• I created this photo for the papermaking workshop I will run at SFCB on August 30th, 2023. (https://sfcb.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=4593)
• The theme is “Recycling through DIY papermaking,” and the staging of the image is intended to show that only household items are required.
• I view this teaching opportunity as a way to see how the idea of drift plays out: Which steps in the choreography will change, and in what ways, as the participants process the information I am giving them?

April 18, 2023:
Survey of Choreography Across Papermaking Books

I have begun a survey that examines the kinds of movement information about papermaking is included in the various consumer-oriented books. Like the video survey, it will be assembled in a spreadsheet with columns for different steps in the process such as dipping and couching.

1. I am interested in seeing how different steps in the process are expressed, to explore differences between them, and to see 
2. The main target-audience for these books is someone who enjoys crafts, either as an educational pursuit, as a hobby, or as an aspect of their artistic practice (e.g., book makers, printers, collagists, etc.). In some cases, the book’s instructions are written with one of these approaches in mind, which suggests to me that there may be variations in some of the steps that can be used when creating performance-based scores. 
3. This surveying process provides another way to explore aspects of drift in the papermaking process (see Derrida, Barthes); to notice variations and, perhaps from the text of each, to see what the variations are intended to do. 

April 15, 2023:
(Reconsidering) my Research Goals/Dissertation

What am I trying to achieve with my research?
• I want to develop ways to generate score material—inspirational elements; evocative elements—for performers to engage with, but resulting from aspects of the performance itself.

What are the questions I am asking with my research?
• In what ways do we process visual information (graphic scores) and verbal instructions that may be unclear and intentionally ambiguous? (This is inspired by, and a reaction, Barthes’ point that the author’s intent is separate from what the interpreter experiences. It is also a reflection of the approach Cornelius Cardew took with his 193-page graphic score, Treatise (1963-69) which does not include a verbal description of how to interpret the work. 

• What does it mean if the results of my in-situ score-creation practice resemble works by others when my procedures and intent are vastly different? For example, when I used a Vandercook press to print shapes (circles, squares, rectangles) in an improvisational way and using a game structure to determine where each element is placed, the results can appear similar to the score realizations of John Cage’s Fontana Mix. How do similarities such as this complicate an interpretation of my score if the interpreters are familiar with Cage and/or the suggested piece? 

• In this rehearsal photo (above) at BAMPFA are the couching stations, pulp vats, music stands with prompts, and score-hanging lines.
• Michelle and GR will create three pre-show collaborative pages to be unveiled when the event begins.
• The number of prompts for each Paper collage:
  Paper 1: three prompts
  Paper 2: five prompts
  Paper 3: three prompts
  Paper 4: five prompts
• A musical Interlude occurs when a Paper is completed and as it is hung up on the line.
• Each Interlude begins when GR rings one bell and ended by two bells (rung by GR and Michelle).
•  

April 3, 2023:
Divination concept for the musicians

Each musician’s timeline (shown below) indicates the specific attributes they will consider for each divination. They are also given five hand-printed, graphic scores (three on white paper, one on blue paper, and one with gold imagery). One of these scores pages has gray ink: That is the page that is consulted when participating in an Interlude.

The word “Paper” indicates a section of materialization, where the papermakers create collaged pages by responding to prompts and alternating between two couching stations. After each set of prompts, a bell is rung and the two collaged pages are hung up as a musical Interlude begins.

During each “Paper” section, the musicians are in the process of divination. In this case, divination involves using the score elements—graphic scores, hanging pages, text prompts —as an invocation for improvising with sound.
• The order of the text prompts is unique for each musician, though it is derived from the same set of variables.
• The musicians do not directly interpret what they see as imagery on the graphic scores or hanging papers.

A musician’s divination (during the materialization of each Paper) is based on a reading of the environment according to the words attached to the six elements —attribution, perspective, affect, color, listen, score color. 

Consider astrology as an analogy for how they should approach their divination. They are to consider their position in the concert environment. Using the graphic score as a map of the space, they triangulate their attention between distant objects and papermaker movements while focusing on a particular color and sound and playing with the suggested affect. (When no score color is indicated, a white graphic score is chosen.)

For example, under Perspective, distances between objects could be assigned to variables such as dynamics or timbre. We can also explore ways to express the angle and aspect of the depth dimensionality of what we see or hear.

Aural cues indicate the move from one divination section to another: sleighbells are used to begin and end the event; one bell indicates the end of a divination and the beginning of a musical Interlude; two bells indicate the end of the Interlude and the beginning of the next divination.

