Egidija Čiricaitė
I am an artist with a special interest in book as a cultural object and in artists' publications in the
context of book history and publishing history. I hold MAs in English Linguistics and Visual Arts. My
work can be found in a number of private and public collections, including Tate and Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston.
www.egidija.com
Collective Investigations is a London based artists’ collective, interested in experimental publishing,
book object and book history. The artists exploit a range of outcomes that vary from conventional
publishing methods to innovative arts installations.
http://collectiveinvestigations.tumblr.com/
http://betweenonehand.tumblr.com/
Reading the Book as an Object
The presentation will be based a recent Collective Investigations experiment at South Lambeth Tate
Library.
“Can a book as object, regardless of the printed words, communicate anything? If so, then what?”
asked Bruno Munari in 1949 as he started producing libri illeggibile (illegible books). He abandoned
text, title, colophon, index and other traditional attributes of the book in favor of a visual, acoustic and
tactile experience. He took material of books as a visual language and concentrated his attention on
the object and the qualities revealed through contact with the book. He opened up a new layer of
readability - a readability based on non-textual information.
In January 2015 Collective Investigations set up a temporary studio at South Lambeth Tate Library to
film the readers, who were invited one at a time to sit down, close their eyes and talk about the book
placed in their hands for one minute. When we close our eyes, the object between our fingers loses
visual cues - such as title, text, colophon, index, images - books devoid of traditional attributes of
book.. Books become blank books. Or libri illeggibile.
The talk will survey the ideas behind the experiment, the process and the outcomes. It will be
illustrated by a short video and images from the project.