Southdown College - Guest Speaker

I gave a guest lecture for A' Level students about 'Lovely Zines, the Zineopolis Collection and why not just go and make one'. Showing examples from the Zineopolis collection including issues of Future Fantasteek! I started the Zineopolis collection and now curate it as well as doing the website.http://www.zineopolis.blogspot.co.uk/p/f.html

The Ministry of Books - Exhibition

Guest exhibiter on behalf of The Ministry of Books - December 2008 - January 2009
Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight, UK. Reboot was chosen to travel with this guest show.

Visual Diaries - Sketchbook Project

Visual Diaries - The Space Gallery, University of Portsmouth 3rd-14th November 2008
Invited artist as part of a rotating sketchbook project.

http://www.dampflat.com/DAMPFLAT/news/visdiary/visdairy.htm

To see more about the Visual Libraries project visit:

http://www.visuallibraries.com

Cheltenham Illustration Awards - Guest Speaker

The title of my talk was - The Zineopolis Zine Collection and Future Fantasteek

"A one day Symposium that explores autonomous career pathways for Illustration graduates and professionals. We have a distinguished line-up of speakers, who are all keen to discuss the proposal that illustrators will only find creative satisfaction through self-expression and creating work that is meaningful to them, and not dependent on short-lived trends or dictates of the graphic design industry. The Symposium will take place at Pittville Studios, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham on Wednesday the 15 October 2008, and will coincide with the presentation ceremony of the second Cheltenham Illustration Awards." Flyer copy

Future Fantasteek! Issue No.5

ISSUE FIVE : OCTOBER 2008
...Credit Crunch Issue

Softback Zine printed in greyscale on yellow paper, with colour center pages, includes a tipped-in dubious banknote and rubber stampped flies. staple bound. A5 size containing 16 printed pages. Bright pink card cover with yellow dots. 
Issue Five: Brighton 2008, edition size of fifty.

The credit crunch issue looks at liars, not using your brain and spotting fakes. There's free money from the bank of Future Fantasteek included as a worthless free gift. The Damp Research Facilities answer these questions: Why are people so nasty to each other ? Is greed really the future? How many of us have eaten from the Tree of Stupidity ? Can genetically enhanced monkeys with clipboards replace office staff? And could octopus DNA enable you to work longer hours? More pointless questions to ponder in a disappointing world...


To see the whole zine follow this link
http://www.dampflat.com/DAMPFLAT/books/zines/future5/index.htm

Damp Flat Website gets Archived by the British Library

 The UK Web Archive is a corpus of websites selected by leading UK institutions for their historical, social and cultural significance in the UK, for the benefit of researchers. Snapshots of each title, known as instances, are taken at suitable intervals. The archive is free to view and has already collected over 4,000 selected websites since it was set up in mid-2005. Websites are either selected by subject specialists within the participating institutions or have been successfully nominated for archiving. 
The partners are; The British Library:The National Library of Wales: JISC: Wellcome Library:National Archives 

Damp Flat Books has been selected and is now being recorded regularly, view various snapshots here: 
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/9404540

B* *K - Exhibition

B* *K an exhibition of book-inspired artworks at the London Print Studio gallery
425 Harrow Road, London, W10 4RE, United Kingdom
Exhibition 11th July - 27th September 2008
Private view 10th July, 6.30 - 8.30 pm

Included in this exhibition is: Future Fantasteek - The Sick-o issue, No.4 Feb 2008

AHRC Artists’ Books Seminar - Guest Speaker

1 - 8th May 2008 The seminar was called: How are artists using and investigating new media for publishing?
School of Creative Arts, Department of Art and Design,
University of the West of England Bristol, UK

I will be giving a presentation on the 8th May called: Using the internet for showing and marketing artists' books. To see the slides that accompany the talk click here...

Re:2008 Touring Artists' Books Exhibition

Exhibition curated by the we love your books collaboration between Melanie Bush, Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design, The University of Northampton, UK and Emma Powell, Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design, De Montfort University (Leicester), UK.

All books were based on re word(s). For example: release, remote, reject,reassemble etc. 

Wonderful books were submitted from book artists and students from all over the world
including: Finland, The Ukraine, Russia, Spain, Australia, Italy, Canada, Hong Hong, Hungary,
Germany, Portugal, Sweden and USA.

