Visual Fiction: Transformation, translation & transgression in the form of the book.

7/29/2019 Visual Fiction: Transformation, translation & transgression in the form of the book.

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P O L I N A J O F F E

M A J O R

P R O J E C T

R E P O R T


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C O N T E N T


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- 1 -

INTRODUCTION

- 2 -

THEORY

The Future

The BookContext

In The Penal Colony

- 3 -

PRACTICAL WORK

Story Analysis

Experimentation

- 4 -

REMEDIATION

Resolution

Making Of

- 5 -

CONCLUSION

- 6 -

BIBLIOGRAPHY


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- 1 -

I N T R O D U C T I O N


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R e a d i n g h a s b e c o m e

l o o k i n g a n d v i c e v e r s a .

I n f o r m a t i o n h a s b e c o m e

t a c t i l e .

(Gerritzen 2011, p.1)


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C a n t h e C o r e C o n c e p t s

o f t h e N o v e l l a I n T h e

P e n a l C o l o n y b y F r a n z

K a f k a B e V i s u a l l y

C o m m u n i c a t e d T h r o u g h

T h e F o r m o f t h e B o o k ,

T h u s C r e a t i n g A V i s i b l e

O u t p u t o f i t s L a n g u a g e ?

I could not have imagined that the above

question would have become as complex

as it eventually grew into. It appears on

the surface that it should require a fairly

simple method. I transformed the text from

being in the custom of a standard book

into an object of desire by interpreting the

text directly into the design, incorporating

tangibility and visual senses to lift the

book away from just a process for carrying

content, with some interesting outcomes.

What star ted me off with the journey into

this project is a concern of some kind for the

future of the book. It is a very contemporary

topic that possibly even too many people are

wr it ing about as is suggested in Graphic

Design Now in Production (Lupton

2011, p.59). Everyone is thinking about it,

contemplating, guessing - trying to foresee


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the future. Of course it is a popular question

as books are fundamental to our lives and it is

an exciting thought to discuss what the future

of books will hold . This however is imposs ible

to know, such is living within the present, but

that doesnt make it any less interesting to tr y

to fathom. The future flows from the present

but it is not dictated by it. I dont expect to

predict the future but I wanted to explore

the ideas and try stretching the possibilities

of the book in todays ever changing world.

The project took on a course of it s own and

I just tried to keep up with its naturally

appearing direction. I ended up exploring the

form of the book and the opportunities and

qualities that are impossible with its electronic

counterpart. I am not against e-books, iPads

or Kindles; in fact I even own a now outdated

vers ion of the la tter. The intent ion of this

project was not to take sides on the superiority

of either medium, but to purely explore the

strengths of the printed book and its form.

In order to make any practical investigations

I chose to work on the shor t novella by Franz

Kafka called In the Penal Colony. Full

of hidden meanings, the skillfully written

story leaves the reader feeling possibly in

contradiction with himself questioning basic

human values and ethics. I read the story

numerous times and studied it extensively

in order to later create an informed design

solution and reaction to the novella.


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- 2 -

T H E O R Y


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T H E F U T U R E


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The pace of communicat ion in the modern

world is quickening like never before,

and as technology gains more and more

momentum, more and more people are

becoming visually literate. The problem now

is that people are learning how to work this

new advancement alongside older, more tried

and true ways of communication. Therefore

there is currently a struggle to find the best

medium for common use, paper books and

electronic books being a large part of this

brawl, with music and film having similar

issues cleanly converting ethically, artistically

and practically to modern technologies.

Still in 1907 or perhaps 1908, when the camera

angles in the cinema started to vary, people

needed a special person called the explicator

to stand next to the screen, point and carry

out a live commentary on what was happening

within the fi lm. This is now hard for us to

imagine as we are used to Hollywood action

films that dont use frames lasting more than

three seconds, and the frames in many music

videos on MTV could not change any faster

or the eye simply wouldnt be able to register

them. This advancement has happened in

an extremely short space of time and is

continuing to advance with increasing speed

in many areas of life (Carriere 2009 ,p.41).


