1 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:08,730 Hello and welcome to Good Miss. With me Jo Maddocks, me Alice Evans. 2 00:00:08,790 --> 00:00:12,990 And today we are joined remotely by artist and poet Stephen Emmerson. 3 00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:16,530 Hi, Stephen. Hello. Thank you. Thanks for having me. 4 00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:21,749 We are in a very sunny autumnal Oxford. 5 00:00:21,750 --> 00:00:24,900 What in the world, Stephen, are you I. 6 00:00:26,740 --> 00:00:33,420 Just about three miles outside of Hastings. In a static caravan at the top of a valley. 7 00:00:34,790 --> 00:00:39,350 Looking out over ancient oak and Sycamore and Hawthorn. 8 00:00:39,950 --> 00:00:43,400 And a few sheep. And some crows and magpies. 9 00:00:44,590 --> 00:00:48,100 That's great. That's a great description of quite immediately. 10 00:00:51,190 --> 00:00:57,309 Yeah. Thank you. So at the beginning of each of these podcasts obviously is an audio format. 11 00:00:57,310 --> 00:01:02,799 So we are asking the artist if they could physically describe the object we're focusing on. 12 00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:09,280 And for you, that's the real translation of this librarian pronunciation check. 13 00:01:09,940 --> 00:01:18,730 Hi, this is Jo Stevens. Work is a translation of a novel by Austrian writer Rainer Maria Rilke, the German title of which I Could Do Justice to You. 14 00:01:18,970 --> 00:01:22,990 So here's our colleague Junior with the perfect pronunciation de outside. 15 00:01:23,260 --> 00:01:27,760 And this might allow. It's like a phone number, thanks to you. 16 00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:35,290 Mm hmm. Okay. Yes, yes. The translation of true because only novel the notebooks of BRIGER. 17 00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:43,630 And it's the German language version yellow paperback. 18 00:01:45,250 --> 00:01:49,850 And it has. Mushrooms growing from it. 19 00:01:52,070 --> 00:02:00,680 And those mushrooms have been. Dried, desiccated, so that they're preserved in that state. 20 00:02:02,980 --> 00:02:06,220 So the book has has has has survived. 21 00:02:06,460 --> 00:02:13,080 It's. Transition from menfolk to mushroom bearing body. 22 00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:21,380 And I wonder, could you describe for the listeners what it's like to handle In Touch now? 23 00:02:21,920 --> 00:02:26,180 Yeah, well, it's it's surprisingly light. 24 00:02:26,270 --> 00:02:32,840 It's quite light because to make it had to be wet, had to be soaked, and for the spores to grow. 25 00:02:34,050 --> 00:02:39,930 And then through the drawing process, I'm not sure what the exact process is, 26 00:02:39,930 --> 00:02:48,120 but I guess the paper goes through some sort of process which changes the molecules and makes it makes the makes the pages more brittle. 27 00:02:48,300 --> 00:02:54,959 Suppose it lose it loses some of the weight, loses more of its water being soaked in water and then being being dried somehow. 28 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:59,130 But it feels a lot lighter than it did in the first place. So it's quite delicate. 29 00:02:59,640 --> 00:03:04,500 I'm not sure how easy it would be to snap the mushrooms off or anything like that. 30 00:03:05,580 --> 00:03:11,340 I think if it if it was dropped, it would probably break. Yeah, it's quite it's quite it's quite brittle and and delicate. 31 00:03:14,110 --> 00:03:17,620 I know about a year after I first tried out, 32 00:03:17,620 --> 00:03:26,380 I was living in London at the time and the flat there would sometimes get a little bit damp in the corner and it did start to rehydrate once. 33 00:03:28,270 --> 00:03:31,530 This was quite a few years back and so I had to move it. 34 00:03:31,690 --> 00:03:38,530 I think I've moved into the I haven't come back for a while, so I think it could still be because the weather mostly you could rehydrate that much. 35 00:03:38,950 --> 00:03:49,030 It could be rehydrated again. In theory. But hopefully it's no longer school producing for the sake of all the other books in the library. 36 00:03:50,220 --> 00:04:01,190 That's good to know. Thank you for coming. I just want to interject that with her conservation, Howard has a terrifying expression. 