• 12th – 29th May 2008, The Gallery, The University of Northampton, Northampton, NN2 6JD, UK.
• 14th July–14th August, Artworks MK, Milton Keynes, UK 
• 5th-14th November 2008, University of Portsmouth , CCi Space, Eldon Building, Portsmouth, UK

Reboot is on show. As part of the Portsmouth show there ar also another 3 exhibitions:

Visual Dairies - This was a sketchbook project with staff and students.

Zineopolis - I curate the zine collection at the University and selected zines are being shown,
Future Fantasteek! Issue No. 5 is being premiered at this venue.

The Ministry of Books - The University of Portsmouth has recently started an artists' books collection curated by Dr Maureen O'Neill. You can visit the site here...

Shelter Artists' Books Exhibition

New book - Head Room & Anxious Homes have both been accepted for exhibition due to open in late April - May 2008. This book will be available to view on my website soon. It's featured on the exhibition publicity, see left (it's second from top, the pink skyscraper).

The exhibition is now touring America:

April 10 - 22, 2008
Wedeman Gallery, Yamawaki Art and Cultural Center, Lasell College, Newton, MA

May 9 - June 19, 2008
Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Silver Spring, MD

July 9 - August 15, 2008
Fleet Library, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

Oct 6 – 31, 2008
Montserrat College of Art’s 301 Gallery, 301 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA

April 8 - May 3, 2009
Wells College, Aurora, NY

January - February 2009
Holy Cross College Art Gallery, Worcester, MA

New Book - Headroom

The book is a visual response to the drive to fit more and more people into an ever diminishing space. The U.K is under pressure to find more housing and every patch of land, including gardens,are being built upon. New housing is tightly packed with little concern for the environment or the needs of the new residents. Whilst reading Roget's Thesaurus, I noticed the thematic listing of words was taking on a poetic significance, I used the word lists in the order they appeared in the Thesaurus to convey a sense of melancholy amongst the crowds. The book is printed on accounting paper to show financial pressures, the drawings are a mixture of my photographs of buildings and drawings of imaginary future towers, unintentionally imprisoning their tenants. The text is rubber stamped. 

290mm x 110mm. 14 pages with ending with edition number, signature and maker's emboss. 
To view this book visit my website at: http://www.dampflat.com/DAMPFLAT/books/headroom/index.htm

Now touring the U.S. as part of the Shelter Artist's Book Exhibition.

• April 10 - 22, 2008 - Wedeman Gallery, Yamawaki Art and Cultural Center, Lasell College, Newton, MA, USA
• May 9 - June 19, 2008 - Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Silver Spring, MD, USA
• July 9 - August 15, 2008 - Fleet Library, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, USA
• Oct 6 – 31, 2008 - Montserrat College of Art’s 301 Gallery, 301 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA, USA
• April 8 - May 3, 2009 - Wells College, Aurora, NY, USA
• January - February 2009 - Holy Cross College Art Gallery, Worcester, MA, USA

New Book - Reboot

Reboot - Limited Edition of 10, Brighton 2008

400mm x 170mm, a double spiral-bound pair of books each of 20 pages
The cover is clear acrylic closed with magnetic catches
Hand-cut rubberstamp icons are added to final printed pages
Several real capacitors and fuses are threaded into two of the pages

This is a book about computers. Do they really hate us? Why are computers so indignant when you want to open files, rewarding your impetuousness with spinning balls and hourglass icons. This is a book about technological brokenness. We rely more and more on technology and computers, ignoring the fact that there seems to be a mechanical revolt gradually gathering pace all around us - soon the only tasks left for us will be hand-drawing the Out of Order signs to hang on the machines. Over a period of time, I’ve been recording technology failures photographically as well as drawing the language of brokenness, cryptic messages such as, disc error and are you sure you want to shut-down?

I've combined my photographs and drawings into this pair of books, added to this hand-cut rubber stamps of familiar computer icons - hourglass, watch, cursor arrow and older legacy icons such as the floppy disk. Scanned legacy peripherals such as scsi leads and old network cables tangle across the pages, to remind us just how fast technology is moving.
The books work as a pair and should be opened and read simultaneously.