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Amazon Kindling


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T H E B O O K


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T h e m o r e t h e n e e d

f o r e n t e r t a i n m e n t a n d

m a i n s t r e a m e d u c a t i o n c a n

b e m e t b y n e w i n v e n t i o n s ,t h e m o r e t h e b o o k w i l l

r e c o v e r i t s d i g n i t y a n d

a u t h o r i t y . W e h a v e n o t y e t

q u i t e r e a c h e d t h e p o i n t

w h e r e y o u n g c o m p e t i t o r s ,s u c h a s r a d i o , c i n e m a , e t c . ,

h a v e t a k e n o v e r f u n c t i o n s

f r o m t h e b o o k t h a t i t

c a n t a f f o r d t o l o s e .

(Hesse, n.d. cited in de Tonnac, p.7)


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Paper books have existed for centuries around

the world and are s till in great use. They were,

up until early 20th century, the main source

for understanding. However electronic devices

are rapidly taking over the role paper books

once had. Electronic book readers (e-readers)

allow us to read and receive information

at a faster rate than by standard paper

communication as they can be downloaded

in seconds. E-readers are a lot lighter and

more transportable, the text size and style can

often be changed at a click of a button to suit

the reader and the books often can be read

on multiple platforms (eg. from e-reader to

computer) opening from where you previously

left off, as well as being read on the same

platform where other tasks are carried out, all

of which all allow for a more instant delivery

of information. Partly due to this we have

become a visually literate population, taking

in information at a faster rate, interpreting

images and skimming information like no one

could have previously predicted. Technology

has changed the way we absorb information.

The publ ishing industry has to adapt to the

readers needs and possibilities. More and

more people are downloading books straight

on to their reading devices instead of buying

physical copies of the books. This is faster,

cheaper, more convenient and takes lit tle to no

space. It is exactly these reasons that make the

printed book more special and valuable. I have

even personally noticed an increase of carefully

designed books in common bookstores like

Waterstones and Foy les. The book i s becoming

an object of desire not only for its content but

also for its tactile quality, design and form.

Due to the shift in exchange of information

via modern technology, what is le ft out


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of the equation is the design of the book

itself, as e-books often replace cover art

and book design with ease of readability

(Carriere, Eco and de Tonnac 2009).

E-books are probably better for instant

communication solely via the text; yet often

miss out almost completely on the visual

language and tangibility. The are some

ebooks that make use of this new medium,

for example the enhanced version of Alice

in Wonderland available in Apples iBooks,

however it is still screen displayed and has no

tangible quality. For this reason, it is all the

more important that a big re-design is carried

out on physical paper books, filling in the gap

e-books have now left. Books now need to go

beyond merely delivering content alongside a

simple cover. If paper books want to keep up

there needs to be a stronger change, and one

that will lend itself more to the possession

of an item than just for the content within,

by triggering other senses within people that

can help to give an extra dimension to books.


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C O N T E X T


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D e s i g n e r s t r a d e i n

s t o r y t e l l i n g . T h e e l e m e n t s

w e m u s t m a s t e r a r e n o t

t h e c o n t e n t n a r r a t i v e s b u tt h e d e v i c e s o f t h e t e l l i n g :

t y p o g r a p h y , l i n e , f o r m ,

c o l o r , c o n t r a s t , s c a l e ,

w e i g h t , e t c . W e s p e a k

t h r o u g h o u r a s s i g n m e n t ,l i t e r a l l y b e t w e e n t h e l i n e s .

(Rock 2005, p.4)


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To begin my research I studied the vi sual

grammar of books, concentrating on books

with high leve ls of graphic design inter vention,

where design plays an integral par t of depicting

the story. I thought that I wanted to create

something similar, but soon realized that for a

book where the content and design play equal

parts, the designer has to work in collaboration

with the author or be a wr iter himsel f. Many

extremely successful visual books such as J. S.

Foers novels and books published by Visual

Editions have been created in this way. It

would be fantasti c if one day I could embark

on a journey like this with an author, but

for now I needed to learn about the visual

grammar of these highly designed books

and practice my skills within that medium.

Before starting on my own experiments with

the book I carried out extensive research on

other projects that seek to make the grammar

of the book speak in unconventional ways.

