Grant Application

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada has made it mandatory for all journal publications arising from funded research to be made publicly available within 12 months. However, the successful grant applications that led to the funding being awarded continue to be, for the most part, a great mystery. Not only does this lead to a problem with accountability, as researchers do not need to divulge to the public, or even their peers, what they actually promised to do, it also means that people seeking to apply for funding often do not have access to previous successful applications to use as models. These exemplars are especially needed for Research Creation grants that combine the Fine Arts and Humanities, as these are less common and many research offices have not dealt with them, and for researchers at smaller institutions who may not have establised research service offices with such applications readily at hand. Thus we have decided to make our grant application public, and would encourage those of you in a similar situation to do the same.

More information on the SSHRC policy on open-access publication

Summary

The Post-Digital Book Arts project will take advantage of the present moment of transition between print and electronic media forms to provide a multi-faceted analysis of what the “book” is in our post-digital world. The e-book, as we now know it, is less than ten years old, and while there is no denying the commercial success of e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle, contrary to the beliefs of electronic text proponents such as William J. Mitchell, who believed that printed books would soon be only for those “addicted to the look and feel of tree flakes encased in dead cow” (12), the printed book has also seen a resurgence in interest. In particular, there has been a revival of interest in craft bookmaking, with numerous small presses opening across Canada and around the world. Anecdotally this revival of printing has been associated with the emergence of the e-book, but there has been little formal study and, given the rapidity of change, if this work is not done soon we risk losing information about this important transitional moment and movement. Even more importantly, we need to take advantage of the present moment to examine how this hybridity of textual forms and technologies can result in exciting new forms of books; as Steve Jobs observed during the launch of the iPad2, “It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing” (quoted Lehrer).

The Post-Digital Book Arts project has four closely integrated objectives that bring together these two definitions of the “post-digital book arts:” the book arts as they have been impacted by the digital revolution, and the incorporation of digital technologies into the book arts in order to make digital artists’ books. The first is to investigate the relationship between the commercial success of the e-book and renewed interest in past printing practices and hand-crafted books, including the creation and/or success of businesses and artists devoted to fine printing. The second is to use critical making and research creation methodologies to create examples of post-digital artists’ books, works that blend digital and traditional practices and that are created by collaborative teams of artists, programmers, and scholars. These creations will both challenge existing assumptions about the digital book and open up new areas for technical innovation. The third is to communicate research results through innovative academic, artistic, and public media forms including written papers and conference presentations, articles in scholarly journals and art magazines, a gallery exhibition of experimental objects, a website, and videos. The fourth is to bring a team of interdisciplinary scholars, artists, and students together in order to foster creative innovation and to train students in professional skills that bridge the academic, technical and artistic.

The Post-Digital Book Arts will advance the study of book history and the contemporary book arts, offer insight into the burgeoning DIY/crafts-based economy in Canada, develop new models for digital humanities research methodologies such as critical making and artistic research creation, and provide a concrete example of research that combines scholarly work, artistic practice, research creation, and technical innovation. While there has been research into each of these areas before, this is the first study that seeks to combine them into a holistic, interdisciplinary enquiry into how the coming of the e-book has changed perceptions towards the printed word, and how book artists can contribute to advancing digital reading technologies. Most importantly, this project will model an environment for innovation that defies traditional disciplinary boundaries in order to train students, be they from the arts, the humanities, or the sciences, to succeed in the post-digital economy.

Detailed Description of Research

The Post-Digital Book Arts project will take advantage of the present moment of transition between print and electronic media forms to provide a multi-faceted analysis of what the “book” is in our post-digital world. The e-book, as we now know it, is less than ten years old. Before Amazon released the Kindle in 2007 there had been numerous attempts to bring an e-reader to market, from the Sony BookMan in 1992 to the Softbook and Rocket eBook in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but all had failed to capture any significant market share and had quickly disappeared. The Kindle combined advances in screen, battery, storage, wireless, and e-commerce technologies and was an overnight success; within three years Amazon was selling more e-books than printed ones, and other companies such as Apple (whose iPhone was also introduced in 2007) had expanded the market. Contrary to the beliefs of electronic text proponents such as William J. Mitchell, who believed that printed books would soon be only for those “addicted to the look and feel of tree flakes encased in dead cow” (12), the printed book has also seen a resurgence in interest. In particular, there has been a revival of interest in craft bookmaking, with numerous small presses opening across Canada and around the world. Anecdotally this revival of printing has been associated with the emergence of the e-book, but there has been little formal study and, given the rapidity of change, if this work is not done soon we risk losing information about this important transitional moment and movement. Even more importantly, we need to take advantage of the present moment to examine how this hybridity of textual forms and technologies can result in exciting new forms of books; as Steve Jobs observed during the launch of the iPad2, “It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing” (quoted Lehrer).

