----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Clark" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 16 April 2000 20:46
Subject: Re: ideoxody / accepted opinions
Douglas,
| But I feel that the fine details in the book become very much lost when
| they reach the reader.
I wonder why you feel that.
I have to guess what you mean by "fine details" and I am failing to do so;
but perhaps you mean something other than the alphabetical text. I am not
clear why, if extensions and reinforcement of the alphabetical text are
misunderstood, we should expect that the alphabetical text will not be
misunderstood as well or just missed as well in part or whole. But then I am
not clear why you believe that extensions and reinforcement of the
alphabetical text are widely misunderstood; surely book-buyers look at
visual art.
A number do miss the point because of the rigidity of their categorisations.
At the Barbican Artists Book Fairs I have, for some years, personned the WF
stall and have noticed that some people slammed non verbal vispo books shut
as if they had just spotted a deadly spider within. Last time, on a number
of occasions, I kept these types under reearch-surveillance and found that
they did not behave similarly at stalls which were more obviously painterly
rather than verbal even though the visual content was in the same sort of
space as the WF books
I conclude therefore that it is a lack of preparedness to accept the
crossing of boundaries where the writer behaves like a painter. We shall do
them no favours by giving up and printing alphanumeric strings only. We
shall do ourselves no favours, unless we remain interested in illutsrative
additions.
|Only the text really matters.
This is treating the graphical elements, even choices of typeface and paper,
as illustrative rather than, if one chooses, elements of the text itself.
L
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