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COUNTER PLYMOUTH 2015Mind the creepy crawlies! The movers, shakers and bookmakers

#bookmakerscandance

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We enter KARST on a rainy Saturday morning. It’s 10AM, and the white warehouse space is already abuzz with activity. Last night it looked very different, low lighting and a slamming DJ set from the boys at Howling Owl Records. This morning, there are bookmakers as far as the eye can see! (“Oh, and it is very bright in here!” say some that stayed up all night. There are DIY pressers, zinesters, and scenesters of the underground book arts world–and even the movers and shakers (Howling Owl Records, we’re talking to you!). Tablecloths are unfolding and displays are going up, screen prints, t-shirts, edgy illustrations, and wonky signs that read “FREE STUFF!”

We hurry over to our table to set the lawn, flora and fauna, wand scanners and creepy crawlies of the press...

Photo: Howling Owl Records on the DJ decks #aboutlastnight

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Drawing and text by Clare Rogers

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Marco Cali of AMBRuno’s talks metaphor, memory and narrative. How our brain is structured creates narratives for us and there is a parallel between the structure of the book and the structure of the brain. The two sides of the brain can never tell you exactly what they have experienced; they can only condense it into a coherent experience that is essentially a metaphor. A metaphor is an attempt by our brains to summarise everything into one object or one word. Often, what we end up dong is substituting one metaphor with another, going around in circles. In that sense, my talk one more metaphor.

“Life is but a walking shadow…” (he reads from William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth). What is actually happening is that you are listening to this, and who is speaking these words? The actor, of course. He is voicing the metaphor. And Charles Dickens, ties the entire novel Bleak House, in fact the whole of England, with one metaphor.

(We watch a video of a patient who has had the brain hemispheres split in an experiment. The result is that the woman in the video has simply lost control of one of her hands.)

We have two hemispheres in our brain. The right hemisphere deals with images and emptions. The left hemisphere with language and logic. If the brain hemispheres are split we can see how either one or other hemisphere briefly takes control. This happens to us all of the time but we don’t notice it to this extend. Metaphor as narrative structure mirrors the way our brains function.

When do you think fiction starts?

The answer is more or less at the age of 12 months. A baby that loses a toy before 12 months will forget about a toy if it disappears out of view. After 12 months, the baby will look for it as it assumes the toy has a continued life after it disappears and this is when narrative begins.

“It is the first time I have done this. I am artist and I make books so I have always been thinking about how books come together and the implications of that.”

4Drawing by Alex Bildsoe

5Drawing by Alex Bildsoe

A very minimal stand by Guy Bigland

Drawing by Jess Pemberton, Keiken Collective

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Howling Owl RecordsJoe Hatt and Adrian Dutt of Howling Owl Records talk with us. These boys were on fire last night, with a very eclectic DJ set that had us up all night doin’ our thang on the dance floor.

Joe and Adrian: We’ve been going four and half years. We started in Bristol with a few tapes. And it is snowballed into putting on shows all over the UK. We are releasing 12” records now and put on annual events at Arnolfili called New Year New Noise. The first one was in 2014 and we basically put together music, art, performance… We like to have surprises so the audience does not know what is going to happen! We work with local artist and the alternative, left fied artist in Bristol. It is the best place really, we are happy to be in the middle of it.

Ladies* And what about the music last night?

Joe and Adrian: We don’t stick to one genre of music. We like to mix it up.

Above: Howling Owl Records image drawn by Adrian Dutt, of a real owl the two have adopted.

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Ladies*: Yeah we noticed! We were dancing to some alternative techno then suddenly, out of nowhere, it was Justin Timberlake!

Joe and Adrian: It was Container, noise techno from the US, yes followed by Justin Timberlake. Actually, that was the first time we have been asked to put on a DJ set somewhere else, outside of Bristol and not one of our own nights. So we’d love to do more like that.

Ladies*: We hear you might be invited back to do something here at KARST?

Joe and Adrian: It would be very nice to come back with some of our own bands from Bristol and some local bands and make an event here in Plymouth.

Ladies*: Thank you for talking with us, we hope you have many more interviews like this, with more important magazines in the future.

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Millie, a visitor, takes direction and poses next to The Structure in a Rodchenko v Tatlin recreation

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Left: Olivia Wright, PCA

Right: J. Allan Dale

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Keiken Collective

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Drawing by Poppy Robinson

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Right: Ida Asadi of The B.L.N.T Collective

Below: Lisa Villa Plymouth College of Art

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Chloe Spicer visits the live press desk…Ladies*: Are you the edible person?

Chloe Spicer: Yes! I am the edible person. I make books that you can eat. I like to eat them (books). I have some books out of rice paper and a printer that prints edible ink. I am always trying to find ways for people to experience books without reading them. That is my whole value system.

Ladies*: So it’s about finding ways for people to absorb books but not read them?

Chloe: Yes, it is that but also it is about the experience of books. I am all about finding ways to really experience books, physically. How can I get the books into you? So you absorb all the knowledge, say by eating them. My library (she points to her bookstand) are multisensory experiences. I have books you can dance with…

Ladies*: Your books really have disco lights?

Chloe: Oh, books love disco lights. I have discovered….

Chloe Spicer makes works as herself, a free sprit that wonders around libraries and brings books to people. She also runs a studio called Object Book.

Chloe Spicer’s Object Book. Wearable, portable, readable art book.

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Impact Press makes an impact!

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Above: drawing by Hana Omori, Keiken Collective Left: drawing by Olivia Wright, PCA

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It’s a beautiful book she is showing us of Angus’ poetry. Rachel tells us it’s made to reference a 17th century document, but with a contemporary twist.

“Angus wrote this poem we’re looking at while the Scottish referendum was happening. It’s partly about drawing up a constitution which is actually written by the people, not the politicians. What he does, is he leaves his poem everywhere, and the idea was that the people who feel the same will draw a line around their hand in agreement.”

“We need to save the Human Rights Act first and foremost? Yes, I think we’re on the same page here...”

— Rachel Marsh, Semple Press

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Renée inking the hand you’re looking at to the left.

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So. Roast Squash, Kale, Mushroom, Devon Oak Cheese Fritatta

Serves 6. You need;

• 8 eggs

• A good glug or two of milk

• 200g devon oak, grated

• half a small pumpkin, sliced and roasted

• 300g of sliced mushrooms, roasted

• 300g of kale, de-spined, chopped, steamed and squeeeezed of excess water

• 1 onion, sliced and roasted (I used red but you can do either)

What you need to do is layer it all up, mix the egg and cheese and pour over. Just make sure you don’t have kale on top! Roast for about 30 to 40min in a medium oven.

— Sima from The Kitchen Table

“Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to send you anything, I was thinking of sending you a recipe...”

“That’s great! Do you think you can improvise one?”

“Sure, how about the fritatta? Oh! You’ve even eaten it. Great.”

“Yeah, it was AMAZING.”

COOKING!

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LALALA POMPOM

For those of you wondering where they got that mazing name, it is from their favourite French comic called Isaac The Pirate. The story goes, Isaac the pirate is walking through the city signing, and the first words he utters in the legendary comic are, yes you guessed it, ‘la la la pom pom’.

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#BOOKMAKERSCANDANCE

A great big thank you......to Vickie, Maddie and Paul for

inviting us to this lovely event and

even adding the breakfast package

for us at the hotel!

Like, really.

This zine was made LIVE by Ladies of the Press*: www.ladiesofthepress.org

Like, really.