Musicians setup and Interludes
• The musicians are positioned in a semi-circle (stage L to stage R): Krys Bobrowski, Tom Djll, Kyle Bruckmann, Cheryl Leonard, John Shiurba, Karen Stackpole. 
• The Interludes are played by pairs, from the ends of the semi-circle: Krys/Karen, Tom/John, Kyle/Cheryl
• When musicians scheduled to play their Interlude, they are asked to create a transition from what they were playing in the previous section to something suggested by the graphic score with gray ink. 

• The prompts are positioned onstage so that the audience can read them, but at a size where they are not visually distracting.
• The prompts are printed using large rubber-stamp letters on one side of 11″ x 4.25″ card-stock pages. 
• Both papermakers will have a set of prompts near them on a music stand; they may interpret one or both prompts that are visible.
• Each score page to be created is assigned a specific number prompts.
• A blank sheet will be placed between each group of prompts to indicate when a score is done and ready to hang on the line.
• Each papermaker has the same number for prompts because they will alternate between couching stations, adding interventions to other’s score page as well as their own.

March 28, 2023:
We use graphic scores and divination practices to project ourselves into possibilities

Divination is a mirror—it suggests an image, in constant flux, reflecting and refracting. A system for self-discovery (of self-discovery).

The score materials are tools for transformation. 

As a tool for transformation, the tarot is a divination practice that encourages self-analysis, considered to provide a connection to a higher level of consciousness using universal archetypes. 

A divination looks for “a meaning behind the meaning” of the sensory input (e.g., archetypical images on cards; the smell of a bird’s entrails, etc.)

Graphic scores and divination practices share an intention: to inspire. The interpreters in both are expected to receive guidance. Both are tools for meditation. 

We use graphic scores and divination to project ourselves into possibilities.

• This is the diagram sent to Phil Perkins (audio recording) and Lindsay Gauthier/Rapt Productions (videotaping)
• Phil will mic or take a direct feed from each instrumentalist; setup a stereo room mic; and hang mics above the papermakers to get the sound of dripping water. Ethan will assist him. His recording cart will be set up behind Krys Bobrowski’s station.
• Lindsay will do a 3-camera shoot: 1 stationary camera and two mobile (her and an assistant).
• Plenty of power outlets on the floor to use. 

March 18, 2023:
Conducting Improvisation: agency, ownership, undoing authorship

When organizing an ensemble performance involving  improvisation, I find it useful to consider the level of control over the event that my score will have and the level and quality of agency each participant may experience. My intent is to create boundaries that inspire creativity or, in the words of the composer Henri Pousseur, a “field of possibilities.” The quantity and quality of the boundaries will depend on factors such as the length of the performance, the amount of rehearsal time available, the experience level of the participants, thematic considerations, and any expectations for the outcome. I also try to make my intentions and expectations clear to the participants: Generally speaking, I hope that everyone will fully engage with the score in a way that it promotes a shared creative experience within a largely decentralized environment of play. 

As I prepare for a performance where papermakers will have a performative role, I am developing ways in which the visual aspect of their practice can be adjusted so that it does not entirely dominate the performance. This is especially relevant in Radical Divination because the performance is based on the premise that the papermakers are creating something that the musicians will interpret (not directly as graphic scores, but as elements that inhabit their spatial awareness and have the potential for interpretability).
Furthermore, I want a system that does not require a conductor and gives participants agency over what they interpret and the manner in which they do it. To coordinate the group, I will create a timeline structured around aural cues.

In other words, I am searching for new ways to engage a group of artists in a unified event that foregrounds individual contributions over those of an author/composer and/or conductor/leader. In order to do this, it is necessary to develop organizing principles that unsettle the composer-centric frameworks that are designed to delegitimize the value of improvisation. For example, the intended influence of the phrase “real-time composition,” is in the word “composition” are a valorization of a logocentric model in opposition the the phonocentricity of improvisation. 

expresses a desire to reinforce hegemony and continue hierarchical approaches to culture exemplified through their use by religious, colonial, capitalist, and communist systems. 

A source of inspiration for this pursuit is in relation to Derrida and Barthes’ arguments that an author’s intended interpretation of a work is not inherent in the text. If that is the case, why not suppress the effect of a single creative source as much as possible. For Radical Divination, I devise procedures to indeterminately create objects whose manifestation is not read as an image but interpreted based on its relation to other objects in the room. This idea is modeled after divination practices, such as astrology, where an interpretation is based on one’s spatial position in relation to an array of potential objects at a specific moment in time.

