Following on from Part 1.

Journey into ’sustainable’ book printing — Rebecca Lardeur & Léa Silvestrucci

• I know a fair deal about the book printing process so was expecting an enjoyable knowledge review, but was very pleasantly surprised by what else this talk made me think about.
• Essentially, the story of making the book as sustainably as possible was one of the best eye opening stories about impact and unforeseen issues that I’ve heard.
• So poetic for that to be the side story to a book about Creative Climate Investigations.
• Reminded me a lot of A day in the life of a born-again environmentalist that I blogged about a few weeks back.
• First and most important, their story of selecting a printer.
• 5 said yes, we can do eco, here are our many certificates. 
• 1 said, interesting idea, have you thought about x, y, z if reducing impact and waste is what you’re trying to do.
• The printer got invested in the idea and enlightened Rebeca and Léa. 
• A partner that’s interested in the idea and outcome, not just the job and invoice.
• Their story and insights they shared about how they mitigated the environmental impact were so interesting I forgot to stop to take notes. 
• Their closing three takeaways… Work with makers early on.
• Do your research.
• Question your practice. 
• Very. Smart. 

Left me thinking: I asked at the end of the talk if they’d consider making a book just about the story of impact of making a book, but they said they didn’t think there would be enough to make a book… I very much disagree and think they’ve undersold their talk about their understanding of this matter. They’re too smart to realise how smart they are and how little others know. The old burden of knowledge issue. I really do think there’s value in a book that exists as an embodiment of its carbon footprint and impact. A meta book. As much a meditative ornament or physical and tangible realisation of the issues, as it is a book, containing the kind of deep and detailed thinking we need to effectively address the climate crisis. It’s not just buying organic, flying less, using vegetable based inks and recycled paper that will sort it out. I’m back to my bugbear with the saying ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. It’s not, in any real way, and thinking like that ignores the detail, effort, graft and pain that goes into making something genuinely brilliant and impactful. Details matter and need to be celebrated and made more accessible, as Rebeca and Léa’s story did. 

Old and New Volvelles — by Holly Gramazio

• Part history, part workshop
• A volvelle is a word I didn’t know!
• It’s also got a far bigger history that I would ever imagined.

Left me thinking: Fascinating to be taken though the history of something I didn’t know the word for and had never given all that much attention. I think that’s why I tool so few notes while Holly was talking as it was mesmerisingly distracting. She’s also a very entertaining speaker so was just fun to sit back and watch. Throughout the talk I kept trying to reverse engineer how on earth some of the more intricate examples were conceived, worked out and created. Then in the workshop, it only baffled me more! They require a very specific type of thought and understanding of a subject matter. Almost like creating an interactive data visualisation. I just made one that let you change eyes, noses and mouths of faces.

Independent magazines – a 21st-century technology — by Steven Watson of Stack Magazine

• The word comes from the name for where military ammunition was stored 
• (Hence perhaps obviously why the thing that holds bullets in some guns is called a magazine).
• But the word was borrowed in 1731 by Gentleman’s Magazine to metaphorically nod to the storage of ‘miscellaneous writings’ and information.
• Steven made a good case for the unique format of a magazine, and its physicality and the opportunities it has to vary widely in form and function, still being incredibly revertant. 
• It’s not just about words that can be copied and pasted online. It’s about the way we interact with the entire embodied experience and context of a magazine. 
• Magazines make us slow down in ways that digital screens can’t
• “Calm technology engages both the centre and periphery of our attention, and in fact moves back and forth between the two.” Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown The Coming Age of Calm Technology 1996

Left me thinking: I agree, and love magazines, but watching this one nudged some old guilty memories from when magazines were a dominant format… basically that I’ve always found them hard to read! Almost in opposition to the idea of them causing calm and thoughtful consideration, my mind has always worked too fast and coupled with dyslexia, a I have to admit never really reading much in magazines. I loved looking at the images, the graphics, reading bit and pieces, but the nature of being ‘a miscellaneous collection of writings’ means magazines have always overexcited my brain and made it harder for me to concentrate! Off topic of the talk, but this makes me think again of how every format, platform, communication method and technology will favour a set of people that find it easy, while alienating those that don’t. In turn, those that excel will be heard more and become dominant voices, more due to their ease with a format than their ideas actually being the best of everyone. Formats have favouritism and they’re not all technically as democratic as we claim. A topic for another time, perhaps. 

Part 3 to follow.