A Medieval Device
I started to work on a book for an exhibition/competition the Bodleian Library ran in 2017 ‘Redesigning the Medieval Book’.
Too much bending over a too low table meant my back gave up and although most of the pages were painted and printed it wasn’t finished. In these days of lockdown I thought this was an opportunity to get it done. When I started I thought about different types of medieval books and their purpose. I was especially interested in almanacs, other folded, easily portable books and those which contained volvelles and diagrams. These everyday books with their signs of wear and repair have now become a precious thing to be handled with gloves and kept in controlled storage. In the Lancashire Archives there is a Vade Mecum, a small book with fold out pages full of reference materials that would be carried by a physician. The archivist referred to it as a medieval doctor’s iPad. I decided to create a response to the Vade Mecum, to make the equivalent of a medieval tablet with sections that reference all the things that people do on their devices and phones. I also wanted to make clear references to our modern response to the medieval book. Most of us don’t understand the language or have difficulty in deciphering the text .When we read about them we patronisingly consider some of the concepts in the books as primitive or strange but these books have a visual impact and we respond to them on a surface level even if we don’t have knowledge to interact with the contents meaningfully as the scribe/maker/ commissioner intended. So I wanted my book to be a container of fragmented knowledge collated but not ordered in a meaningful academic/usable way echoing how we use the internet to flick quickly from one link to another. I also wanted it to make clear reference to the source of inspiration, the medieval book, in a way that isn’t a direct copy. And I wanted it to have a tactile and visual appeal which reflects our modern understanding of the original The different ‘books’ within the structure represent some of the different uses that we have for our our Smartphone and tablets. To reflect the way in which we surf the web and hop from app to app they have been assembled in such a way that they cannot be accessed in a logical sequential manner. There isn’t a right way up or a designated back and front. To read from one end of the structure to the other it has to be turned over and over to access the next ‘book’. This is continued within the ‘books’ themselves. They reflect the way in which we collect and store data, in some cases almost randomly or, when researching, ‘just in case’. The ‘books’ like the folders we amass on our devices are divided into rough subjects but the information is not organised, is not from the same source and is different in scale and colour. Because the whole book does not have a right way up the pages are not on the same alignment. The book needs to be rotated as it is flicked through to put text ‘the right way up’ The ‘books’ in this ‘device’ consist of literature, games, music, maps, medicine and science. There is also a section for writing notes and a locked section for banking and personal stuff The ‘information’ within the books is based on historical sources dating from c. 650 – c.1500. But the materials used are modern; acrylic paint and varnish, polyester thread, oil based printing ink and laser printed printing plates. I chose to use computer generated text to make the printing plates as this book is a modern response, but, after consideration I decided to use, amongst others, an Old English font as this is what many people would expect to see in a medieval book. The book boards are made from recycled palette wood (thanks to Tony Balmer for planning, cutting and drilling) Because it references hand held devices the structure needed to be made in a size that would fit comfortably in the hand, at least in height and width if not in depth. The book dimensions are 7cm x7cm x 27cm when closed. |
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