Description
With the advancement of digital technologies, an increasing number of contemporary artists’ books is incorporating virtual worlds into their medium, radically expanding beyond the confines of the book pages. In this paper, I study two such contemporary artists’ books, Delphi Demons (2022) by kennedy+swan and Asterisk (2019) by Julia Hou, and conduct a comparative analysis of their use of virtual spaces as the medium. An artistic genre established around the mid-twentieth century, the term “artists’ books” generally refers to works of art whose form of expression is the book. Primarily characterised by their self-referentiality, artists’ books often turn the structure of the medium itself into the subject matter of the work. With the rapid development of technology, artists’ books entered the digital world, broadening the possibilities of artistic book design and distribution. As a result, a multitude of iterations of digital book art emerged. Contrary to what is often assumed, artists’ books are not limited to the codex of the conventional paper book, but can express themselves in countless spaces, including virtual ones. In this paper, I consider how Delphi Demons and Asterisk use their respective virtual materiality to create meaning, while maintaining their status as artworks derived from the book form. Despite differing from their conventional printed counterparts, I further argue that what solidifies these works as contemporary artists’ books is their unique use of virtual environments to create spatial narratives.| Period | 25 Jan 2024 |
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| Event title | XII Graduate Conference in Culture Studies: Space Oddity |
| Event type | Conference |
| Organiser | Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC) |
| Location | Lisbon, PortugalShow on map |