A Continuum of Agency

The intent and role of the conductor in an ensemble improvisation can be viewed as a continuum that maps the degree of participant agency over a group improvisation.
• At one end is the Composer/Conductor-focused approach in which the process is viewed as a real-time composition that a composer and/or conductor creates as an expression of their author-ity.

• At the other end is an improviser-focused approach, where participants in the group improvisation have an equal share of responsibility over the shape of the event. Although it may resemble an open- or free-improvisation from its outward portrayal of decentralized activity, there is an underlying concept—a “field of possibilities” for participants to explore. 

Composer/Conductor-focused (Walter Thompson’s “Soundpainting”; Lawrence “Butch” Morris’ “Conduction” method; Frank Zappa’s hand-cue system.

The composer designs the playground, but leads everyone through it (e.g., a metaphorical “teacher” or “tour guide” that leads the group through the playground—over the slide, through the parallel bars, onto the swing-set, etc.). The direction through each section of the playground, communicated by the conductor using agreed-upon physical gestures, is determined by the conductor based on what they are hearing and what they want to hear (both sensory modes can, themselves, be viewed as a multi-dimensional continuum of “control vs. player autonomy” and  “expectation vs. indeterminacy”).

Aesthetic approach: The composer is credited in both the traditional and legal sense as having written a composition. Furthermore, the conductor accepts ownership over the resulting performance, feeling that they are responsible at some level for the success or failure of the “spontaneous composition” they created as a conductor (regardless of whether they acknowledge the creative input of the musicians).

Improviser-focused (Rova Saxophone Quartet “Radar” cues; Anthony Braxton’s “Language Types”; John Zorn’s game pieces such as Cobra; )

Conceptually, the composer designs a playground that may or may not have the same structural limits as a conductor-focused work. However, this approach encourages a greater level of performer autonomy. For example, the conductor’s role is not is not entirely based on what they, themselves, want to express. Rather, the conductor in the improviser-focused work suggests ways of exploring the playground, for example by inviting smaller groups of performers to focus on each other in different ways (e.g., call-and-response, mirror, etc.). There may also be an agreed-upon set of physical gestures for signaling, but the gestures are not limited to use by the conductor. They can be used by anyone involved. There may also be structures in the performance that are completely autonomous from the conductor’s control. The conductor does not attempt to micro-manage the overall structure.

Aesthetic approach: Although a composer is credited with having designed the structure of the work (metaphorically having determined the boundaries of the playground and the elements within it) they acknowledge the input of the participants (though rarely at the legal level that would generate royalties when it exists in a market-based system).

The aesthetic intent I imply as a model is to give full recognition to all parties involved—composer, conductor, ensemble, and even the witnesses—for the realization of the score. While each of these roles plays a part in the Composer/Conductor-focused performance, they are not recognized for the amount of influence they actually assert on a realization. Instead they are considered to be somewhere between inconsequential to mildly affective (and not necessarily in a positive way).

• Something for future reference: Carithers, Kirsten L. Speyer: “The Work of Indeterminacy: Interpretive Labor in Experimental Music” (dissertation, Northwestern University, 2017), ProQuest number 10257131.

March 3, 2023:
BAMPFA Concert, Fluxus, Event scores  

An idea for structuring the BAMPFA performance is that each papermaker has their own list of prompts that inspire them when dipping and couching; and that they alternate between their post and the other’s post when couching. The number of prompts —called “prompt set”— is the same for each papermaker (e.g., 4 prompts each for set 1; 5 prompts each for set 2, and so forth). Note that the number of prompts in subsequent sets varies as it did in the workshop at Mölndal, Sweden.

Q: Shuffle the prompts before handing them out or dealing them to each papermaker? Or, ask an audience member to cut the deck?

For example, knowing that the number of prompts in each set is fixed ahead of time, the “dealer” of the prompts inserts a black, red or other highly visible card between each set to indicate that one set has ended and a new one is about to begin once the newly couched collages are hung up. 

• After each set of papermaking prompts, there is a signal (bell) and all but one or two musicians pick new cards or do some kind of resetting action.
• the musicians that do  not reset have space to interpret something (particular scores) or continue playing based on some other system.
• then, on the next (bell) signal, a new set of papermaking prompts are performed

The finished pages are hung up on the clothes lines in a order (just as a tarot reading is laid out in a particular way, but without imitating any divination practices). The effect is that the process of papermaking should appear organized as the resulting two scores from each set are hung up.