To View this book in more detail visit:
http://www.dampflat.com/DAMPFLAT/books/reboot/index.htm

This book was created for the Re:2008 Exhibition held by the We Love Your Books Collective
The exhibition will start at:
Artworks MK, Milton Keynes, UK from 14th July–14th Aug. 2008
The Gallery, Herefordshire College of Art – Summer 2008
The Space Gallery, University of Portsmouth from 3rd-14th Nov. 2008
Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight, UK. Dec. 2008

Reboot is also held in:

Modern British Collections, The British Library, London, UK
The Ministry of Books, University of portsmouth, UK

Zineopolis Exhibition

Zineopolis Exhibition - 22nd February - 14th March 2008
The University Library, University of Portsmouth, UK

New zine collection a the University called Zineopolis will be showcasing its collection - Including all the Future Fantasteeks! 
www.zineopolis.co.uk

 

Future Fantasteek! Issue No.4

ISSUE FOUR : FEBRUARY 2008
...Sick-O Issue

Softback Zine printed in greyscale on orange and yellow paper, staple bound.
A5 size containing 16 printed pages. Day-glo orange cover with yellow dots.
Issue Four: Brighton 2008, edition size of fifty.

The Damp Flat Research team are wondering why eveyone's so sick lately. They are also quickly investing, on-the-side, in the pharmaceutical industry. What with Norovirus and advice on how to take a 'sickie' there seems to be no healthy folk left. This issue also includes how to spot whether you have ended-up working for the Departement of Stupidity and the right way to wash your hands. I would write more, but I'm feeling off-colour and need to lay down... 


To view this zine in more detail go here...
http://www.dampflat.com/DAMPFLAT/books/zines/future4/index.htm


Or to flick through this zine on Issuu go here:
http://issuu.com/futurefantasteek/docs/ff4

The British Library now has copies of Damp Flat Books

The whole Damp Flat Collection can now be viewed at The British Library. The library has recently purchased a copy of each title for their Modern British Collections section.

The British Library
96 Euston Rd
London NW1 2DB

There is also a link to this website from the British Library's Fine Presses, Artists' Books, and Book Arts website
http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpsubject/artarchperf/art/finepressesartistsbooksandbookarts/finepresses.html

The Blue Notebook - Guest Artist

The Blue Notebook - peer reviewed journal about artists' books.
Edited by Sarah Bodman - August 2007 issue.

I was invited to produce an Artist’s Page - Evil-Pet Shop

In each issue 5 artists are asked to provide an artist's page. The content of the page is entirely open and can be text, image or both. The only stipulation is that it needs to be A4 portrait, RGB colour, saved as a jpeg or pdf at 300dpi. The Blue Notebook is produced as a full colour pdf and also a black and white printed magazine.

Future Fantasteek! Issue No.3

ISSUE THREE : JULY 2007
...Carbon Footprint Issue 

Softback Zine printed in greyscale on yellow paper, staple bound with central section in colour. 
A5 size containing 16 printed pages. Bronze cover with dye cut shape.
Issue three: Brighton 2007, edition size of fifty.

Once again, the Damp Flat Research team share their fantastic inventions, ideas and advice.
The evil central colour pull-out has a mirror where you can see your evil twin or simply worry more with the new Damp Worry Doll. 
There are inventions to help you spot a bad idea; pretend to talk like a grown-up or slow yourself down to avoid having to do anything.
That and so much more - are you really being watched? 

To view this zine in more detail visit:

http://www.dampflat.com/DAMPFLAT/books/zines/future3/index.htm

Or to flick through online visit issuu at:

http://issuu.com/futurefantasteek/docs/ff3

Future Fantasteek! will soon available from:
PURE GROOVE Music Store, 679 Holloway Road, London N19 5SE, UK

Sitting Room - Exhibition

Sitting Room Exhibition has continued on to Winchester Gallery at Winchester School of Art.
The show opens on 6th July, with a private view on 11th July, and runs until 2nd August 2007.
Anxious Homes from Damp Flat Books is part of the group show, see 2006 news below for more details about this exhibition. 
http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/sitting07.htm

Damp Flat Books feature in lecture.

ARLIS/UK and Ireland Annual Conference‘Useful and; Beautiful? Supporting the Arts and Crafts in the 21st Century’
Park Campus, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, Wednesday 4th July – Friday 6th July 2007. Damp Flat Books are featured in, Page on Page – an overview of Contemporary British and Irish Artists’ Books, a talk given by Sarah Bodman.

New Book - Mortal Coil

11” (28cm) width x 4” (10.5cm) height x ½” (1cm) thickness – approx.

Unfolded each page is 15” long (39cm)
Heavy grey millboard covers.
Wire binding in dark green.
Nine pages, eight of which fold-out, printed on 130gsm cartridge paper
Trace fly-leaf, title of book on embossed vertical belly-band, numbered and signed in an edition of ten, made in Brighton, United Kingdom 2007
Much of my previous work has centred around themes of advertising and anxiety, recently I have been experimenting with photo collage and hand drawn typography. I usually write my own texts, but your exhibition requirements were really interesting - affording me the opportunity to explore some new literature. In response to a forthcoming exhibition in Kentucky I started to explore the visual possibilities of the poems of Robert Penn Warren. I’ve based my book Mortal Coil on the poem, Mortal Limit by Robert Penn Warren.