Objectives

The proposed Post-Digital Book Arts project has four closely integrated objectives. The first is to investigate the relationship between the commercial success of the e-book and renewed interest in past printing practices and hand-crafted books, including the creation and/or success of businesses and artists devoted to fine printing. The second is to use critical making and research creation methodologies to create examples of post-digital artists’ books, works that blend digital and traditional practices and that are created by collaborative teams of artists, programmers, and scholars. These creations will both challenge existing assumptions about the digital book and open up new areas for technical innovation. The third is to communicate research results through innovative academic, artistic, and public media forms including written papers and conference presentations, articles in scholarly journals and art magazines, a gallery exhibition of experimental objects, a website, and videos. The fourth is to bring a team of interdisciplinary scholars, artists, and students together in order to foster creative innovation and to train students in professional skills that bridge the academic, technical and artistic.

Context and literature review
Originality, significance and expected contribution to knowledge

This project will advance the study of book history and the contemporary book arts, offer insight into the burgeoning DIY/crafts-based economy in Canada, develop new models for digital humanities research methodologies such as critical making and artistic research creation, and provide a concrete example of research that combines scholarly work, artistic practice, research creation, and technical innovation. While there has been research into each of these areas before (see below), this is the first study that seeks to combine them into a holistic, interdisciplinary enquiry into how the coming of the e-book has changed perceptions towards the printed word, and how book artists can contribute to advancing digital reading technologies. Most importantly, this project will model an environment for innovation that defies traditional disciplinary boundaries in order to train students, be they from the arts, the humanities, or the sciences, to succeed in the post-digital economy.

Digital humanities and book history

Although it might be tempting to assume that there is a schism between the perceived forward-looking digital humanities, and the more historically focused field of book history, there has been much cross-over between the two areas. Early media/book history focused on a rhetoric of technological determinism, obsolescence, and supersession. In The Gutenberg Galaxy Marshall McLuhan famously argued that the inventions of writing, printing, and electronic communication fundamentally altered the way that humans think, and, following along these lines, Elizabeth Eisenstein outlined how the scientific revolution, Renaissance, and Protestant Reformation were the result of the invention of printing. This notion that one technology can completely replace another, and in the process change how we think, has been at the root of every claim that the rise of the computer will result in the death of the book; the spectre of media replacement is even raised by those who wish to defend the book, such as in a 2013 Wall Street Journal article “Don't Burn Your Books—Print Is Here to Stay.”

However, as Bath and Schofield outline in “The Digital Book,” book historians have increasingly looked at transitions from manuscript to print, or print to digital, as moments where practitioners of both media are influenced by each other, and where the uses of various media tend to shift rather than disappear entirely (189). For example, Peter Stallybrass has argued the most radical effect of the invention of printing was its incitement for people to have to write because of the creation of the printed form, which by its very nature requires the user to “fill in the blanks” (111). Leslie Howsam has argued that the fundamental principle underlying book history is “that the material form of a text affects (and to some extent effects) the meaning attached to it by the recipient”(56). Computers are no less material than books, and the impact that their materiality has on academic practice has become central to the digital humanities. For example, Implementing New Knowledge Environments, a SSHRC major collaborative research initiative, “seeks to understand the future of reading and the book through a historical perspective” (http://inke.ca). Alan Galey, in The Shakespearean Archive: Experiments in New Media from the Renaissance to Postmodernity, examines how the publishing history of Shakespeare’s texts reveals a tradition of innovative scholarly practices extremely relevant to those crafting new digital scholarly tools. Similarly, Nelson et al. have shown that makers of digital reading environments can learn much by studying the small books of the past. Where these studies differ, however, from the proposed project is that they all focus on reading interfaces designed for academics and scholarly purposes. While important, these types of books are read by a relatively limited number of people as compared to the genres that have made the e-book a success: novels, biographies, and the other works that make up the best-sellers lists. They also ignore books designed for aesthetic appeal, such as works by fine presses or artists’ books. We believe that these non-academic books, and those that make them, also have much to teach those working in the digital humanities about creating new tools for interacting with the written word.