There are in finite ways to te ll the same stor y,

exercises in style by Raymond Queneau being

an excellent example of this. It is the designers

role to figure out the most appropriate way to

communicate the main ideas. There are many

reasons for choosing to create a book with

design intervention as extreme as I ended up

producing. I hoped to not only have personal

gain through research and practice but to

appeal both to other designers, existing Kafka

readers and even attract a new audience to the

hugely important Modernist, existentialist

wr iter of the ear ly 1900 s and the novella itsel f.

The unusual look of the pieces I created can

be attractive to any visually literate people and

especially those interested in fiction writing.


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By arranging the piece into a new form a new

kind of audience can be aroused to read the

novella intrigued by the initial appearance of

the books. Current Kafka fans will hopefully

already understand the reasons for the chosen

manifestations of the story and be able to have

a new experience in reading the story visually

and translating each design decision in relation

to the text. The objects created are ones to

respect, cherish and contemplate on. They aid

in understanding the underlying themes of

the novella by reinforcing them and informing

the reader of their existence through design.

Approaches and ideologies on the ru les of

book design vary. B. Warde argues that to

allow the reader to enter book space, there

cannot be distractions and the design needs

to be transparent, acting as a window for

the reader to look through (Warde 1955,

p.94). Design intervention in the layout of a

page is inevitable but the extent of it is up

to the designer. There are numerous books

where design supports the text and even

enhances the reader experience. Childrens

books often use design to further involve the

child in the story and aid its memorisation.

This type of intervent ion is not new in adult

literature either and recently it seems to be

growing in popularity. It is seen in everything

ranging from books on design fiction, non-

fiction and anything else found in between.

The leve ls of intervent ion va ry from subt le

and near invisible to extremes, even creating

ergodic literature where the reader is required

to work hard in order to read or e ven decipher

the text. The term ergodic was first used by

Espen Aaerseth to describe the extranoematic

aspects of reading that happen outside the


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limitations of human thought. He describes

that, In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort

is required to allow the reader to traverse the

text. If ergodic literature is to make sense

as a concept, there must also be nonergodic

literature, where the effort to traverse the text is

trivial, with no extranoematic responsibilities

placed on the reader except (for example)

eye movement and the periodic or arbitrary

turning of pages.(Aarseth 1997, p. 1).

His theories on reading are extremely valuable

in relation to my major project. The notion of

cybertext that he describes in his 1997 thesis

have made me contemplate on the possibilities

of book design as a possible nonlinear piece,

comparable to a game, where the reader or

viewer is required to interact with the wr it ing

in order to gain the desired outcome, which

might also differ depending on the user as

the piece I created has no actual text in it, the

reader / viewer has to engage with it in an

unusual way. It places the raeder in a different

line of thought. The reader can be an active

part and a participant of the book. In cybertexts

the medium is an essent ial aspect of the story.

The importance of the medium is truly

immense in design and culture. I hadnt

given it much thought until I read the design

rhetoric classic by McLuhan and Fiore, The

Medium is the Message. As is stated in one

of the first pages of the book Societies have

always been shaped more by the nature of

the media by which men communicate than

by the content of the communication. This

seemingly simple statement really struck me

as a complete truth that I had previously been

negligible towards. The medium really often

is just as important as the information it


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holds and needs to be given the recognition

and consideration accordingly and as Newark

states in What is Graphic Design, the

creation of content is not graphic design any

more than acting is the same as writing a play

(Newark 2002, pg. 20). However this does

not mean that the choice of content to this

project was immaterial. I settled on Kafkas

short story In the Penal Colony due to its

strong typographic themes, and appropriate

length for graphic experimentation.

The genera l area that I worked in is

remediation. Since the remediation happened

from text to text and from book to book, it

is important to make the distinction of the

remediation. I explored the text in ways that

do not confide with the basic rules of design

as a pure means of framing information.

An examination of translat ion theory and

an analysis of its processes in unit one and

the beginning of unit two benefited my

understanding of remediation of literature into

a visual form. The exploration of a translators

methods and processes of managing the reader

experience enabled me to understand where to

apply certain methods or bring in personal

interpretations and apply these processes

into graphic design practice where applicable.