The text of the poem is split into 7 sections, hand drawn typographically to emphasise key words. The typography sits above photo collages (taken in the South of England) exploring the melancholy of the landscape as it metamorphoses from undeveloped ruralscapes into urban jungles. Themes of urban decay and environmental issues are very much in focus in Britain at the moment, and it was fascinating in the poem to have aspirational descriptions of the landscape tinged with the failings of the human spirit. The book is designed to have folding pages that when opened-up reveal darker elements from the previous page. The symbol of the hawk is a reminder of the source of the text,
a favourite motif of the poet.
My book both begins and ends with the image of the hawk (a familiar icon within Penn Warren's work). The colours in the book change from greens through to blacks and reds as the threat to the landscape is realised. The book is created using a combination of photoshop, digital photography, hand drawn typography, quarkxpress and illustrator.

The title Mortal Coil derives from an archaic English expression (still in use) meaning the ‘troubles of the world’ – popularised by Shakespeare in Hamlet.

This book was created for the exhibition:

Visions and Voices: Art Inspired by Kentucky Poetry, Prose and Songwriting
7th July - 6th October 2007
Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft
Louisville. KY 40202
USA

www.kentuckyarts.org

V&A Museum Interview Damp Flat Books

The V&A website had just been updated and now you can read interviews with me and 5 other bookartists. You can view the majority of my books in the V&A Museum collection.

see their website for information about accessing their fantastic collection:http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/a/artists-books/


To read the interview with Damp Flat Books follow this link:http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/artists-books-interviews/

Zineopolis Founded!

I've just set up a new Zine Collection at the University of Portsmouth, through the Illustration Course. The collection is called ZINEOPOLIS, and it links to student projects making zines and comics. Have a look at our new website, it will build-up over time, but this is the first peek...

www.zineopolis.co.uk

Zineopolis opened in June 2007 after a group zine project from first year Illustration Degree students at the University of Portsmouth. The zines and comics produced are archived in this site along with zines donated to us and ones specially purchased for the collection. Over the years we hope to build-up a representative collection of zines - we are focussing on zines heavy with visual content.

We wanted to reflect the diversity of thought and talent that exists outside traditional publishing. Zines are one of the few areas left where creative people can speak without censorship. This make the world of zines new and exciting as well as challenging. Commercial art is changing rapidly, with over reliance on clip-art images and images that exist to simply
dress-up yet another advert, for yet another 'must-have' product. So, what do visual people make and say when they are given a free-hand?
You'll find it here - amongst zines.
The nature of production, often cheap and quick, means these zines reflect the thoughts and hopes of the day (quite literally). We are focussing upon image-heavy zines, here in the School of Art and Design. The emergence of zines means that contrary to popular thought, young people (and older ones) have plenty to say about the world they find themselves in, and not as passively as one may expect. The culture of zines shows us that people do still have opinions, it also shows us that traditional conduits for sharing thoughts are probably not as accessible as we'd like within our celebrity obsessed media. It's great to witness the self-publishing boom!

Go on! Make a zine 
- draw what's on your mind, then send us a copy... 

Zineopolis

School of Art, Design & Media
Eldon Building (third floor) 

University of Portsmouth
Winston Churchill Avenue
Portsmouth
Hampshire PO1 2DJ

New Book - Damp In Ditchwater

Postcard souvenir booklet. First edition of twenty - Brighton UK
Heavy yellow card cover with shaped edge, printed in either, dark-orange or pale-turquoise.
Introduction page followed by 10 detachable heavyweight colour postcards with tissue interleaves. One card contains a tipped-in stamp and handwritten salute.

"A charming history - told through postcards - of the philanthropic, family-run Damp Industries’

partnership with the sleepy town of Ditchwater-by-Sea. Damp Industries’ self-appointed mission, is to strive until culture, learning and suitable products reside in the South."

In this sequence of ten postcards the intriguing relationship between Damp
and Ditchwater-by-Sea is slowly revealed.

• What happened on the opening day at the Damp Museum? 
• Who wears the Cod-Sash? 
• Why is the curator missing? 