 Idea: Perhaps the newly couched pages are hung up at the furthest ends of the clothes lines, gradually moving inward towards the papermakers, eventually partially obscuring their work by the end. (The musicians will also be interpreting the papermakers’s body movements as part of their score collection.)

Musicians and their influences
The kinds of things a musician can consider as part of their interpretation:

• The color(s) on a score page
• How far away the page (or papermaker) you are focused on is compared to another page (or papermaker). This is akin to using distance and orientation of constellations as a divination factor.
• Can the musician “see” something on the page?
• Does the page stimulate some other sensory mode?
• Does a musician’s prompt suggest a change in perception over time, or from one prompt to another?
• Is it possible for each player to simultaneously be independent but also acknowledge an external influence at various points in time?
• Could the points were these influences occur and are acknowledged be modulated?

Tarot-related associations worth considering as models for some other approach: Number, Letter, Color. Appearance, Temperament, Velocity, Speed, Structure, Symbolism vs. ?; Archetype vs. ?

Fluxus/Event Score inspirations

Explore the idea of hybridizing aspects of the event score; allow for the possibilities that event scores offer, such as the ability to modulate levels of indeterminacy, improvisation, absurdity, etc.

See “George Brecht and the Notational Object”, chapter 3 in Harren’s “Fluxus Forms”: Something that aligns with my work and where I’m going with Radical Divination is this quote from page 107 about Brecht’s pieces in Cage’s class at New School:
“Brecht’s pieces commonly concluded at the extinguishing of a candle or the completion of a final task indicated by a limited number of cue cards.”

Cue cards = prompts, though I am not sure if they will be individual cards or a time-line-style list.

February 10, 2023: 
Pre-concert meeting with Michelle Wilson (papermaker)

I scheduled this dinner meeting with Michelle get her opinion and suggestions about aspects of the upcoming concert, both from the perspective of a participant and as a master papermaker. The questions had to do with kinds of pulp to use (based on color and texture), the quantities of each, pre-show preparation, post-show recycling, storage and transportation, and so forth.

Regarding the pulp for our event:

• she proposed to prepare the materials using her Hollander beater, the weekend before the show, “so it doesn’t get too stinky” from sitting around.
• Because the pigment must have the same ionic charge as the pulp, she says I will need to purchase retention agent from the same place I order the pigment (Carriage House has all of this). 
• Pulps will include flax (from Chico Flax) and bleached abaca (from Carriage House)
• Not sure whether to pigment the abaca or to chose another pulp for the pigment (e.g., hemp, esparto).
• Need to figure out the quantity I need to purchase of each (she suggests 3 lbs of each).

Tools for the event that I need to find include:

• concrete mixing trays • 5 gallon buckets with screw-on lids
• colander/strainer that is conical and has a hook (to hang on bucket) for retrieving the pulp after the event
• water absorption snakes   • plastic table cloths (white)

February 9, 2023: 
Catherine Christer Hennix – note

My purpose through the interrogation of techniques is to provide a conceptual space that artists can further explore, expand, or destabilize; where they can purpose there work for any aesthetic, whether from the pure recreational veramusement point of view of Harry Flynt, the intentional opaqueness and “unalloyed self-awareness” of Catherine Christer Hennix.

Two interesting quotes an from Artforum article about CC Hennix:

For Hennix, the experience of listening to durational music composed according to Brouwer’s “intensional logic” opens up a temporal and spiritual space in which “gratifying feeling[s] of one’s own dignity can be obtained.” 

And

As she explained to an interviewer in 1976, “Length has to do with space in society. . . . This is how musical performance connects with ethics. There are obstructions for these long style performances and our music documents the overcoming of those obstructions.”

https://www.artforum.com/print/201902/canada-choate-on-the-writings-of-catherine-christer-hennix-78380

January 29, 2023:
Re: Roland Barthes, structuralism, intent in scores

Am I looking to forgo determining meaning or am I looking to create a new form for creating signs to which signifiers can be attached? (By performers through their own agency)

What readings address how composers worked with 3D scores?

Examine structuralist/post-structurealist ideas, Barthes in particular, regarding linguistics and signs/etc. in terms of evaluating their effectiveness in using and generating graphic scores. For example, regarding this quote, could the language be “improvising in a post-Cagean continuum”?
<<A language is therefore, ­a social institution and a system of values. It is the social part of language, it is essentially a collective contract which one must accept in its entirety if one wishes to communicate.>>

(Barthes, 1967, pp. 14-15)

Within this context, the “controlled” and “successful” use of graphic scores depends on the participants having a shared understanding of the composer’s background. In this context, I put quotation marks around “controlled” and “successful” to refer to the results of a graphic-score interpretation that aligns with the composer’s intentions and expectations after a typical and appropriate amount of rehearsal.