37 00:04:02,250 --> 00:04:06,870 Yeah, I went through a lot of emotions, but yeah. So that was cool. 38 00:04:07,920 --> 00:04:15,360 And luckily in the library I work in the conservation team and we are constantly monitoring the environment to all the spaces in the library. 39 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:18,780 So we're hoping we don't have a similar damp patch. 40 00:04:18,870 --> 00:04:22,920 Where is it? Is it kept in its own box or something to prevent it? 41 00:04:23,220 --> 00:04:30,900 It's currently on display actually in the West End Library, but it's it's in a plastic box at the moment and it's also in our quarantine area. 42 00:04:32,220 --> 00:04:35,550 I think the plan was to keep it kind of permanently in quarantine. Yeah. 43 00:04:36,450 --> 00:04:42,550 Which is so we have this quarantine area in the stack, which is a processing area for our team. 44 00:04:42,660 --> 00:04:46,620 When new objects are brought into the library, particularly things like archives, 45 00:04:46,620 --> 00:04:51,930 we have archive collection that come from places that might be a garage or an attic. 46 00:04:52,770 --> 00:04:58,410 And we do check these things for mould damn pests. 47 00:04:59,550 --> 00:05:04,260 So it's actually quite a home in there with, with the kind of everything. 48 00:05:04,260 --> 00:05:08,970 It kind of goes in transit while it gets moulded and the mushroomed. 49 00:05:09,300 --> 00:05:13,220 But the translation just kind of stays there in a perpetual stay in motion. 50 00:05:13,290 --> 00:05:18,970 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 51 00:05:18,990 --> 00:05:20,550 So why did you choose this text? 52 00:05:21,590 --> 00:05:32,540 Well, at the time I was I was invited by Steven Fowler is a poet who puts on lots of events in London and all over the world, really. 53 00:05:32,540 --> 00:05:40,820 But he had invited me to take part in a series of performances where he was staging over six or seven periods, I think. 54 00:05:41,030 --> 00:05:46,129 And I'd always Wilco was one of the first poets that I got into. 55 00:05:46,130 --> 00:05:51,260 Well, that really blew my mind in some way. So I always had this connection to his work. 56 00:05:51,950 --> 00:05:59,660 So I went through a period of I was trying to make translations of all of his work, but I was trying to translate the books rather than the text. 57 00:05:59,700 --> 00:06:09,110 So that was some of his new his new poems, I think I translated, but I think I took each of the pages out. 58 00:06:09,350 --> 00:06:15,169 So I basically made seed bombs out of the pages of that book and distribute it to 59 00:06:15,170 --> 00:06:20,030 audience members and ask them to supplement the pages so that they would grow flowers. 60 00:06:20,330 --> 00:06:25,610 So that was one translation. Another translation I soaked and then I drank the water. 61 00:06:25,970 --> 00:06:30,140 And then and then I urinated inside my urine. And that was another translation. 62 00:06:30,470 --> 00:06:40,370 So. And then another one, I, I kind of wrote it down and compost and another one I covered in fats and honey and going mould on it. 63 00:06:40,970 --> 00:06:45,560 And then so I eventually and I got to this place and I thought about growing mushrooms on it. 64 00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:45,940 So I, 65 00:06:46,060 --> 00:06:55,790 so I spoke it and I think it was at one of the final shows for the series that Stephen was putting on that I'd actually made this translation for, 66 00:06:56,780 --> 00:07:01,100 and I'd started doing it several weeks beforehand. 67 00:07:01,280 --> 00:07:04,810 And when it came to the show, like no mushrooms and growing, I thought it was a complete failure. 68 00:07:04,820 --> 00:07:09,139 So I didn't have anything to take. But luckily I translated another book. 69 00:07:09,140 --> 00:07:14,750 I can't remember which one it was, but I had something to show and I talked about something else anyway, but I thought it completely failed. 70 00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:22,639 So it was about four or five weeks down the line and it was just this book that was kind of been saturated and tied to elastic bands, 71 00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:26,330 and it was just sat there on the windowsill and nothing was happening. 72 00:07:27,320 --> 00:07:31,100 And I think maybe even a couple of months went by, nothing happened. 