1 00:00:02,370 --> 00:00:07,680 Hello and welcome to Bookmarks, a podcast produced by Central Studies Book here at the library. 2 00:00:08,190 --> 00:00:14,070 My name's Alex and this is Joe. Hi. And today we are joined by multimedia artist Yota Dimitri. 3 00:00:14,130 --> 00:00:18,000 Hello, doctor. Hi there. Thanks for having me on this amazing podcast. 4 00:00:18,540 --> 00:00:24,210 We're in Oxford the moment. Whereabouts are you? I'm sitting in my living room in Liverpool. 5 00:00:25,500 --> 00:00:31,590 So to begin, we'd like to ask you if you could physically describe the work we're going to be discussing in today's podcast, 6 00:00:31,590 --> 00:00:38,220 which is your What to You? Our copy is currently in Sensational Books exhibition here at the Western Library in Oxford, 7 00:00:38,910 --> 00:00:42,300 and Joe and I actually have a handling copy here with us today, 8 00:00:42,510 --> 00:00:50,610 which is borrowed from the space for reading area in the Western Library, where readers and visitors can actually interact with this copy themselves. 9 00:00:51,210 --> 00:00:55,080 So for the listeners of the podcast. Can you please describe what we have in front of us? 10 00:00:55,350 --> 00:01:05,580 Of course. So what you have in front of you is a small box with a little ribbon at the side, almost like a gift box, 11 00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:14,880 and it's got an engraved title on it on the top in Silver Colour rather than actual silver. 12 00:01:15,210 --> 00:01:28,410 And that says to you and you can untie the ribbon and open it up and you've got an a five size concertina book, 13 00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:37,590 which is when you open it up, it's coated in black ink and that's thermal comic ink. 14 00:01:38,220 --> 00:01:50,670 And so you won't be able to see the actual content until you start interacting with the book, or at least librarian glossary check. 15 00:01:51,180 --> 00:01:53,909 Thank you, Richard. We just wanted to do a quick glossary. 16 00:01:53,910 --> 00:02:01,470 Check some a chromate or thin achromatic inks temperature sensitive compounds that temporarily change colour with exposure to heat. 17 00:02:01,950 --> 00:02:06,900 Back to business. How should I interact with it? How are you expecting people to react to that? 18 00:02:07,410 --> 00:02:12,300 Well, it's a book as much as it is an art object. 19 00:02:12,510 --> 00:02:24,750 Right. So as a book, read it, interact with it, touch its pages, infuse its pages with your warmth as you would do a book anyway. 20 00:02:24,780 --> 00:02:26,549 But obviously this is a bit different. 21 00:02:26,550 --> 00:02:39,150 So from the art experience, I guess it's more about the of the audience's way of how they want to interact with it is pretty fluid and I thin. 22 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:49,320 But the general idea is that you imbue your own warmth from your hands and sometimes if your hands need a bit of warming up, 23 00:02:50,220 --> 00:02:54,570 then that heat needs to be transferred to the book's pages because as I said, 24 00:02:54,840 --> 00:03:01,440 it's coated in thermal comic ink and you'll only be able to see the the very 25 00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:09,600 vulnerable content on it's on the on the pages when you actually touch the book. 26 00:03:09,810 --> 00:03:11,910 I do encourage people saying that. 27 00:03:11,910 --> 00:03:18,950 I do encourage people to read it collaboratively together because it's a book about love, it's content, it's about loss. 28 00:03:19,470 --> 00:03:33,390 And so in the way where the content informs the actual shape of the book, the form, what it looks like, that's kind of vise vice versa in that sense. 29 00:03:33,390 --> 00:03:43,110 So when you're reading it with someone because it's so vulnerable, the content, it's emotional. 30 00:03:43,710 --> 00:03:49,440 I encourage two people to read it together and to help each other read it. 31 00:03:49,740 --> 00:03:55,740 Where they hold the pages together is what we are doing now is next to each other. 32 00:03:55,740 --> 00:04:01,740 And we've, we've got the pages of the books press between our hands and in actually you've done a bit 33 00:04:01,740 --> 00:04:07,110 better than I have in the in the parts where we've had our hands together with the book. 34 00:04:07,110 --> 00:04:18,390 In between them, the pages warmed up and the black pages have turned to white, and it reveals the text, which then usually disappears. 35 00:04:19,390 --> 00:04:24,760 So you kind of have that moment and then if you miss it, then you have to reward me, I guess. 