The letterpress revival, DIY culture, and the new craft-based economy

Fine printing is not new in Canada; Stan Bevington founded Coach House Press in 1965, and House of Anansi opened its doors in 1967. However the past twenty years have seen an explosion in the number of printing operations dedicated to the production of small runs of literary works or other specialized forms of book work such as poetry chapbooks and broadsheets. Beginning with Nova Scotia’s Gaspereau Press in 1997, there has been a steady stream of new bookmakers opening shop across Canada, such as Green Boathouse Press, founded 2008, and Clawhammer Press, founded 2011. Even a small centre like Saskatoon can boast of multiple independent craft book producers; JackPine Press started releasing hand-made chapbooks in 2002, and Backyard Letterpress opened in 2013.

Canada is not alone in witnessing a revival in letterpress printing, nor is printing the only craft undergoing an economic revival. There is perhaps no better evidence of this resurgence than the rise of Etsy, an online marketplace for craft producers. Founded in 2005, Etsy now has over 54 million registered users (most of whom are buyers, and not producers), and generated over $1.93 billion in sales in 2014 (Weber). Beyond Etsy, there are also numerous examples of how the craft revival has re-invigorated local economies in both large cities and rural areas (Barton; Davidson). This success has been attributed to a range of causes. Initially seen as a counter-culture movement opposed to commercialized culture (McKay; Klein), the DIY movement’s hippie and punk spheres have expanded (in some quarters) to include artisanal creations “due in part to the consumer’s desire for products imbued with the human and a sense of permanence, rather than the standard uniformity of the production line” (Campbell et al. 6). This consumer demand is being met by a new generation of craftspeople who are re-invigorating past hand practices. Like William Morris and the other Arts and Crafts practitioners at the end of the 19th century, these new makers are rejecting technological advances (or at least some of them— Morris’s type designs were dependent upon photographic reproduction, and the 21st century craftsperson upon communications networks and e-commerce) to produce quality products for those with the means to afford them. Motivations for undertaking this new/old form of work range from an appreciation for quality and a desire to create (Barton), to some women’s desire to work out of their homes part-time (Luckman). In this project we will further refine understanding of this new economy by first creating a catalogue of the small presses of Canada, and then talking to as many of their proprietors as possible to determine why they became bookmakers, and, in particular, how the rise of the computer and e-book has, or has not, played into their motivations.

Arts-informed technology development and critique

The notion that the developers of new technologies need to have the input of the humanities and fine arts has had no greater advocate in recent history than Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Computers. For example, in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, he attributed much of Apple Computers’ success to the influence of a calligraphy class he took after he had dropped out of university. This class taught him to appreciate the beauty of typography and an understanding of the elements required to achieve this effect. Thus when the Apple Macintosh came out it was the first computer to be able to handle multiple typefaces and manipulate typography, which resulted in it becoming the preferred computer system for artists and designers (Jobs). And the success of Apple has inspired other tech companies to pay serious attention to the visual design of their products; for instance, Google’s decision to change its typography this past summer made news around the world.

The confluence of arts and technology has not always been led by those of the technology side. In his work on Toronto’s Coach House Press, John Maxwell has shown how, beginning in the early 1970s, printer Stan Beavington worked alongside computer science scholars to develop a markup language-based workflow for both authors and printers in an attempt to adapt the computer to the needs of the fine printer, an attempt that also resulted in the development of a number of tools for manipulating both computer markup languages. Most notably, the spin-off company they created, SoftQuad, released the first commercial website code editor in 1994 and its success resulted in the company going public on the NASDAQ and eventually being bought out by Corel (Maxwell).

An example of the humanities adopting this model of creative technology experimentation was the Speculative Computing Laboratory, SpecLab, at the University of Virginia in the early years of the 21st century. Johanna Drucker, a book artist and literary theorist, and others founded the lab based on the premise “that the powerful cultural authority exerted by computational media, grounded in claims to objectivity premised on formal logic, can be counterbalanced through aesthetic means in which subjectivity is central to the concept of knowledge as interpretation” (Drucker xiii). Through a variety of aesthetic experiments and games SpecLab challenged assumptions in the digital humanities and developed new ways of studying literature with technology.