This book has grown out my fascination for less-than-exciting museums. I particularly enjoy the secondhand mannequins with scuffed noses and displays that have been gathering dust for years. I make a point of searching out the least-popular tourist attractions, in the hope of finding a display of manky plastic fruit or - my favourite - a historical family diorama. The trend in swish, technologically interactive museums are fine for children, but the creepy dank interiors of the deserted local museum are my delight. I have been recording these museum interiors for a number of years in the hope of celebrating these fast-disappearing gems. The second-rate displays often reveal an 'any old rubbish for the tourists' attitude that is sharper than any deliberate satire.

The narrative behind Damp in Ditchwater is the story of an unscruplous company that, hounded out of its own country, has started over again in England. The clash of values, along with the townsfolk's desperation to 'be put on the map' reveals itself through the comments on the reverse of the postcards. Starting slight but getting more and more vocal until there is little room to actually write a message on the postcard. The Damp employees and Ditchwater townsfolk have an uneasy alliance, where both are grittedly out-for-themselves.

To see this book in more detail visit:

http://www.dampflat.com/DAMPFLAT/books/ditch/index.htm

Exhibitions:


The Southern Cross University Acquisitive Artsits’ Book Award is coordinated by the SCU nextart Gallery, 89 Magellan Street, Lismore, NSW, Australia.

Now in it’s 5th year this annual award provides Southern Cross University with an opportunity to continue to develop an artists’ book collection of national significance and in so doing also contribute to the development and awareness of artists’ books as an art form.
Exhibition opening & announcement of acquisitions August 11 - exhibition continues to September 22.
Damp in Ditchwater has been selected for this exhibition.

Place, Identity and Memory – books made by artists
Opens 23 May to 28 June 2009, Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, Scotland.
Then the exhibition tours libraries and other venues across Dumfries and Galloway, ending at Stranraer Museum, 55 George Street, Stranraer, DG9 7JP, Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland between the 26th September – 31st October 2009, to coincide with the annual Literary Festival at nearby Wigtown, Scotland’s Book Town. This is a travelling exhibition by IRIS. The aim of IRIS is to develop Dumfries and Galloway as a recognised centre for book arts in Scotland and internationally.
Headroom and Damp in Ditchwater both feature in the exhibition and catalogue.

Scheduled to appear in the November-December issue of the Book Arts Newsletter No.31, UWE, Bristol, UK 

Babylon Lexicon - New Orleans, 14-30 Nov. 2008
Damp in Ditchwater and Headroom will be on show at the New Orleans Bookfair - Babylon Lexicon. - Future Fantasteek! Issue No.5 will also be exhibited, at the same time, during the New Orleans Zine Fair.

Re: 2008 The Gallery, The University of Northampton, Monday 12th – Thursday 29th May 2008
New book - Reboot has just been completed and accepted for the exhibition Re: 2008, Damp in Ditchwater joins the exhibition as part of The Ministry of Books Show.
Venues:
....The Gallery, The University of Northampton, Avenue Campus, St. George's Avenue, Northampton, NN2 6JD, UK.
....Artworks MK, Milton Keynes, UK from 14th July–14th August;
....Herefordshire College of Art – Summer 2008;
....The Space Gallery, University of Portsmouth from 3rd-14th November 2008.
....Quay Arts, Newport, Isle of Wight, UK

Collections:

• The Modern British Collections, The British Library, London, UK
• Center for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol, UK
• Hyman Kretiman Research Library at Tate Britain, Millbank, London, UK
• The Old School Press, Hinton Charterhouse, Bath, UK
• The Culture Archive, Brighton, UK
• The Ministry of Books, Portsmouth, UK

Future Fantasteek! Issue No.2

ISSUE TWO : FEBRUARY 2007
...Comfort & Security Issue
Softback Zine printed in greyscale on fluorescent pink paper, staple bound.
A5 size containing 16 printed pages. Pearl grey/pink cover with 2 glitter shapes.
Issue two: Brighton 2007, edition size of fifty.

The second outing for the Damp Research Laboratory - once the staff were hastily re-hired.
Marvel at the Negativity Negator; find out why "NO" is better than "yes".
Ever wondered why everything is always out of order? Let the Entropy-Go-Round inform you.
How useful is Vitamin O? And another incite Masked-Cat truism for your delectation..

To view this zine in more detail follow this link:

http://www.dampflat.com/DAMPFLAT/books/zines/future2/index.htm

...Meanwhile, Future Fantasteek!, Issue One, has just joined 3 new collections, 

• The Mansfield Library - Zine Collection, at the University of Montana-Missoula, USA, 
• the Papercut Zine Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. 
• The zine collection at the University of Austin, Texas, USA.