73 00:07:31,940 --> 00:07:37,550 And then I went to France on holiday. 74 00:07:38,980 --> 00:07:45,840 To my friend's house. And I took my book there with me, and then the mushrooms started growing over there. 75 00:07:47,980 --> 00:07:51,580 And then I thought about cabinet and you know, and they make Ridge the size they are now. 76 00:07:51,940 --> 00:08:00,670 And then I, I. Kept it on the windowsill longer and kept spraying it, hoping that maybe more would grow. 77 00:08:01,030 --> 00:08:07,900 But it was starting to get quite sunny, I guess, at this time of the year and it completely dried out, 78 00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:14,770 desiccated it, and that preserved the mushrooms. The preservation was kind of accidental to begin with. 79 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:22,240 I saw it drying out and then coming through the means as well and managed to dry out because I'd seen 80 00:08:22,540 --> 00:08:29,860 online afterwards and I think there was a photographs of some books that spontaneously garden mushrooms, 81 00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:39,219 and there was another artist who would grow in magic mushrooms on a book and had a photograph of them. 82 00:08:39,220 --> 00:08:45,850 But as objects, they kind of disappeared because they were completely ephemeral, because the mushrooms died and disappeared. 83 00:08:45,850 --> 00:08:54,999 So what was really placed around this object could be preserved by the drawing process and that it was there for as long as mushrooms. 84 00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:01,299 And that's I guess I also really liked your instinct that you're going on holiday, so you have to take your unsuccessful. 85 00:09:01,300 --> 00:09:09,550 I wasn't willing to give up on that. Yeah. Subjectively, I think aesthetically it's a really successful piece. 86 00:09:10,650 --> 00:09:16,390 Was that something that was a consideration for you? Like, did you did you think about what it would look like? 87 00:09:16,840 --> 00:09:21,270 Mushrooms growing is so organic. How they appeared was kind of uncontrolled. 88 00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:25,540 Uncontrollable. Absolutely. No, I think so. Yeah. I didn't really have any control over it, 89 00:09:25,540 --> 00:09:32,140 so I was hoping that they would grow and I didn't really know what they'd look like or how big that get or anything like that. 90 00:09:32,410 --> 00:09:36,240 Well, a lot of my work is is a sort of controlled chance. 91 00:09:36,250 --> 00:09:40,090 So it's like, you know, there's a lot of chance elements involved in something like that. 92 00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:44,140 But obviously you can control to a certain extent. I like that. 93 00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:54,070 And I think if if the concept is strong enough, then even if it doesn't look very good, then even then it can still be effective. 94 00:09:54,100 --> 00:10:00,980 And in the main. But I was pleased with the way that they did turn out. Yeah, I think it was a nice sort of array of fruiting. 95 00:10:02,070 --> 00:10:08,290 And so you mentioned that if the concept is strong enough and you've already mentioned quite a few of your other translation work, 96 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:15,729 what are you trying to explore in these works? Specifically, the concept authorship seems to be something we're questioning. 97 00:10:15,730 --> 00:10:20,559 Is that right? So a certain extent, any sort translations like an act of destruction anyway? 98 00:10:20,560 --> 00:10:26,260 I think because you're changing work like it's always becomes the author's original work. 99 00:10:26,260 --> 00:10:27,339 Like someone like Tim Atkins, 100 00:10:27,340 --> 00:10:34,180 he does lots of very loose translations and just uses the original works as a jumping off point really is a good example, 101 00:10:34,180 --> 00:10:41,230 but even if somebody is trying to stay as close as they can to the original text, like it's always a completely different animal. 102 00:10:41,770 --> 00:10:51,970 So I like the idea of of trying to translate the physical body of the book rather than its contents. 