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Production Narrative
by J.Drucker
as the colophon suggests, Walker did all the production work and was able to intervene at every stage from conception to final product.
Critical Analysis
by J.Drucker
Design Features
typographic: Some variation and play in typography appears. As this was 1978, the typography could have been done on a digital machine and then pasted up. That seems most likely given the way it sits on the pages, with many shaped sections put in around images. This would have required some careful back and forth between layout design, setting, and pasteup.
imagery: Women, nude, in various settings and landscapes.
graphical: The layouts shift throughout the book and are not consistent.
openings: The dialogue across the page is often intensified by the way the bodies are oriented and disposed.
turnings: Color shifts are dramatized by the turnings, and the shifts in hue and value register as a result.
development: None really as this is an essay format using images and texts.
sequence:
textual: The text is about vision and perception.
structure:
conceptual:
intratextual:
scultpural features:
temporal features:
other features:
Critical Discussion
The book is clearly demonstrating its theme, making perception the subject of the work and of the production as well. The cover, with its repeated word See made into a text pattern and printed sets a tone that is consistent, color-wise, with the interior, but the interior page typography is far more varied, less formal and cool, because of the multiple type fonts used and the color inks. The work has the feel of an multiple, and is in the small, inconspicuous format of a multiple, but it has far more content and personal voice than the typical conceptual or minimalist work. The book is in fact what it sets out to be, a poem essay about perception from the point of view of a male photographer trained in a tradition in which the female nude was the quintessential object for objectification and representation. In that sense, it seems an artifact of another era, but an authentic and sincere one.
See
title note: []
Agents
Todd Walker
type: initiating
role:
photographer
printer
publisher
designer
typographer
binder
artist
author
nationality:
born: United States
dates:
birth: 1917-09-25
death: 1998-09-13
note: []
Todd Walker
type: initiating
role:
artist
binder
photographer
publisher
printer
designer
typographer
author
nationality:
born: United States
dates:
birth: 1917-09-25
death: 1998-09-13
note: []
Publication Information
edition type: unique
publisher: Todd Walker
place: Tucson, Arizona
dates:
production: 1978-06-00
publication: 1978-06-00
edition size:
note: The book contains a duplicate copy of itself, where the second copy has one small variation on the tenth photograph (or page 12 of each copy) [Y. Kang]
Measurements
horizontal: 5.5 inches closed
vertical: 7.5 inches closed
depth: 0.5 inches closed
Production Information
production means:
offset (local)
binding: perfect (AAT)
substrate:
bookBlock: paper
media:
ink (local)
other materials:
Appearance
general description: White covers with the title repeatedly typed out in light blue ink
format: codex (AAT)
cover: White covers with the title repeatedly typed out in light blue ink
color: yes
devices:
enclosures:
item:
Content
pagination: unpaginated
numbered?: unnumbered
signed?: unsigned
Colophon
The final page carries a long text: Very much of my knowledge has been acquired, of how things look when they feel a certain way, through my eyes. While very young, to find out, I reached to touch everything. I still need to touch, to feel, to experience the new things I encounter. By remembering such encounters, I can now perceive, contact, touch, examine, feel, explore, as well as, caress, scrutinize, relish, fondle, review, and revel in, with my eyes. For my sight and my touch are so interlocked that I can know one sense through the other. The perception I have, is of the light absorbed by or reflected from surfaces. The angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence. This caroming from the world is my world. Each rebounding of the light alters the shadow. Changing the shadow redefines the volume my eye now perceives. This perception is of a place, a space, a feel, newly discovered, encountered and to be remembered. My experience expands, yet there is still more for my eye to see, to encounter. Off it goes to touch, I can feel the surface, caress, explore, revel in the sight I have before me. photographs, words, design, typesetting, camerawork, platemaking, presswork, by Todd Walker, Tucson, Arizona, June of 1978.