Red Eye

My optician told me that I had too many red blood cells in my eyes yesterday. Its difficult to explain the desire to stare at magnified dust on a computer screen solidly for a week even to myself at this stage. I'm longing for straight forward sensor dust right now.

The Nuremberg Chronicle

The first photograph is from a copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle held at Chetham's Library, actually photographed at the window seat where Marx and Engels used to meet up, and that's the shadow of the window of the oldest medieval settlement in the North of England over it, that is! The Nuremberg Chronicle is one of the oldest printed books, an incunabulum. (I make no apologies for using wikipedia to reference to here, although I use to bollock my students for using it as their primary essay source, as it is like the giant index in the sky- a really good place to glean the general facts of something!) This copy of the chronicle is particularly interesting as it has been bound with a handwritten translation done in Warrington, in the North of England. I, like many in England, assumed that Warrington had been invented as a place at some point in the late eighties as its primary topographical feature are roundabouts and Ikea, and there used to be this advert trying to persuade people that it was a sensible place to house a business in (I think) with this guy with a Chinese accent going 'Warrrington- Runcorn, its the heart of the nation!

I digress, but it astonishing to learn that Warrington was an ancient seat of learning and almost had one of the first universities in the world. This early Renaissance period has become increasingly important to my understanding of the photographs I took at Saint-Sulpice on the day of the Equinox. The time was such a mash up of superstition colliding with organised religion, and the Catholic Church subsuming pagan beliefs. This is evident, for instance, in the very architecture of Saint-Sulpice, the second image (both of these quoted in 'Discovering the Vernacular Landscape' by John Brinckerhoff):-

'There is very little doubt that during the entire Middle Ages there existed the belief in a distinct relationship between stone and stars'

Peter Fingesten, The Eclipse of Symbolism

'Today when the original treatment of stone has disappeared, we are only occasionally aware of it, chiefly there where old stained glass windows still gleam and where their light transforms the stone. We should think of the Cathedral not only in terms of colour, but as being suffused with the atmosphere of light….the building should ‘shine’, ‘sparkle’, ‘glitter’, ‘dazzle’…it would however be false to say that the Cathedral denies its stone character. It keeps it throughout, only it idealizes it by giving it a gem like, transfigured, vibrant, crystalline aspect'

Hans Sedlmayr, Die Enstehung der Kathedrale

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The role of printing in the shift of understanding during this time is, of course, immense, and this particular copy of the book seems to me, to beautifully represent the transition.

David Alan Harvey

© David Alan Harvey

Some of the posts on David Alan Harvey's Work In Progress detail his process when putting a book together, or rather the many different ways of putting a book together:

'well, the first thing is the idea or the concept...this is the hardest part (and where i am now on this one)....the second thing, is the actual shooting....this is the hardest part...and the third thing is editing your work down to something that works...this is the hardest part....and the fourth thing is the securing of a publisher and the control over the layout....this is the hardest part.....and the fifth thing is the distribution, the creating of exhibitions and the pr "selling" of the book...this is the hardest part (because by this time you are totally tired of these pictures and are moving on to something else)...'

Tanning Salons

© Caroline Edge

I’ve been hanging out in tanning salons lately; in fact I even went on a sun bed the other day, all in the name of research, of course. Trying to create a contrast to the more ‘spiritual’ photographs that I have taken at the eclipse, solstice etc. However the sun bed photos have a spiritual atmosphere all of their own, if I don’t sound a wanker saying this about my own work. This is because of the light; the eerie glow of the blue, the unusual effect by having this enveloping light source, and the shorter wave length of UV. Mostly though the pictures remind me of mortuary slabs in TV police procedural dramas. The light makes the body seem lifeless. Being on the beds is akin to being slowly roasted in an industrial cooker. Surprisingly hot and really claustrophobic. I only managed about two and a half minutes but now I feel really good for having a dose of sunshine- so begins the slippery slope! By January I’ll probably have full scale tanorexia. My beloved, being a man, insisted on going on for twice the recommended time and now has sun burn. I feel a bit guilty, for me the whole idea of going on a sun bed seems wildly exotic and massively irresponsible, yet for masses of people, particularly in the North of Britain this is normal. The list of tanning salons in Manchester extends into the hundreds. The owner of the salon showed me older beds which were more powerful and looked even more 80’s factory. Apparently people travel from the other side of Manchester for the sake of this additional radiation. I only they took Melanotan II instead, after they got over being violently sick from the injections, they could be horny as well as brown! There’s nowt as queer as folks…..

Incline Press

I'm lucky to have guidance on putting a book together which matches the research potential of Chetham's Library in the Oldham based Incline Press. I went to meet Graham Moss, the founder of the press yesterday, another time warp. Seems I shall probably be having a round binding so that the book will open flat and double spreads can be put in as inserts to avoid the problems of having two halves on an image misregistered. Also can get a title page beautifully handset. Yet to decide quite how the cover will be, but I know that I'm getting great advice as you can see if you check out the output of the press: some examples above and more information, including how to buy the books, at absurdly low prices for their beauty on the website.

Is there a ghost in my house?

Slightly off topic but a long standing personal interest. The upper half of a man's body manifesting in my front room! The magic of sunlight..

A Shepherd's Calendar

Visited Chetham’s Library last week to look at some of their collection for two reasons. Firstly to look at sun symbols, but also to get design inspiration. I’d like to have a (subtle) reference to the early Renaissance going on in the design to echo the concepts going on in the photographs. As I write this I realise that it is the first time I’ve articulated this particular understanding of the project- early renaissance being the point where superstition hit reason…. Anyway I don’t want to produce a school history project to recreate the Magna Carta, all burnt page edges and staining with coffee: rather to take some influences like binding, type and proportion in to a modern design. I’m lucky that I’ve some great resources nearby for researching this sort of thing in Chetham’s Library and the John Ryland’s Library, both of which have superb collections. Visiting Chetham’s library is an adventure in itself; you go through a small door (Alice in Wonderland, Being John Malkovich) and go back in time. It is a place where the act of consulting a book is made beautiful. The images here are details from a ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ (late 15^th C) - a misleading name for a stunningly complicated book charting solar and lunar cycles and eclipses. This astronomy is then linked to astrology, in a manner abhorrent to our modern scientific understanding. It is a beautiful object but the funny thing is it seems like a really really good school history project, the sort that the kid who was amazing at drawing would do!