103 00:10:54,370 --> 00:11:04,570 And I guess, yeah, it does question authorship, but also I'm interested in trying to enter into a dialogue with the materials of the book as well, 104 00:11:04,870 --> 00:11:09,070 because the things that books are made of also have flood history as well. 105 00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:20,709 From the paper to the clue and they think like they will in a natural part chemical and and I guess so the people that write that make 106 00:11:20,710 --> 00:11:30,250 them I just want to try and get into those areas but I don't I'm not the sort of sits down and thinks about things philosophically say, 107 00:11:30,250 --> 00:11:34,389 well, you know, I don't sit down and write things out. 108 00:11:34,390 --> 00:11:42,010 What I want to achieve a new view. I tend to work through things creatively in mean I tend to think more in images and things like that. 109 00:11:42,010 --> 00:11:48,579 So I'm just working through things. So there's lots of things that don't work out obviously, but I'm trying to put them in images. 110 00:11:48,580 --> 00:11:56,890 What I can discuss in words in some way. So many of your works are books, the book form. 111 00:11:57,370 --> 00:12:01,390 Can you just talk a little bit about what it is about the book form that you are drawn to? 112 00:12:02,610 --> 00:12:05,729 I guess it's because, like many people, 113 00:12:05,730 --> 00:12:11,460 I suppose books are a type of magic where you can escape to sort of as a child the way you start to 114 00:12:11,790 --> 00:12:19,590 build your imagination or a place that you can explore things that you couldn't in the real world. 115 00:12:20,650 --> 00:12:25,530 And the physical manifestations of those books can also take on a sort of magic. 116 00:12:25,890 --> 00:12:29,070 You know, the role of of a magical object as well, 117 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:35,250 with the touch and the smell and sometimes just glancing the spine of a book that you you have a particular 118 00:12:35,250 --> 00:12:41,940 affinity with sometimes that can bring back all that that the feeling of that book in some way. 119 00:12:42,930 --> 00:12:53,150 You know, I don't necessarily remember ten of phrases from books, but I tend to end up with a sort of a field of images that relate to that book. 120 00:12:53,160 --> 00:13:01,200 And sometimes saying seeing a book can bring those images back or, you know, it's like a it's not it's not really a nostalgia, but it's a. 121 00:13:02,280 --> 00:13:07,140 It's some sort of like psychic connection with with the book, with the physical object itself. 122 00:13:07,530 --> 00:13:16,080 So I guess in transforming playing or re composing books, I'm trying to reconnect with that. 123 00:13:16,440 --> 00:13:25,809 The magic of it was Ghost. So kind of bringing the conversation back to the object itself and it being here now in the book, 124 00:13:25,810 --> 00:13:31,310 in libraries, collection is obviously incredibly fragile, as you described. 125 00:13:31,450 --> 00:13:37,149 And its access to the reading is restricted, although it is currently exhibited at the moment in the West. 126 00:13:37,150 --> 00:13:45,490 And so it is being sealed daily but behind glass. Just wondering, when you are making your work, are you conscious of where it will end up? 127 00:13:45,730 --> 00:13:49,810 And does it being here somewhere like the Bodleian now? 128 00:13:50,320 --> 00:13:54,430 How would you feel about that and kind of the ongoing life of your work? 129 00:13:55,340 --> 00:13:59,710 I guess I start thinking about where I work, what will happen to work? 130 00:13:59,750 --> 00:14:04,840 Probably after I've met, after I've made it. Mainly because I don't have anywhere to keep them. 131 00:14:07,010 --> 00:14:11,580 But no, of course I want to make sure that they're looked after and preserved. 132 00:14:11,590 --> 00:14:14,590 I mean, that's all any artist can ask for, really. 133 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:24,330 But yeah, yeah, definitely. Being being at Butlins is amazing, you know, knowing that it's going to that catalogue and then it's been preserved there. 134 00:14:24,370 --> 00:14:28,569 And in this case being exhibited, as you know, it's fantastic. 135 00:14:28,570 --> 00:14:34,970 It's brilliant because we obviously also have quite a few, few other works and the way that a lot of your works. 136 00:14:35,020 --> 00:14:41,739 QUESTION The book form is something that really speaks to a lot of the academics 137 00:14:41,740 --> 00:14:45,610 here who use our connections with teaching for so many different reasons. 