The Post-Digital Book Arts project will learn from these, and other, instances of arts-informed technology development to foster an environment where scholars, artists and programmers can work together to challenge how we read, and write, and to find new ways to make that possible.

Potential influence and impact within and beyond the research community

As outlined in the Knowledge Mobilization Plan, the Post-Digital Book Arts project seeks to communicate its research results to a variety of audiences. Within academia the project will contribute to the fields of digital humanities, book history, interface design, and the book arts by enhancing our understanding of the recent revival of hand-printing practices and what those practices can contribute to the design of electronic reading interfaces. Through its website, videos, and gallery exhibit the project will help expose the work of current bookmakers, and their motivations, and challenge the public to think about what we mean by “book,” and how we relate to the textual objects in our lives. Finally, through fostering students in practices that combine the arts and technology we will help to model a process of mentoring creative and critically insightful innovators for the new knowledge economy.

Methodologies
Longitudinal book and media history

The primary focus of research in the first year of the project will be to situate current book arts practices within their historical and contemporary contexts. For example, the current revival of the book arts seems to have much in common with the revival in fine printing at the end of the 19th century led by William Morris and other members of the Arts and Crafts movement as a rebellion against industrial technologies. In Morris’s case, this renewed interest in fine printing also resulted in the improvement of the very technologies Morris railed against, as printing equipment manufacturers improved their machines so they could meet the desires of the connoisseur.

This contextual research will include travel to the two Canadian academic libraries with the broadest collections of book arts works: the Bruce Peel Collection at the University of Alberta and the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto. The collections will be examined to develop a listing of Canadian book arts practitioners and to find examples of innovative book forms that can provide inspiration for the research creation and critical making activities that will form the focus of year two. Members of the research team will also travel to the Green Boathouse Press in Vernon, BC, which hosts one of the finest collections of pre-digital printing equipment in order to document these technologies before they disappear. The final component of year one’s contextual research will be to conduct video interviews of book artists currently working in Canada. In particular we are interested in the question of to what extent the rise of the computer and the e-book has played into their desire to work with print forms, but we are also interested in their other motivations for participating in the crafts-based economy, and what insights they might have regarding the creation of hybrid digital/print book art objects. With the approval of the interviewees these videos will be edited and made available on the project website.

Critical making

The primary focus of year two of the Post-Digital Book Arts project will be to assemble a collaborative team including students with artistic and/or programming skills and to use theory-derived activities such as critical making and research creation to imagine the post-digital artists book. Critical making is a research strategy that was introduced by Matt Ratto in order to bridge the gap between the theoretical discussion of the role of technologies in society and the material practice of creating and using the technologies: “the issue I want to understand is the seeming disconnect between deterministic, conceptual understandings of the role of technology in social life, and the more material and nuanced understanding of how one relates to them … to reconnect our lived experiences with technologies to social and conceptual critique “ (253). Ratto has defined three steps to a critical making exercise. First, one reviews the relevant literature and compiles useful ideas and theories. The contextual and historical information gathered in year one of the project will form the bulk of this material. This information is then mined for ideas that can be metaphorically mapped to material prototypes and explored through fabrication. Second, groups of scholars, students and stakeholders work together to design and build technical prototypes to build skills and explore concepts, not necessarily to build functional devices or software. This focus on skill acquisition and critical enquiry, rather than on the final creation is a core tenet of Ratto’s definition, and although our project will also create objects for display (see Research Creation), it will be important to also have room for experimentation and discovery. Finally, there is an iterative process of conversation, reconfiguration, and reflection (Ratto 253). By working together, learning new skills, and experimenting with new technologies the research team will be in a better position to comment critically on how the book arts continue to function in a post-digital world. The critical making experiments of the project team will be documented on the project’s website and will contribute towards the publications and conference talks in year two of the project. The code developed will also be available under an open-source license so that others can build upon it.