As the modern world is becoming extens ively

vi sual in it s communicat ion st yles , the people

have had to gain acuity in reading these v isual

messages. Visual literacy is a necessary

competency of members of contemporary

society (Sadokierski 2009, p.15). Visual

literacy has become intuitive and exploring

that in the relatively new territor y that I chose

to work within felt like the natural step in

investigating the possibilities of these changes.

In his article The Word Emil Ruder


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proposes, It is our task to give language

form, to lend it permanence and to keep it

that way. We often do not realize that this

task is only accomplished through the means

of form. (Ruder 2012, p183) This statement

strongly supports the set of books that was

created as the outcome for this project. There

are however concerns in these types of highly

designed books as the design can be argued

to be more intended for looking than for

reading, thus stripping the integrity of the

original text. Even though the line between

the two is fine and looking and reading share

more and more common characteristics,

there can be a danger in creating pure

decoration to frame the text, or even creating

a purely decorative object when approaching

design from such an extreme angle.

The books created through th is project

however are not purely decorative but serve

a distinct purpose and are fully considered

reactions to the text. When designing the

outcomes I had to be extremely aware that I am

only remediating the content and not trying

to make it pretty. Each detail was considered

in context and reflection to the text. The role

of the designer is not to satisfy ones own need

for creativity but to work resourcefully with

the content provided. In this project I chose

to approach design as an editor, selecting the

core concepts of the stor y to express. The story

is another persons creative material, not mine.

There are numerous works already created

in this field and the design approaches vary

from near invisible to extreme. One of the

books I found extremely related to my project

is Bloomfield an Elderly Bachelor written

by F. Kafka, designed by John Morgan and

published by 4 Corners Books. I even spoke


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to Richard Embray from 4 Corners Books

about this publication and discussed research

methods that were undergone for the design,

as well as reasons for the design choices

made. The book is heavily designed without

interference to the text and in fact aids reading

with its large margins, text si ze and ty peface.

The whole book is set in Walbaum, Kafkas

preferred typeface. Most of the book was in

fact created as a reaction to Kafkas design

preferences. After their extensive research at

the British Library, it turned out that Kafka

himself liked black books of a relatively small

format and large text and margins. He had a

clear preference for the typeface Walbaum and

it is even considered that he had written a short

story about it, drawing parallels to the shape

of its letters and the sturdy tree trunks in the

snow (R . Embray 2012, pers. Comm., 23 Sept.).

4 Corners Books - Blumfeld An Elderly Bachelor


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I N T H E P E N A L

C O L O N Y


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T h e s t o r y f e a t u r e s a s

a p r o t a g o n i s t a w o r l d l y

e x p l o r e r , t o w h o m s o m e

a m o u n t o f r e s p e c t a n dd i g n i t y i s a t t a c h e d . U p o n

h i s v i s i t t o t h e p e n a l c o l o n y

o f a n u n n a m e d i s l a n d ,

t h e e x p l o r e r m e e t s w i t h

a n o f f i c e r a t t h e c o l o n y se x e c u t i o n s i t e , d i r e c t l y

i n f r o n t o f t h e e x e c u t i o n

d e v i c e , o r a p p a r a t u s .

T h e o f f i c e r , o n e o f t h e

f e w r e m a i n i n g f o l l o w e r s o f t h e o l d C o m m a n d a n t , h a s

d e d i c a t e d h i m s e l f f u l l y

t o t h e r e i n s t a l l a t i o n o f

t h e f o r m e r , b u t c u r r e n t l y

d e j e c t e d , g l o r y k n o w n t o

t h e a p p a r a t u s a n d t h e o l d

C o m m a n d a n t s r e g i m e .T h e e x p l o r e r i s p r e s e n t

b e c a u s e i t i s h i s c h a r g e t o

a s s e s s t h e e x e c u t i o n s e t

t o t a k e p l a c e a n d t o d r a w

a c o n c l u s i o n c o n c e r n i n gt h e r e t e n t i o n o r r e j e c t i o n

o f t h e e x i s t e n t s y s t e m .