36 00:04:24,850 --> 00:04:37,930 Mm mm. But, um, as with heat transfer, if you transfer a lot of heat very, very quickly into something, heat will leave very quickly too. 37 00:04:37,940 --> 00:04:45,220 So if you're reading it together and your and your, you know, you're sharing your love with the book in that sense, 38 00:04:45,910 --> 00:04:52,750 with if you hold on to that metaphor, then the pages will stay more. 39 00:04:53,050 --> 00:04:59,230 Well, the word isn't translucent, but the paint will stay translucent for a longer period of time. 40 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:05,680 And it could be a bit closer to the ink now. And could you say a bit about the science behind it and how you came to use it in this work? 41 00:05:06,730 --> 00:05:13,000 Yes, sure. Um, as you said in the beginning, I'm a multi-media artist. 42 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:18,850 And what that means, as you know, from working with other multimedia artists like others, 43 00:05:18,850 --> 00:05:32,170 I always experiment with different materials and my main, I guess, modes of artwork is more of a performative one. 44 00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:41,590 So I've always been interested in how stories are depicted, how you create stories, 45 00:05:41,590 --> 00:05:47,670 how you create stories, and then obviously with that curation, the experience of those stories. 46 00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:53,860 So I first wrote the content and the content, as you might have read, 47 00:05:54,850 --> 00:06:02,680 was basically just letters, love letters, and they don't address addressed to anyone. 48 00:06:03,550 --> 00:06:13,000 And my research at that time when I was writing those letters was around letter writing and the art form of letter writing. 49 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:19,510 I also have a performance called Love Letters that was going on for like eight years, 50 00:06:19,810 --> 00:06:27,670 where from that I collected about, well, more than 150 audience love letters to the loved ones. 51 00:06:27,670 --> 00:06:34,389 And I guess what I'm trying to say is that the influence from this is also from all 52 00:06:34,390 --> 00:06:41,230 of that and the process and thinking about what technologies to use came afterwards. 53 00:06:42,100 --> 00:06:47,440 So when I had the contents and you see that some of the pages in the book without one 54 00:06:47,980 --> 00:06:53,830 wanting to spoil anything for future readers or people that come to the exhibition, 55 00:06:54,100 --> 00:07:00,400 is that some of the text sometimes is missing, sometimes some words are bigger than others. 56 00:07:00,730 --> 00:07:12,280 Um, so the actual styling within the copy of the book is an integral to the interaction of, of it's form, right? 57 00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:22,840 So first came that and then having all that in mind, how can I perform this or how can it perform rather? 58 00:07:23,810 --> 00:07:36,300 And I came across thermal comic ink from other projects I had done in the past in terms of, you know, thinking about what stories get told on stage. 59 00:07:37,340 --> 00:07:43,549 The hierarchy of those whose voices get told, whose voices get chosen, you know, 60 00:07:43,550 --> 00:07:49,490 not to you know, how how does that curatorial process happen and what's the intent from that? 61 00:07:50,510 --> 00:07:55,370 But I had always known about thermal coal making also because of the very commercial. 62 00:07:55,370 --> 00:08:00,230 I don't know if you have ever bought your parents from Mother's Day. 63 00:08:00,380 --> 00:08:10,100 I bought my mom one of those monks where you can print an image on a mug, but you can only see the image when the mug is warmed up. 64 00:08:11,420 --> 00:08:18,740 And then there's well, the ink that's used on batteries, for instance, that's also a chemical mic or in different thermostats. 65 00:08:19,010 --> 00:08:22,480 So the inking itself isn't an innovation. 66 00:08:22,490 --> 00:08:29,780 It's out there. And so I bought some of that and I started playing with it. 67 00:08:30,200 --> 00:08:35,230 I played with it with spraying on, you know, my different work. 68 00:08:35,360 --> 00:08:41,240 But then obviously the there there were problems if I wanted this book to be readable. 69 00:08:42,410 --> 00:08:50,059 So how, how would I make it work? Because the temperature of the of this one is commercial. 70 00:08:50,060 --> 00:08:56,870 So it's, I guess, between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius. 71 00:08:56,870 --> 00:09:06,800 So it would work hopefully when someone's touching it, unless you're me with very, very cold cuts and I have to rub them together a bit. 72 00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:16,270 Yeah. And I started experimenting with the ink, but I'm because I'm interested in electronics, 73 00:09:16,490 --> 00:09:23,899 so I thought, okay, maybe there could be something combined here with if I create, 74 00:09:23,900 --> 00:09:33,830 if I create a heat pad and electronic heat pad and put some technology in it where if someone is touching the book, 75 00:09:33,980 --> 00:09:38,120 then it's almost like a bit of more assistance to the heat. 76 00:09:38,450 --> 00:09:46,580 So if I make a heat pad and then the reader touches the book and automatically because there's a sensor in a proximity sensor or something, 77 00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:50,330 tactile sensor, then the book understands that it's been touched. 