Research creation/practice-led research

Critical making as a research methodology has not been without its critics. In particular, Garnet Hertz feels that by limiting the research results dissemination of critical making to articles, rather than the objects created, much of the power of the critique is neutralized: “Critically engaged language can do detailed surgery on a topic; critical objects can hit like an emotional sledgehammer. To stop short of documenting and disseminating objects that are made in a critical way cuts the audience off from the impact of things to think with”(v). Hertz advocates, and is a practitioner of, technology critique through artistic creation. This brings his practice in line with the methodologies of research creation/practice-led research. Smith and Dean, in Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts, define practice-led research as both the work of art as a form of research, and the process of discovering research insights through the creation of a work of art (7). The creative activities of year two of this project will fit both of these criteria; we will create digital artists’ books to examine our relationships with the technologies of both the printed book and the e-book, and in the process we will also gain insights into the media and how they interact. Some of the objects created will be strictly for the iterative critique process advocated by Ratto, while others, because of their artistic merit or technological innovation, will be refined for research result dissemination and to stimulate conversation. These refined works will be displayed in a gallery exhibit and the process will be outlined in a public talk which together will give the general public a chance to reflect on their relationship with books and other reading technologies.

Roles and Responsibilities

The Post-Digital Book Arts project team is a diverse and experienced group of scholars and artists who will work closely with each other and the student research assistants to ensure the project can reach its ambitious goals within the two year project timeline.

Jon Bath (Principal Investigator) is Assistant Professor, Art and Art History, and Director, Humanities and Fine Arts Digital Research Centre (DRC), at the University of Saskatchewan. Although he is in the first year of his academic appointment, he has overseen the DRC, a collaborative research facility, for nine years, and has also been co-lead of the Modelling and Prototyping team of Implementing New Knowledge Environments (www.inke.ca), a SSHRC MCRI, for the past four years. He will rely upon this experience with managing large and/or multi-disciplinary teams to lead the Post-Digital Book Arts project. He will chair bi-monthly meetings of the research team, and meet weekly with the research assistants. He will be the primary faculty member responsible for hiring, supervising, and training the research assistants. Bath will be the lead author on all publications, except where a research assistant leads, in which case he will be the primary support for the student. Similarly, he will lead and present all conference papers except where a research assistant is chosen to present. In the first year of the project he will oversee the creation of the project website, and will participate in the research trips to Edmonton, Vernon, and Toronto. He will work closely with the research assistants to plan and execute the interviews with book arts practitioners, and will train them in web publishing and multimedia editing. In the second year of the project he will actively participate in the research creation activities and will be the research assistants’ primary mentor for these activities. He will work with Graham to liaise with the galleries to arrange the show and will deliver the public lecture. As the project winds down he will coordinate long term preservation of and access to all physical and digital project materials.

John Graham (Co-applicant) is Assistant Professor, Printmaking and Digital Media, at the University of Saskatchewan. His artists’ books are in collections across Canada, and he is an award-winning short filmmaker. He will attend bi-monthly meetings of the research team and will meet with the research assistants semi-regularly. In year one he will travel with Bath and two research assistants to Edmonton to study the Bruce Peel Collection of artists’ books, and mentor the video creation activities of the research assistants. He and Bath will also liaise with galleries to arrange the exhibition space(s). In year two he will meet regularly with Bath and the research assistants to provide feedback on in-progress research creation activities and to assist in the planning of the gallery exhibit. Graham will also be a co-author on the publications and conference papers related to the research creation activities (see Knowledge Mobilization Plan).

Jentery Sayers (Collaborator) is Assistant Professor, English, and Director, Maker Lab in the Humanities, at the University of Victoria. Sayers is an expert in Critical Making practices and digital fabrication for humanities research. He will attend bi-monthly meetings of the research team and will meet with the research assistants as needed. At the beginning of year two Sayers will travel to Saskatoon to lead a workshop for project participants on digital fabrication, including 3D printing and micro-controller programming. He teaches a similar workshop at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, however bringing him to Saskatoon will be more cost effective than sending multiple people to Victoria and will allow the workshop to be tailored to the project’s needs. Sayers will also consult on the research creation activities and co-author any publications/conference papers related to these activities. Sayers has also offered to run jobs on his CNC router for the research creation activities, as Bath does not have access to this piece of equipment at the U of S.

