what the actual book‽
a tabletop exhibition in Pinkdot life gallery
chorinerstrasse 51 Berlin
9.8.24
what is a book when its pages are unbound? what does that do to the stories within? what happens when words are no longer fixed, instead moving around and through pages? or when lines of letters phase in and out of each other? or when a book unfolds in different directions, instructing the reader how to constantly reorient themselves to it and its content?
'what the actual book‽' presents a selection of 9 book shaped poetry sculptures and delves deep into the possibilities of what book can be, what being book can mean, and what can be said when freed from the binds of convention. this exhibition showcases a total of nine books written and created since late 2019 by grouping them into three groups of three which can be loosely described as experiments in bindings, kinetics, and transparencies.
bindings
using 3 different binding techniques, these 3 books meditate on the associative and elastic nature of memory
'i remember this one time’ 2019 is a collection of memories that are re ordered dependent on the context of their recollection this is a selection of poetic vignettes from my life since coming out as trans in early 2018. they’re as true as I can write them, there’s a loose chronology, though there isn't a convenient start or a natural end, like memory they are associated and reassociated - ordered and reordered - each time they are remembered
'dreamworld - a liberello' 2019/20 is a response to my involvement in the Dreamworld immersive art project between the 20th of december 2019 and the 5th of january 2020. the poems and musings are a response to both my interaction with the space and to life outside of the space in the time I spent there dealing with love, identity, family, sexuality, trauma and the associated existential meditations, I found myself in need of a new approach to language and expression.
'imagine dancing' 2023 is the most 'conventional' book of them all. approximately 200 haiku printed and bound in chronological order, chaptered with the names and dates of the notebooks they were written in. taking the 5 7 5 form and pushing it frequently past it's breaking point, these poems are the doodles, meditations, bases of kinetic pieces, and crystallisations of thought and understanding that punctuated and accompanied my life between Dec 19 and Jan 23.
kinetics
these 3 books are made up of a selection of approximately 70 unique 'book shaped kinetic poetry sculptures' poems that require the reader to haptically engage with, blurring the line between the passive and active roles of writer and reader, between reader and performer
'kinetics'
'sometimes the best beginnings' 2023 cracks open wide the very concept of page itself, incepting a poetic form in which words dance across the page - appearing, disappearing, and morphing into new ones as they move through and within the paper they are printed upon
'i am from my self' 2023 while being a book of kinetic interactive poems, it is simply a collection of deeply personal, experiential, and relational poetry. poetry which discovers self, heals trauma, battles addiction, and overcomes abuse
'palimpsest' 2023 consolidates the playfulness of this new form and imbues it further with hard won wisdom whilst tempering the abject beauty of being with the utter absurdity of consciousness
transparencies
these 3 books utilise transparency in different ways. sisyphos uses printing on acetate to explore queerness in datasets, chaos, and the void. lost in every sense, and found out the hard way, both use acetate, lamination, and iridescent opacities to allow layers of meaning to bleed through to each other
‘i luv u sisyphos monkey’ 2020 takes sisyphos and imagines him happy as one of shakespeare’s monkeys, sifting through tens of thousands of randomly sequenced lowercase characters of the english alphabet - by hand - looking for the words ‘i luv u’. while the one hundred page book is the chronicle of both its own inception - and some important steps towards self love and acceptance, it also exists as two books - the same book views from different aspects - one of white paper, and one of clear acetate which explores the beauty of aberration - of queerness - as it relates to site of data set.
‘lost. in every sense’ 2024 is a book of poetry whose words have been layered, shredded, interspersed with shocks of colour and iridescent transparency, and laminated into visceral visual compositions that contemplate the roots of violence and trauma from the personal to the systemic
‘found out the hard way’ 2024 uses the lamination techniques established in other works such as ‘lost. in every sense’ and ‘red, white, &’ and scales them up to a3 format. whilst still engaging with broad themes of violence and trauma, this book explores the juxtaposition of colourful, light, and bright aesthetics against dark, pensive, and poignant subject matter
what the book‽
an exhibition by gorjeoux moon
retramp gallery
1-3.9.23
'what the book‽' is a set of six 105mm square book shaped poetry sculptures, 'what the book‽' delves deep into the possibilities of what book can be, what being book can mean, and what can be said when freed from the binds of convention.
six books, six concept, six bindings containing dozens of novel technical and poetic techniques', 'what the book‽' is a library of conceptual concrete poetry 'books' which the reader must haptically engage with and perform themselves in order to experience what book, page, and poem can be outside of expectations of form.
what is a book when its pages are unbound? what does that do to the stories within? what happens when words are no longer fixed, instead moving around and through pages? or when lines of letters phase in and out of eachother? or when a book unfolds in different directions, instructing the reader how to constantly reorient themselves to it and its content?