78 00:09:50,330 --> 00:09:55,610 And so it would just slowly, slowly put some more heat in it to help the reader, you know, 79 00:09:56,210 --> 00:10:03,980 and I designed a prototype of that, and that was the first one that I made to go and show other people. 80 00:10:04,670 --> 00:10:07,940 But then I thought, you know, that takes away. 81 00:10:08,030 --> 00:10:17,360 That's great. But it also takes away from the content of the book and what the book has a form and an artwork is trying to say. 82 00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:24,620 Not that electronics are bad. I love using technology, but yeah, 83 00:10:24,620 --> 00:10:33,919 I just thought that this the minimal t of it just being as it is black pages and just having 84 00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:40,819 someone to come and touch it in order to read it is more meaningful than having some support. 85 00:10:40,820 --> 00:10:44,420 This input can come from you to reading it together. 86 00:10:45,800 --> 00:10:51,650 That's really lovely because you describe the act of reading this as an really intimate reading experience. 87 00:10:51,680 --> 00:10:54,800 Can you talk a bit more about that and what that means to you? 88 00:10:55,220 --> 00:11:03,800 Yeah, so it comes from the actual content where it's about love, loss, it's about grieving. 89 00:11:04,400 --> 00:11:09,500 And you know, from speaking to people, they've asked me, is it our relationship? 90 00:11:09,500 --> 00:11:14,659 Is it about, you know, is it about Break-Up? Is it about a death? 91 00:11:14,660 --> 00:11:21,930 Is about is it about what is it about? Um, it's about all those different things. 92 00:11:21,970 --> 00:11:26,810 Um, so, so I guess that's one of it. 93 00:11:26,810 --> 00:11:34,340 And, and there is a type of intimacy that goes in when you're writing any kind of love letter, right? 94 00:11:35,480 --> 00:11:46,010 The act of writing a love letter in itself is can be for some people, an art form, but it's also a type of healing, right? 95 00:11:46,010 --> 00:11:52,160 This there's a certain type of focus and performativity a ritual that goes into writing one, 96 00:11:52,910 --> 00:11:55,990 I guess any type of letter, even if I'm writing a postcard. 97 00:11:56,360 --> 00:12:02,730 Um. And you want the way you're articulating the words to be. 98 00:12:02,740 --> 00:12:07,570 You know, there's a type of, you know, set up that goes into it, I guess. 99 00:12:08,050 --> 00:12:14,440 And so intimacy comes also out of that, because if it's a love letter and you're sending it to someone, 100 00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:24,579 then the receiver getting it, acquiring it is going to have their own set up to receive it and the space and the mind frame. 101 00:12:24,580 --> 00:12:28,210 So the intimacy comes out of that to. 102 00:12:30,280 --> 00:12:37,830 But if we put the content with the book form together, how it how the content is styled, how it's, you know, 103 00:12:39,550 --> 00:12:48,280 all put together and parcel in this in this little box with ribbons and taking it out and opening out and laying out the concertina. 104 00:12:48,610 --> 00:12:52,930 It's all in itself an intimate ritual. 105 00:12:54,580 --> 00:12:59,710 And so I wanted. The book as it is experienced. 106 00:13:00,670 --> 00:13:14,110 To almost take on a human manifestation in a way is like an object of the love that you needs, because the content is so from the heart, right? 107 00:13:14,140 --> 00:13:18,910 It's so and I describe it in the book, I use a word called about, you know, men, 108 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:26,850 which is a Greek word for something that's almost a it goes beyond being naked and raw. 109 00:13:27,910 --> 00:13:33,670 So I'm covering it, I'm dressing it, and it's up to the reader to undress it. 110 00:13:33,680 --> 00:13:41,560 So there's all those poetic acts of intimacy that go into the performance of this book. 111 00:13:41,980 --> 00:13:44,800 Yeah, that's something I was thinking about actually when we were preparing for this. 112 00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:49,290 There's a limited number of copies of this book that you created, 113 00:13:49,300 --> 00:13:54,370 and even when you're reading it, when you have a copy in front of, you can't see the whole text. 114 00:13:54,370 --> 00:13:55,269 At the same time. 115 00:13:55,270 --> 00:14:04,780 The pages are a slightly larger than your hand, so you need to need to reveal different parts of the text, even on one page at different times. 116 00:14:05,950 --> 00:14:12,700 And yet we have copies of this book on display for people to come into the Western Library at the moment to read. 117 00:14:14,560 --> 00:14:19,990 Possibly that's more people than you were expecting to have access to the text. 118 00:14:20,020 --> 00:14:27,790 How do you feel about that? I feel so privileged to be part of your exhibition. 