The Interactive Book

Earth III

Daniel E. Kelm. Earth III. Easthampton, MA: [Wide Awake Garage?, 1989].

Clarissa T. Sligh. What’s happening with momma? [Rosendale, NY]: Women’s Studio Workshop, c1988.

Books are kinetic: one must open, turn, and manipulate their parts in order to properly read them. Many book artists are interested in the physical interplay that takes place between the book and the reader. Here we have examples of two artists’ books that involve the reader in non-standard interactions.

In What’s happening with momma? Clarissa Sligh transforms the traditional book page by folding it into an accordian that must be stretched out and held down to reveal the text. The page becomes newly dimensional, and represents the site of the work’s narrative: the place (the stoop) where the story is told.

Daniel Kelm’s Earth III consists of three shaped books each of which can be manipulated in multiple ways to produce various configurations. The book is interpreted through the reader’s physical interaction with it. Kelm’s interest in alchemy is reflected in this work, and his consummate skills as a bookbinder are evident in the fluid engineering of these sculptural books.