(McGee 2011)


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Af ter the extens ive research into book design,

book publishing, the future of the book and its

vi sual language, I dove in to Kafkas wor ld and

the novella I chose to work with. I initially read

In The Penal Colony once and went on to

also read other pieces by Kafka in order to get

a feel for his writing st yle, reoccurring themes

and distinctive tone. I also read some essays

about the authors life alongside numerous

analyses of my chosen novella. The essays

often concentrated on the themes underlying

the narrative and studied the detached Kafkas

style of writing and the possible reasons for it.

The stor y concentrates on the workings of

an intricate execution machine, referred to

as the apparatus. By piercing with needles,

It carves the sentence of a condemned person

into his skin over a course of twelve hours,

eventually killing him. During the first hour

the condemned goes on living as before. After

the sixth hour he enters a euphoric trance

and stops screaming from pain, accepting and

understanding his fate. He then concentrates

on deciphering the movement of the needle on

his body, as the sentence has not been disclosed

to him. The whole process of the execution is

said to be extremely beautiful and as a reader

you are made to feel this way too. Blood is

never visible as the skin is specially treated to

reduce bleeding and the wounds are constantly

cleaned using water from special tubes

attached next to every needle. (Kafka 1914)

McGee writes that the story incorporates a vast

array of religious, artistic, and philosophical

elements and the popular critical analysis

seems to be that the stor y is allegorical, where

the old Commandant represents either the

God of the Old Testament, those that subscribe


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whol ly to the Old Testament but not the New

Testament, or something else related di rect ly

to the Old Testament. (Fear and Trembling

in the Penal Colony by Kyle McGee)

I had drawn extremely similar conclusions

from the text myself upon first reading it.

One of the strongest ideas in the text is the

similarity between the Commandants and the

Old and New Testaments. I believe the book is

a heavy, yet subtle statement against religion.

It takes into consideration the poeticness

and beauty of religion and existence of god,

but still refutes it. This is supported all the

more as Kafka himself was an atheist, in

a time when atheism was a minority and

outspoken criticism of religion was frowned

upon. It was only in the latter half of the

20th century when atheism was given more

support through free thinking Philosophers

such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Karl Marx

and Friedrich Nietzsche (Alun 2003).

The stor y defies logic with comple te

conviction, and yet it also seems strangely

familiar. Many similar acts and styles of

torture have been and in some place still are

carried out, many of them as a part of religious

ceremonies or rituals. I wanted to read the

story over and over. I found it disturbing

that, against all logic I was drawn to the

novella and ended up sympathizing with the

cruel officer who enjoys torturing and killing

people. Although I could not agree or support

his actions, I sympathized and saw the artistic

va lue of it simi larly to the Travel ler in the

story. The officer believes his machine and the

torture it carries out to be of great beauty

a precious act that the condemned are even

lucky enough to experience. When he learns


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that the influential outsider, the Traveller,

does not support his actions I nearly cry,

feeling the beauty and impact of what he is

denied. There are no rules in Kafkas world

and I had a lot to learn from him. I had to

learn to have nerve, fearlessness and most

of all calm. His writing demonstrates that

there is no need for complexity as simplicity

and minimalisation can say even more.

Kafkas writing style became an inspiration

and a role model for me in its own right.


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- 3 -

P R A C T I C A L

W O R K


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S T O R Y

A N A L Y S I S


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i t k e e p s m a k i n g t h e

i n s c r i p t i o n d e e p e r f o r

t w e l v e h o u r s . F o r t h e f i r s t

s i x h o u r s t h e c o n d e m n e dm a n g o e s o n l i v i n g a l m o s t

a s b e f o r e . H e s u f f e r s

n o t h i n g b u t p a i n . A f t e r

t w o h o u r s , t h e f e l t i s

r e m o v e d , f o r a t t h a t p o i n tt h e m a n h a s n o m o r e

e n e r g y f o r s c r e a m i n g .

(Kafka 1924, p.11)


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To start on the process of design, I first reread

the novel and made mind maps for different

aspects of the story. I wanted to get a clearer

Idea the main thing I needed to communicate.