119 00:14:28,620 --> 00:14:33,049 I come from a very a very small place. 120 00:14:33,050 --> 00:14:46,810 And in Cyprus, I'm a British Cypriot. And I come from a family whose, you know, the granddaughters, 121 00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:56,200 the first generation of people, also women to have been able to gain access to education. 122 00:14:57,730 --> 00:15:07,510 And if you think of the class perspective that that goes in, you know, and and sometimes for, you know, 123 00:15:08,140 --> 00:15:20,770 in terms of education isn't the first thing that, you know, a parent for the first generation is going to, you know, is going to not be happy. 124 00:15:20,770 --> 00:15:27,729 But like, you know, that isn't something that you're supposed to do because indication is a kind of investment in you know 125 00:15:27,730 --> 00:15:34,840 not that on isn't and that's you know those are the types of thinking that we need to be shifting. 126 00:15:35,170 --> 00:15:42,010 Do you see this as a work of art that looks like a book or do you see it as a book? 127 00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:46,510 Okay. Well, I mean, that's a bigger, more philosophical question. 128 00:15:46,510 --> 00:15:54,480 I'm not going to put my academic head on now because we'll be here for out, I think for this book. 129 00:15:54,490 --> 00:16:00,610 I can't answer to other books. Right. So I obviously I can't define that for anyone else's book. 130 00:16:00,610 --> 00:16:12,490 But for my book, I think it's both. And the reason for that is because I've always been interested in interactivity and engagement, 131 00:16:13,210 --> 00:16:19,000 not just for the sake of something being interactive or engaging, but meaningfully engaging. 132 00:16:19,090 --> 00:16:23,020 So the question, again, how does it influence your reading of it? 133 00:16:23,020 --> 00:16:26,290 How does it influence your experience of it? 134 00:16:26,620 --> 00:16:30,009 Where does that experience start? Where does it end? Where does it heighten? 135 00:16:30,010 --> 00:16:36,760 So all these different, you know, different influences that we can gather and understand, 136 00:16:37,660 --> 00:16:41,410 you know, how some someone perceives something and receives it. 137 00:16:43,250 --> 00:16:47,840 I've always been interested in interactive books since I was little. 138 00:16:48,500 --> 00:16:57,370 I'm neurodiverse myself, so it's easier for me, and it was easier for me as a child. 139 00:16:57,380 --> 00:17:10,980 Also, if I think back to it, to engage with books that had much of a more I wouldn't say, well, multimedia, but not multimedia. 140 00:17:10,980 --> 00:17:20,900 And the digital element more of a multimedia like using different senses because they would capture my entire focus and I wouldn't be, you know. 141 00:17:22,250 --> 00:17:28,460 Like I wouldn't be reading a phrase and then I forget it and have to read it again because they're capturing everything. 142 00:17:30,230 --> 00:17:42,260 Obviously, that's not it's not my expertise in terms of sciences to think about some kind of neuro diverse and thinking about what's appropriate. 143 00:17:42,260 --> 00:17:53,120 But I know I can speak from my own experience. And so when I do design something, having I guess that experience, that person experience in mind, 144 00:17:53,420 --> 00:17:59,989 but also coming from a theatre and a performance background and having my research interests 145 00:17:59,990 --> 00:18:06,650 embedded within thinking about different forms of encountering stories and engaging with them. 146 00:18:06,890 --> 00:18:12,170 So that all combined is what kind of influences my thinking around. 147 00:18:12,770 --> 00:18:19,810 This is both an artwork and a book. And so this kind of leads me on to something I wanted to ask you particularly. 148 00:18:20,380 --> 00:18:29,060 Have you thought about the physical human interactions that have to happen with this book, the inevitable changes and marks, the copy we have here. 149 00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:35,540 This is one that's out in the Western Library for people to look at every day, and there are signs of kind of use now. 150 00:18:35,950 --> 00:18:39,250 How do you feel about that? Is that something you thought of? Definitely. 151 00:18:40,360 --> 00:18:54,650 If we take it to another kind of metaphor place, I wanted to also kind of intervene within the boundaries of what is an artwork, right? 152 00:18:54,760 --> 00:18:59,230 And what is the book form and what are all these different things. 153 00:18:59,540 --> 00:19:02,650 So, you know, ease of use it. 154 00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:08,530 You can interact with it. It's an artwork that is supposed to be touched and it's supposed to wear and tear. 155 00:19:09,370 --> 00:19:16,029 And the reason for that is because it's as you start to expose and touch and and get 156 00:19:16,030 --> 00:19:21,850 to know the actual book itself and the book's feelings as you're reading the content. 