation.

I was also (pleasantly) surprised when I did research into pop up books and discovered that "metamorphoses" books have been popular from the 1880's.  These books featured a pop up technique to transform one character to another.  Since this is the main concept of Metamorphosis, I would like to try this technique among others.

I spent some time researching some different pop up techniques and forms to include in my altered book.....

research and inspirations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PfXZilwuQM



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syom89A_ops


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wquaz3djM4


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFIo536IZZY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-up_book

A carousel book "The Little Prince"  written and illustrated by Antoine De Saint-Exupery

 

 

A pop-up Picture Book " The Flyaway Fairy " illustrated by J. Samuel , written by G.Volke and paper-engineering by B.Robertson

A pop-up Picture Book "Gemini " illustrated by I. Cohen

My chosen book is " Metamorphosis" by F.Kafka

 

My mood board

My spider diagram

 

 

 

 sketches 

 

 

 

You will see from my sketches that there are a few different styles for the 'creature'.  When I read the book, it seemed like Kafka changed the description of the creature throughout the story, so I like the idea of my designs being a bit different.

The large pop up creature, made from a relatively simple V-Fold mouth, is the most striking part of the book.  This is my 'big surprise' that I talked about to begin with.  It is quite a simple technique but the result is very striking.  Every time I pick up the book now, I naturally turn to this page first.

  

 

I wanted to put some hairs (or tentacles, I'm not sure which) sticking out of the pages.  These help to attract attention even before the reader reads the book.  They were partly inspired by the 'Monster Book of Monsters' in the Harry Potter books and films.

These pictures show my interpretation of the "metamorphoses" technique.  Instead of using a tab to pull and make the change (like the traditional versions), mine is more simple and you have to pull the paper folds.  I think it works just right, with odd combinations of Gregor's top and bottom halves and the creature.

This is the only physical form of text I have altered.  I only wanted the word 'no' to show Gregor's despair and anger at his situation.  The depth of the extra layers of paper adds a physical weight to the page, which also adds a more metaphorical depth to his pain.

I liked the effect of the wave from the 'Gemini' book at the top, I wanted to bring some movement into my book as most of my pieces have been quite static.  Here I have shown the bowl full of milk that Gregor pushes away, spilling the milk on the floor.

  

Here are two of the 'different designs' I mentioned earlier.  Here I have shown a small creature (maybe he is from a distance) behind this cellophane window.  I have also designed a sort of cage bars with some string and a door.  This is also a key part of the story as Gregor spends most the story behind his bedroom door.

 

The last piece is possibly my favourite because it gets to the heart of the story.  If Metamorphosis was only about a scary creature it would not be as popular as it is.  The heart and soul of the story is the relationship between Gregor and his sister.  This piece uses the gutter and inner margins to show the wall that separates them for most of the story.  There is a carpet that is the link between the two pages and the two 'worlds' within the story.

 This physical illustration of the separation within the story is more important to me as an ending, rather than focussing on his death at the end.

 

 

 

Exercise 4: Collating and binding



 

 

I started my exercise number 4 from testing in on the small samples that I have printed for the exercise number 3.  There weren't that many pages therefore it was easy to stitch all of them only with a needle.  As it was just a trial I decided to stitch half of the paper and the other half glue with double sided tape.  The final thought is to glue my big illustrations with double sided tape as it is going to be much easier to hold them together.  However as far as I can see this way of putting pages together is not as perfect in terms of holding page one to another.  There is a big risk that they will come apart after a while.

 

 

 

 

A book cover where the stitches are visible.

A half of the page stitched with a needle holds strong and nicely another page.

One page glued with double sided tape makes it easy to do, however this is not strong enough for the big book.

This is my small booklet from above .

After the testing on the small samples I can make a good decision in terms of the way how I would like to hold all my pages together.  I will glue them with double sided sticky tape, with the illustrations printed on separate pages.

 

The front cover is with the heavier paper to protect the book, with a cut out revealing the first page and introducing my character - me!

I made a kind of spine, using normal plain paper to cover the edges for a crisper finish.

Possibly the most "important" feature that is not included in my book is page numbers.  I know that the page about motherhood is the first page (and as I said, this is the most important part of my life now), however I didn't want the book to be like a list of the parts of my identity in order of importance.  I think that leaving the page numbers out shows that I try to be well-rounded, and at the end of the day there is no "beginning, middle and end" of your identity so it doesn't follow a normal narrative.

 

It's nice to see my work in physical form, after all of the work on the computer and making collages with different paper forms.  For the last few months I have been gathering the knowledge and ideas for this moment, to actually create a book!  When I see it all coming together like this, I hope we don't all end up with Kindles and no physical books, because there is still something magical about turning a page and wondering what will be on the other side.