Al l the research I had undergone made me too

fearful to actually start experimenting and all

ideas I had seemed to disrespect the author

or the text. I didnt want to do anything to

distract from the text and only wished to

create the perfect crystal goblet that would

confide with the positions B. Warde had

put forth. Warde 1955, p.94). Even reviews

on experimental book design I had read

scared me, paralyzed me and left me unable

to start the design process. Reading essays

by J. Tshichold, B. Warde and E. Lupton

made me feel like experimental design, and

any distraction from the text was not worth

embarking on. However I later decided that

I needed to take advice from B. Mau and

begin anywhere, as this might be my last

chance for freedom in experimentation. I

have always felt that the university is a place

for experimentation, fun and seeing what

happens without worrying of failure. It is an

opportunity to work and explore problems

that arise and s earching for solutions. In order

to ask questions a problem needs to be found.

The way I ended up approaching the so lution

for my major project does not compete with

the text but merely remediates it, similarly

to how a filmmaker or theatre director

carry out with a given narrative. It is not

trying to be the same text. The novel is

great, modern, minimalist, horrifying and

calm at the same time. I decided the design

of my book should reflect all of that. The

design reflects the authors intention. I am

merely a translator of the words into form.


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Though the resu lt might seem expressive,

it is in fact a purely rational analysis of the

text. Each detail is considered with great

care and detail in relation to the novella.

I did extensive research into the biblical

themes of the novella, as they are a prominent

part of the story. I researched the history of

flagellation, mortification and other inflicted

pain as part of religious rituals. I also read

about different execution and torture devices

not as directly associated with religion. Torture

and burning of witches, hanging, drawing and

quartering and other forms of torture and

execution were all still justified and supported

by religions. As in In The Penal Colony

crowds, including children would gather to see

the horrific executions, cheering and clapping,

enjoying the cruel justice being served. Slow

slicing or Lingchi is a method of torture

that I found to be the closest to the way of

execution described in in the Penal Colony.


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E X P E R I M E N T A T I O N


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In unit 2 I had started from the simplest

experiments I could think of. The first thing I

did was set the whole text on one spread and

only leave the most integral words for reading

the story. I looked at blocking out the text and

looking at it as a form as well as reorganizing

the text by character actions. After these qu ick

experiments I abandoned the approach, as I

didnt see it taking a valuable direction. I did

however uncover some interesting aspects

about the writing style through this method.


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I then did simple interventions into the

typography by overlaying it twice and shifting

it slightly, achieving discomfort for the

reader, similarly to what the story itself does.

From these experiments I produced my unit

2 submission. The version was subtle with its

intervention. The simply set text subtly, nearly

unnoticeably turned from black to bright red,

symbolizing the gore and simplicit y of the story.


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Af ter unit 2 I concentrated on research,

much of which I have already talked about. I

attempted to look at the story from a different

angle, dropping the themes of blood and

concentrating on the body and skin. Theseideas were also dropped ver y rapidly as I didnt

see how to take this further and realized that

I was overcomplicating the ideas and should

return to the more obvious themes of the

novella, turning back to the topic of blood and

hoping to also integrate the religious aspects

into the experimentation. I tried smudging

text on a page, paper marbling, dipping paper

into red ink and simply letting ink seep

through pages of a book. After conducting

these experiments I felt in contradiction with

what I felt towards the novella. It was neither

gory nor scary. It was detached and subtle.


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I stepped away from blood and gore and

wanted to find a simpler and cl eaner

approach. This is when I stopped creating,

being too uncomfortable with any ideas I had.

I thought of creating a book in the form of abible that reflects on the minimization of the

story by having only a few sentences per page,

following the rhythm of reading, and having

the rest of the page covered in holes. I soon

realized this was once again overcomplicating

a simple idea. This is however the ideafrom which the outcomes then followed.

I k d ll d d f l l k I f h f h


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I kept dropping all my ideas and felt like I

was star ting from scra tch ever y time. At the

London Book Art Fair I saw a book about

Lucio Fontana and his art philosophy of

specialism. I got excited by these ideas andwent on to experiment by making cuts , holes

and piercings in books. Again, something was

not completely right but there seemed to be

some rough integrity in the coarsely pierced

booklet. I realized that the machine in the

novella is not making holes into the skin of thecondemned but small piercings, and this was

exactly why the latter experiment felt more

successful than any of the others. Still uncertain

of what the outcome might be, I nonetheless

still wanted to test making holes in Bibles in

va rious ways using circular saws and different

sized drills. Though interesting outcomes,

they were less fitting with the narrative and

were abandoned. I had found the main idea

for the outcome of the project - piercing.