157 00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:32,050 It, you know, becomes more familiar with you. So it's almost like on one hand, yes, there's the restrictions of the technologies that are used. 158 00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:45,160 But on the other hand, they are also the restrictions are also facilitating the the the ideas of the outlook, the conceptual ideas of it. 159 00:19:45,190 --> 00:19:48,880 So, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question. 160 00:19:49,110 --> 00:19:56,019 No, it really, really does. And something that kind of just interests me as a concept is that we have this copy now, 161 00:19:56,020 --> 00:20:01,299 which does look quite different from the one behind glass, which obviously is also part of the collection. 162 00:20:01,300 --> 00:20:06,670 And readers will be able to look at it in the future. But right now it's had so much less handling than this one, 163 00:20:06,670 --> 00:20:12,490 and they are both within the library at the moment, but both have had quite different journeys already. 164 00:20:13,630 --> 00:20:20,470 Yeah, it's it's really like a kind of a physical manifestation of all of the things that we were hoping 165 00:20:20,470 --> 00:20:26,500 that the Sensational Books exhibition would be it coming as we're coming out of lockdown. 166 00:20:26,500 --> 00:20:32,079 And so it's just been a bit of a celebration of the sense since things and interact 167 00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:37,470 with things that we haven't that have we haven't had the opportunity so long. 168 00:20:37,780 --> 00:20:39,280 Well, the country was in lockdown. 169 00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:47,290 So, yeah, this is quite different from a more traditional exhibition where all of our objects are behind glass here. 170 00:20:47,740 --> 00:20:50,750 They can see this as well and they can see it in groups as well. 171 00:20:50,860 --> 00:20:56,430 Yeah, I was just kind of chatting about like we talk now, but once the book is off exhibition, 172 00:20:56,470 --> 00:21:02,320 it will go into permanent collection and people will order up into the reading room if they want to see it, which anybody can do. 173 00:21:02,620 --> 00:21:13,330 But that's a very solitary experience. You order up as an individual, you go to a desk and you're not really supposed to consult things in in pairs. 174 00:21:14,170 --> 00:21:23,319 So it will be just one person and not with a hot drink to be able to warm their hands on because it's there's no no drinks at all in the reading room. 175 00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:30,250 So it'll just be and if you're somebody like you, it's quite cold hands, then you're stuck, really. 176 00:21:31,300 --> 00:21:36,100 So I think this exhibition has really allowed this piece in particular to be explored 177 00:21:36,100 --> 00:21:39,250 in the ways that it sounds like you really want it to be able to be explored. 178 00:21:39,910 --> 00:21:45,670 Thank you. Know, that sounds wonderful. And I'd love to take part in the kind of solitary experience, too. 179 00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:50,580 So what are you working on now and what's coming out? 180 00:21:52,180 --> 00:21:58,690 So at the moment I am working on a creative non-fiction book. 181 00:21:59,020 --> 00:22:07,089 Um, I'm writing. It's taking me ages to write because again, the contents is very personal. 182 00:22:07,090 --> 00:22:18,010 I never learn. And it's about the two, the stories of two of my grandmothers that are not intellectually interlinked in the text, 183 00:22:18,850 --> 00:22:35,530 but it's about their stories and thinking about identity, women's histories and how they navigate diaspora, you know, being refugees fleeing. 184 00:22:36,370 --> 00:22:42,130 And I haven't thought of the form. Yeah, I think I need to focus and finish the content. 185 00:22:42,340 --> 00:22:45,820 Yeah, that's. That's fine. Looking forward to it. Thank you. 186 00:22:46,090 --> 00:22:51,010 So nothing remains apart from me to say thank you very much to you have to do each year. 187 00:22:51,670 --> 00:22:59,049 Artist and creator of two. You are currently on show in the Association of Books Exhibition at the Public Library. 188 00:22:59,050 --> 00:23:06,370 Thank you very much. Theatre. Thank you. Thanks very much for listening to this episode of Brightness. 189 00:23:06,670 --> 00:23:10,629 You can find photos of Yachties work and links to some of the things we talked about over on the Centre 190 00:23:10,630 --> 00:23:15,190 for the Study of the Books blog the conveyer and you can find a link to that in the podcast description. 191 00:23:15,940 --> 00:23:20,500 Join us. Next time, we'll be talking to poet and book artist Steven Emerson about his work in translation. 192 00:23:21,220 --> 00:23:21,760 See you then.