John Maxwell (Collaborator) is Associate Professor and Director, Publishing, at Simon Fraser University. As an expert on technical innovation related to publishing and the contemporary Canadian publishing scene, Maxwell will provide valuable context and contacts for the project. He will attend bi-monthly meetings of the research team, and in year one he will meet Bath in Vernon as part of the research trip to Green Boathouse Press, and help to arrange other press visits. He will co-author at least one article/conference presentation related to year one’s activities.

Regan Mandryk (Collaborator) is Associate Professor, Computer Science, at the University of Saskatchewan. Her experience with Human Computer Interaction and the evaluation of emotional experiences with technology, as well as her industry contacts, will make her a valuable collaborator to the research creation activities in year two. She will attend bi-monthly meetings of the research team, and through her connections with the Bachelor of Arts and Science in Interactive Systems Design we hope to recruit at least one research assistant from that program. She will co-author at least one article/conference presentation related to year two’s activities.

Roles and Training of Students

One of the primary objectives of the Post-Digital Book Arts project is to bring a team of interdisciplinary scholars, artists, and students together in order to foster creative innovation and to train students in professional skills that bridge the academic, technical and artistic. The student research assistants will be absolutely fundamental to the project’s success as they will be involved in all aspects of the project, from preliminary research to results dissemination and knowledge mobilization.

In the first year the project will employ two undergraduate research assistants from the disciplines of Visual Arts and/or Art History. They will meet weekly with Bath and other members of the project team, and their responsibilities will include: researching existing book arts practices, including research trips to study collections in Edmonton and Toronto; assisting in the development of interview questions and then conducting interviews with current book art practitioners; co-authoring and co-presenting a conference paper at a national conference; co-authoring at least one of the proposed publications; and contributing content to the project website, including edited audio and video recordings of the interviews and case-studies of specific works/presses. The students will gain experience in archival research, academic and non-academic writing, interviewing, presenting, and audio and video editing. They will also gain a deeper understanding of book making practices, which will enhance their own creative work, and they will make valuable contacts within the book arts world.

In the second year the project will employ four undergraduate research assistants and one graduate research assistant from the disciplines of Visual Arts, Art History, and/or Interactive Systems Design. Ideally, one or both of the research assistants from year one will continue with the project in year two, but if this is not possible, Bath and Graham will ensure continuity between the two project phases. Year two will start with a workshop, led by Sayers, which will introduce the research assistants to Critical Making practices and teach them the basics of micro-controller programming and 3D-printing. After that the research assistants will meet weekly with Bath and other members of the project team, and their responsibilities will include: working collaboratively to develop creative prototypes of the post-digital book; being part of planning and curation team for the gallery exhibition of these works; co-authoring and co-presenting a conference paper at a national conference; co-authoring at least one of the proposed publications; and contributing content to the project website, including documenting in-progress work. The students will gain experience in collaborative creative technology development and research creation, working with interdisciplinary teams, academic and non-academic writing, and exhibit curation. They will be able to include the objects they create, and the exhibit they help to plan, in their graduating portfolios, and use the experience to augment their own creative and/or technical works.

Knowledge Mobilization Plan

Through a combination of traditional research dissemination methods, public engagement opportunities, and research creation activities, the Post-Digital Book Arts project will communicate its results to diverse audiences. In the first year we will create a project website which will highlight in-progress research, such as case-studies of specific books and presses, provide a listing of all identified Canadian craft bookmakers, and host the multi-media interviews with bookmakers as they are made available. The website will be tailored for a general audience of people interested in the book arts, rather than academics. By the end of the first year we will also communicate the results of our interviews and other research into the small press revival at a national academic conference, such as the Canadian Association for the Study of Book Culture, prepare an article for publication in an academic journal such as Book History, and prepare another article on Canadian small press activity for a trade journal such as Book Arts Canada.

The second year of the project will focus on research creation, the creation of hybrid art objects that combine the book arts and the digital. This process will be documented on the website, and the results will be shown at a gallery exhibition. Ideally this exhibition would happen in a library gallery, such as the Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina. Alongside this exhibition will be a public talk on the project. Findings of this second stage of the project will be communicated at two conferences, one for art practitioners and the other for the digital humanities/computer science. At least one of these conferences will be international. A journal article will also be prepared for a digital humanities journal such as Digital Humanities Quarterly. Finally, all research outputs of the project, including all code developed, will be archived and made publicly available through the project website and an institutional repository.

