Wot is a book?


Harriet Wallis, Pattern of Procrastination, 2018
Paper, metal-rings, ink

This work is a physical representation of my uptake of information and experience with social media outlets. The work was made to explore society's (therefore by default my own) daily technological habits around social media. Aspects of which we may or may not be aware of, the work delves into the reasoning or compulsion behind our constant checking. The specific experience behind the work is the act of continuously scrolling through our social media feeds. Checking either Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, and then once done with one of these outlets switching immediately to another feed even though it will have only been a few minutes since you last looked at it. This publication also attempts to give an idea as to the process of uptake of this information, so much is being taken in that at the end of the day, in my mind anyway, it is just a mush or blur of data in our minds. From my own research I discovered an explanation behind our impulse to constantly use these apps, we are compelled to check social media by intermittent reward. Every so often posts that we see will genuinely interest us, little gold nuggets in the stream of trash. The publication displays this through use of foil. In terms of my wider practice, the areas of system and communication design and craft are those in which I would like to explore and contribute too. This project relates to those areas in ways of a curative approach, collecting information and then developing a system to display how it is absorbed. The craft side of the project is shown in the different printing processes, and the materials used. My design practice in general has influenced my approach to the project in a sense that it was very prototype and method based; using small physical and digital prototypes to build and finish a printed product. In relation to other artists and designers that have influenced this project the major ones have been Robbie Barret and a book called Double Deuce. Barret is a self-taught artificial intelligence artist of sorts and his production of images that are vaguely reminiscent of the originals but not quite distinguishable were highly instrumental in my own development of content. My own images however were not built using self-coded AI but with digital programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator. The Book Double Deuce, was insightful in to how a publication can be made with little explanation, relying more on the viewers own interpretation of the content (it has no title page, contents etc.). My own publication relies on much the same concept, it is an accumulation of images and an idea of a publication rather than an informative one. The tools used to make this work are both digital: screenshots, Photoshop, Illustrator, my own phone and computer and physical: different stocks and colours of paper, foil, a laminator, metal rings, a circle cutter, a hole punch, a Stanley knife. Each attached to different steps in the process of making it. The digital side being involved with the collection of images and manipulation and curation of them, and to an extent the production in terms of printing. Both ink jet printing and laser printing was used as well as a laminator for the foil. The physical tools being used in the steps of production in positions of cutting and building the final piece.