138 00:14:46,570 --> 00:14:50,050 I've got the impression that, yeah, I think so. 139 00:14:50,320 --> 00:14:56,520 Archivists, I think, tend to like some of the work that I do in Viols that is kind of categorise work files. 140 00:14:56,530 --> 00:15:00,160 It seems to be a hit with archivists in some way. 141 00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:04,270 It makes our brain for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 142 00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:09,100 Whereas then the mushroom book got all the conservators kind of like in it as yeah. 143 00:15:09,790 --> 00:15:15,130 And then obviously endlessly appeals to the page. Yes, it's yeah, that's an incredible. 144 00:15:15,310 --> 00:15:20,889 So that was something that I wanted to want to ask you about because a couple of your unique works here, 145 00:15:20,890 --> 00:15:29,860 we've got the Mushroom book and we've also got Anna Sleep, which is a, I'm going to say concrete poem, but out of a wasp's nest. 146 00:15:30,190 --> 00:15:34,480 That's right. But you also create works in limited editions. 147 00:15:34,990 --> 00:15:39,040 Yeah. And I'm thinking of things like poetry holes and a box of ideas. 148 00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:50,350 And I, as a curator, would say that they're probably in the tradition of democratic multiples that kind of affordable and accessible. 149 00:15:50,620 --> 00:15:54,970 Is that element of your work important to you? Like having things accessible to people? 150 00:15:55,570 --> 00:15:59,260 Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. 151 00:15:59,260 --> 00:16:03,129 I really like making work like that and that. Yeah. 152 00:16:03,130 --> 00:16:07,630 Available to people and you know, for the price of of a regular book kind of thing. 153 00:16:07,960 --> 00:16:11,200 And yeah, it's really important to make those works. 154 00:16:12,070 --> 00:16:19,290 I think if you're. If you have a work like that, you know, it's going to be basically going to be seen by more people. 155 00:16:19,290 --> 00:16:24,300 Your work is going to go out and people have access to something like a box of ideas, for instance, which is. 156 00:16:25,490 --> 00:16:32,940 56 of 58 cards that they are basically all ideas for conceptual books of poetry. 157 00:16:35,180 --> 00:16:39,510 So. You know, there's the idea, isn't there, that if you. 158 00:16:40,550 --> 00:16:45,040 If you just write, all you need to do is write the concept and you don't even need to make the thing. 159 00:16:45,050 --> 00:16:50,840 If you've got a concept, you just need to write down the piece of paper and give it to somebody and they can look at it. 160 00:16:50,840 --> 00:16:55,310 You could just put them up on the wall and you could say, that is the OP as well. 161 00:16:55,700 --> 00:16:59,030 So I like I enjoy that aspect of that type of work. 162 00:16:59,900 --> 00:17:04,970 And of course, I also like making some objects as well. 163 00:17:05,140 --> 00:17:08,610 But yeah, I do like that. Democratic schools is a great phrase. 164 00:17:09,050 --> 00:17:13,640 I like that. But yeah, I think that was about a hundred of those books were ideas mags. 165 00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:17,719 But Poetry House, I think James did to two different editions. 166 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:21,709 I think there was only maybe 30 of those made over by petitions. 167 00:17:21,710 --> 00:17:32,990 I think so there's not many of those. But that seems to be work that people I know a few people who work in in creative writing universities 168 00:17:32,990 --> 00:17:41,360 and a few of the under a few of them seem to like to use that when they're talking about form because, 169 00:17:41,360 --> 00:17:50,089 you know, it's for anyone who doesn't know that 85 rectangles, the first edition was PVC, the second was wood. 170 00:17:50,090 --> 00:17:55,579 And they have shapes of poems cut out of them like a one is just a rectangle. 171 00:17:55,580 --> 00:18:06,020 So you can lay it over any text and it will create a poem. So it just basically cut out of form and you can just create a text and. 172 00:18:07,370 --> 00:18:13,339 Using that. And I did a sort of inverse of that called cover ups, which were acetate with black shapes. 