Expected Outcomes

Scholarly benefits

This project will result in three conference presentations, three publications (two academic, one public), a website, a gallery exhibit of research creation with a corresponding public talk, enhanced research and training methodologies, repurposable open source code, and six students trained in valuable professional skills. It will increase our understanding of contemporary book arts and artists, especially in Canada, and their relationship with technology, and through multimedia data gathering will document letterpress print culture now that exists solely in the hands of craft practitioners. It is an exemplar of an interdisciplinary research/training project that brings together the Fine Arts, Humanities, and Computer Science for both traditional and research-creation outputs. And it will serve as a pilot project, and partnership development activity, for both the study of the continued life of the book arts in the post-digital world, and arts-based technology development.

Societal benefits

This project will reveal new insights into the re-emerging craft-based economy and its practitioners, and make this information available to both scholars and the general public. It will also provide a model for arts-based technology development and actually develop new experimental reading technologies, which could lead to advances in the way we read and otherwise encounter books in a post-digital world. Through its public-facing research outputs it will engage the public directly in the research, asking them to question what exactly a book is, how they read, and what books and reading mean to them.

Audiences

This project and its outcomes will benefit many audiences. Academic practitioners will gain new knowledge about past and future book-making practices and the project’s combination of the arts, humanities, and sciences, will advance interdisciplinary research and training methodologies. It will benefit artists by providing new information on how craft-practitioners are making a living through their work and by exemplifying how the arts and research creation can be a valuable part of academic practice and technology development. The general public will have access to new information on the book arts in a variety of media and will be the primary audience for the research creation activities. The research creation prototypes and code could inspire new developments by companies working on new reading environments. Finally, it will provide an example of how cultural heritage holdings can inspire new innovations.

References

Barton, Robin. “Maker’s Mark: A New Generation of Artisans Are Reviving Arts and Crafts.” The Independent. 22 Oct. 2011. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Bath, Jon and Scott Schofield. “The Digital Book.” in The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book. Leslie Howsam, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2015. 181-95. Print.

Davidson, Adam. "Don’t Mock the Artisanal-Pickle Makers." The New York Times. 18 Feb. 2012. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Carr, Nicholas. “Don't Burn Your Books—Print Is Here to Stay.” Wall Street Journal. 5 Jan. 2013. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Drucker, Johanna. SpecLab: Digital Aesthetics and Projects in Speculative Computing. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2009. Print.

Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979. Print.

Galey, Alan. The Shakespearean Archive: Experiments in New Media from the Renaissance to Postmodernity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014. Print.

Hertz, Garnet, ed. Conversations in Critical Making. CTheory. 2015. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Jobs, Steve. "'You've Got to Find What You Love,' Jobs Says." Stanford News. 14 June 2005. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Klein, Naomi. No logo : taking aim at the brand bullies. Toronto : Vintage Canada, 2000. Print.

Luckman, Susan. Craft and the Creative Economy. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Print.

Lehrer, Jonah. "Steve Jobs: “Technology Alone Is Not Enough.” The New Yorker. 07 Oct. 2011. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Maxwell, John. “Unix Culture and the Coach House.” MIT6 Conference. 26 Apr. 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy. Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 1962. Print.

Mitchell, William J. City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Print.

McKay, George, ed. DiY culture: party and protest in nineties Britain. London; New York : Verso, 1998. Print.

Nelson, Brent, Jon Bath, Robert Imes and the INKE team. “Small Books, Small Screens: From the Phylactery to the Cellphone.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada. Vol. 51 No. 2. 2013. Print.

Ratto, Matt. "Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life." The Information Society 27.4 (2011): 252-60. Print.

Stallybrass, Peter. “Printing and the Manuscript Revolution.” in Explorations in Communication and History, B. Zelizer, ed., London: Routledge, 2008. 93–101. Print.

Smith, Hazel and Roger Dean. Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009. Print.

Weber, Harrison. “Etsy now has 54M members. They drove $1.93B in sales last year.” VentureBeat. 04 Feb. 2015. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

Support

The Post-Digital Book Arts project has been made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The project website is hosted by the University of Saskatchewan Libary. Bookbot was drawn by Yonina Rollack.

Contact Us

jon.bath@usask.ca
Department of Art and Art History
University of Saskatchewan