I ill f l i d b l i ll


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I still felt unconvinced by leaving all text out

of a book and experimented by underlining

with pierced holes to restate the import ance of

the text. I used a needle pointed tracing wheel

generally used for pattern making to realizethis and even though I managed to achieve a

relatively precise outcome, it was impossible

to control with accuracy. For this experiment

I also opted for subtle color to emphasize that

the story, generally considered horror, was in

fact somehow quite light in feel. I also usedBible paper to reference the Biblical themes.


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4


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- 4 -

R E M E D I A T I O N

R E S O L U T I O N


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R E S O L U T I O N

I now felt confident that the approach of The remediat ion I created is designed as


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I now felt confident that the approach of

piercing and treating the book as a human body

is treated in the story was the right one for the

resolution. I created a complete remediation

of the textural narrative into the pure formof the book. The outcome demonstrates how

far graphic intervention can go in order to

add greater depth to a story, a counter act

against electronic books and more modern

forms of communication. The remediation

in this way tells the reader or viewer the corestory using the form of the book as a form of

expression and separate medium of its own.

The body of each book is treated like the

human body. Each book represents one hour

of the work of the execution machine or theapparatus, and in fact also took about one

hour to pierce. I took on the role of the officer

in operating the machine with artis tic integrity.

The remediat ion I created is designed as

twelve books, shaped to look like bibles to

demonstrate the strong religious depictions

within the book that the stor y hinges on.

Each book portrays every passing hour thatthe condemned suffer. The first six books

contain thicker paper than the last six to

demonstrate the change in the condemned

mans thoughts, as he eventually accepts

his fate mid way through the process.

I believe I have succeeded in using graphic

design intervention in depicting the

narrative text of In Penal Colony into the

form of the book, expressing the minimalist

qualities of the third person narrative,

the method of the machine that lies atthe heart of the story and the religious

allegories that appear all throughout the text.


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M A K I N G O F


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M A K I N G O F

I created a bed of nails that I intended to press


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p

into books to create my outcome. However the

experiment didnt work as intended and I was

unable to find a press that would be able to

push the nails deep into the book, or even away to take the na ils out. It is nevertheless

an interesting looking piece that could

even work well on its own. I realized that

the piercings had to be created one by one.

I then adapted a drilling machine, in a sense


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p g

recreating the execution apparatus from the

novella. Instead of a drill I put in a needle

that was thick enough to not snap when being

pushed into the body of the book. The machinedidnt require being turned on, as I didnt need

a spinning needle, but I used the handle for

accuracy and force of piercing. I created a grid

for the book to be used for all twelve of them

in order to get the place of the piercings exact

each time. The twelve hours of the working ofthe machine were divided by the thickness of

the books, and so the needle was pushed in 1,5

mm deeper for each book. As in the story, the

first hour leaves the body nearly as before, but

by the 12th hour the person is killed and to

show this in the form of the book this is whenthe needle goes through the book completely.


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- 5 -


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5

C O N C L U S I O N

I wanted to retell the story the author and truly visual side using the form of the


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had intended by using a different media

but at the same time keeping it within

the media of the traditional printed book.

I feel that what the reader, or more literally

viewer, can get from this book largely depends

on the attention they decide to dedicate

to it as an object and how much effort they

wish to put in to it to decipher what I and,

from research, others find to be the strongestideas and meanings within the story In

The Penal Colony . As this is now a mixed

media of sorts it allows the remediation

to be appreciated on many different levels.

The piece I have created is a stand on theimportance and possibilities of the printed

book against all that is lost with its electronic

counterpart. It is able to express the tangible

book to express meaning conveyed within the

text, making it an object of desire and value

- 6 -


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Visual Fiction: Transformation, translation & transgression in the form of the book.

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