ALTERED BOOK PROJECT....this is for everyone

Put simply, an altered book is an existing book that has been turned into an “art object” through any of a variety of approaches to physical “treatment” or transformation. A crucial figure in the definition of this genre has been Tom Philips, creator of A Humument, an alteration of A Human Document. Philips used each page as a canvas and found various ways of integrating the pre-existing text into his visual work. What emerged was a dynamic process of reading and illustrating and transforming.

Steven will show you how to disassemble an existing book and give you some ideas for how you might approach the project. Your allegiance, however, is not to any formal approach to the project but to the relation of the project to program themes and concepts. In our program, the alteration of a book can be an expression of ideas about reading, about literature itself, about the capacities of language, or can be an exploration of a specific text through means that expand a work “beyond language.” Other guidelines will be made clear early in the qaurter.

 

Link to Steven's previous Book Arts Programs: Imaginging Books, The Art of the Book

Link to A Humument, about Tom Philips's work