173 00:18:13,340 --> 00:18:17,420 On that you lay over text and then you can it blocks out large portions of the text. 174 00:18:20,120 --> 00:18:28,730 Which was also a multiple. And yeah, I like the idea of people being able to play with work. 175 00:18:28,970 --> 00:18:33,440 That's another instance that that's something that's performative. But then I'm giving it. 176 00:18:34,130 --> 00:18:34,670 So, you know, 177 00:18:34,730 --> 00:18:42,889 somebody is buying that or I'm giving it to them and they're making the performance because because it comes with a brief set of instructions. 178 00:18:42,890 --> 00:18:49,070 But then it's up to you and you're, you're performing that work and make creating something out of it. 179 00:18:49,580 --> 00:18:55,610 So for quite a while I know I went through a period, I suppose maybe I still work. 180 00:18:57,760 --> 00:19:03,870 In that way now, trying to make poems without any words at all, you know, 181 00:19:04,220 --> 00:19:10,630 and somehow just having a brief set of instructions so that other people can make the poem. 182 00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:19,030 But they would still be mine somehow if he then she published a book called Family Portrays Mine as well, 183 00:19:19,030 --> 00:19:24,490 which is a hardback book with this several, several different chapters. 184 00:19:24,790 --> 00:19:29,500 Each chapter has, I think, eight or nine and portrait shaped rectangles in them. 185 00:19:30,040 --> 00:19:34,840 And it comes with a with a packet of laxatives, pills, placebo pills, 186 00:19:35,290 --> 00:19:42,640 and you take a pill for each chapter and taking the the placebo is, is, is said to allow you to see the portraits. 187 00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:47,530 So that's like another instance of the reader being the performer. 188 00:19:48,010 --> 00:19:53,800 So I guess I'm a reluctant performer, so I'm trying to give, give it, give, give it away, give my phone away. 189 00:19:55,240 --> 00:20:03,430 Really, really interesting interaction with the reader at that point that other of the artists we've interviewed for the series 190 00:20:03,430 --> 00:20:10,570 have talked about that their objects and books possibly are still changing in a way that yours hopefully isn't. 191 00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:19,270 But they kind of see the reader as actively involved in changing and the continued life of their works. 192 00:20:19,810 --> 00:20:25,840 Yeah, which is something again. Yeah. Coalition is definitely a co-authorship theme coming through. 193 00:20:26,020 --> 00:20:34,030 Yeah. I have another question as a conservative for you, which I'd be very interested to hear what you think. 194 00:20:34,690 --> 00:20:40,180 How would you feel about future intervention if it was needed with this piece by my team? 195 00:20:40,810 --> 00:20:45,370 So if a mushroom fell off, well, how would how would you feel? 196 00:20:46,800 --> 00:20:54,620 Yeah. Would you have an opinion on what we did? Yeah, I might have an opinion, but I guess you guys will probably know better than I. 197 00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:57,800 Yeah, I guess it could be closer, I think. I did think about. 198 00:20:59,120 --> 00:21:06,530 I did think about using a bone and shot at one point using a clear PVC varnish on the whole thing to, like, encase it. 199 00:21:07,130 --> 00:21:11,990 But I didn't. That might have might have had an adverse effect. 200 00:21:11,990 --> 00:21:16,130 So I didn't do it and which would have protected it a little bit more. 201 00:21:16,550 --> 00:21:23,390 But, um, I'd be very pleased if, if, if it was, if it needed repairs and you or somebody else would have to say, 202 00:21:23,390 --> 00:21:28,370 we don't have any other books like this, so it would still be us working it out. 203 00:21:29,060 --> 00:21:34,760 Yes. Preservation and safe handling is our number one goal at the moment. 204 00:21:35,090 --> 00:21:40,940 Yes, of course. Keeping it kind of as it is. I just wanted to ask, cause I was interested if you did have any other. 205 00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:45,479 I don't know. You could have said grow another mushroom on it, which. 206 00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:50,580 I'm glad you didn't say that. No. Yes. So last question, Steve. 207 00:21:50,670 --> 00:21:58,230 What's next? Okay. I just finished writing a big, long prose poem, which is a sort of abstract, lyrical prize poem. 208 00:21:58,950 --> 00:22:02,640 And I've been working for quite a while now. 209 00:22:03,010 --> 00:22:07,560 I haven't make them available yet, but I've been working a lot on these overwrites. 210 00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:14,160 So I'm the I did a set for just after lockdown. 211 00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:22,800 It was out of province Biloxi letters which he wrote when he was when he was when he was sent sent out to the Black Sea region. 212 00:22:23,740 --> 00:22:30,500 And. When he offended the Emperor, he was, and since Coventry, as it were. 213 00:22:31,820 --> 00:22:35,120 So I, I did an override. So it's made up of four books. 214 00:22:35,780 --> 00:22:44,989 So I wrote the entirety of book, one on a piece of paper and over itself using different grades of pencils and so on, 215 00:22:44,990 --> 00:22:50,150 sometimes using sign and white markers, which gives you a nice texture. 216 00:22:50,330 --> 00:22:55,430 And I did. So I did a slightly different shape of override for each book. 217 00:22:56,750 --> 00:23:00,440 Fourth one it's kind of like a liquid fills a whole one. 218 00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:07,940 So it basically turns the text into a sort of abstract visual script in some way. 219 00:23:09,580 --> 00:23:15,510 And so you have been working on quite a lot of those. I've done some with poems, some with the kids plays. 220 00:23:15,530 --> 00:23:24,079 So I've been doing these overwrites. Some of them are quite big, some quite small and making interesting shapes. 221 00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:27,620 I think I'm quite pleased them. And I'm also. 222 00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:35,750 You're raising a book, an amazing book at the moment called Human Memory. 223 00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:45,020 I've got this an old paperback book from the seventies, and it's an old series of books on psychology. 224 00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:50,750 It's published by Penguin. And it's quite it's about a hundred pages long. 225 00:23:50,750 --> 00:24:00,860 So I've been raising it with, like, a fine sandpaper and I'm keeping all the erased shavings in a in a in a big scientific journal. 226 00:24:02,180 --> 00:24:05,960 But it's taking ages to do so. So you're going to do the whole thing? 227 00:24:06,350 --> 00:24:10,940 Yeah. Do the whole thing. Oh, I wish I'd never started it because it's going to stick ages. 228 00:24:14,510 --> 00:24:17,540 Lovely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything. Celeste. 229 00:24:17,570 --> 00:24:21,680 It's been wonderful. Thank you. I really appreciate you asking me to come and talk to you. 230 00:24:22,430 --> 00:24:28,640 It's been great. Thanks for listening to this episode of Fitness. 231 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:33,829 You can find photos of translation over on the conveyor blog and you still a few weeks see it on display in 232 00:24:33,830 --> 00:24:39,380 the Sensational Books exhibition here in Oxford before the exhibition closes on the 4th of December 2022. 233 00:24:41,180 --> 00:24:49,159 Join us next time for our final episode in the series when we'll be talking to Justine Vino about her research into Self-destructing Autistic Agrippa, 234 00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:56,760 The Book of the Dead. See you then. Have you got a jingle for the podcasts? 235 00:24:56,940 --> 00:25:01,750 We haven't got. We've got hubbub here. 236 00:25:02,190 --> 00:25:05,850 Excellent. Do you want to provide a jingle? Yeah. Was that an offer? 237 00:25:06,180 --> 00:25:13,170 Oh, no, no, no. Obviously, a library's quite a quiet place. 238 00:25:13,420 --> 00:25:18,690 So you're trying to think of, like, audio things that we could shoehorn into the podcast format? 239 00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:22,830 It has been quite. We should do it. Yes. Is that too cheesy? 240 00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:27,420 Yes. Yeah. You could do a sort of sound piece with different. 241 00:25:27,570 --> 00:25:32,160 Different, lots of different shushes. Or we could just record the reading room, which is just silence. 242 00:25:32,790 --> 00:25:33,200 Yes.