<<It is because a language is a system of contractual values that it resists the modifications coming from a single individual and is consequently a social institution. In contrast to language, which is both institution and system, speech is essentially an individual act of selection and actualization. The speaking subject can use the code of the language with a view to expressing his personal thought. It is because speech is essentially a combinative activity that it corresponds to an individual act and not to a pure creation. >>

(Barthes, 1967, pp. 14-15)

In this way, could the graphic score be considered within Barthes’s “speech” context because it will be used within a “system of contractual values” (e.g., contemporary performance practices in music and dance). The composer is the first part of the “speaking subject” (the performers and witnesses, the second and third parts, respectively) because they “use the code of the language with a view to expressing his personal thought. It is because speech is essentially a combinative activity that it corresponds to an individual act and not to a pure creation.”

Or is it language?

<<Saussure (1960) argues that “language does not reflect a pre-existent and external reality of independent objects, but constructs meaning from within itself through a series of conceptual and phonic differences”. 1>>

One aspect of great interest to me with this project, which addresses Saussure’s comment above, is that I am interested in exploiting the breakdown of signified/signifier/sign with my work. I want to experience realizations of my scores where I am surprised by the results as are the participants and witnesses.

[Relate this to Cage’s quote about his interest in surprise]

NOTE: Paradigms and syntagms
• Choose a couple of example scores to analyze according to these principles in order to prove or complicate how they are used. This could also be a way to problematize these concepts in regards to my work. For example, the author says:

<<Paradigms and syntagms are fundamental to the way that any system of signs is organized. In written language, the letters of the alphabet are the basic vertical paradigms. These may be combined into syntagms called words. These words can be formed into syntagms called phrases or sentences, i.e., according to the rules of grammar.>>

<<Syntagms–like sentences–exist in time: we can think of them as a chain. But syntagms of visual signs can exist simultaneously in space. >>

NOTE: Difference

The explanation of difference can be useful in how I have been using prompts.

<<The idea is that nothing in and of itself has meaning: rather, meaning is a function of some relationship.>>

     From the FilmReference article: <<Barthes’s concept of myth parallels the Marxist concept of “false consciousness.” It is a form of naturalized language or discourse that hides itself in the notion of the commonsense. Doing so helps to maintain the status quo or consensus within a culture about socially acceptable norms of behavior and values (dominant ideology). >>
Read more: http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Semiotics-SEMIOLOGY-AND-FRENCH-CULTURAL-THEORY.html#ixzz7rq6V9M4M

January 28, 2023:
Notes re Dard Hunter’s Papermaking

“The couching tray, holding the completed post…” (Hunter 442)

The “consistency” of each page made (Hunter 430).

European (and India) papermaking as “duo”—“vatman” and “coucher” (Hunter, 178)

As a “trio”, add “layman”: “The third workman is the layman, whose duty it is to separate the sheets of the paper from the felts, after pressing, lay the paper in a neat pile, and return the felts to the coucher for further work.” (Hunter, 435)

NOTE: In the decades since Papermaking was originally published, his definition of what constitutes “paper” has not changed in any substantial way. One exception is the idea that for something to be considered “paper” it must be in the form of “thin sheets.” Beyond the fact that he does not explain what constitutes “thin”, artists who use this type of macerated fibers refer to the material they are working with as paper, whether it is in thin sheets, thick sculptural lumps, or something in between.

Paper is defined by Noah Webster as “a substance made in the form of thin sheets or leaves from rags, straw, bark, wood or other fibrous material, for various uses.”

“To be classed as true paper the thin sheets must be made from fibre that has been macerated until each individual filament is a separate unit; the fibres imtermixed with water, and by the use of a sieve-like screen, the fibres lifted from the water in the form of a thin stratum, the water draining through the small openings of the screen, leaving a sheet of matted fibre upon the screen’s surface.” (p5)

NOTE: The main point is that the constituent elements of the source materials include natural, fiber-based elements, whether or not these materials are mixed with other elements for structural or aesthetic reasons.

• Hunter’s historical examples of paper and other technologies (stone, clay, papyrus, et al) for storing information demonstrates how these forms of materiality can stand as a memory object that captures a specific place and time (even if we have to hypothesize both in order to approximate the where and when an object originated and was inscribed).

As such, the form of any of these technologies presents both the signifier and the signified:
Signifier + signified = sign
Signifier: Thing that gives meaning (words, images, gestures)
Signified: What is seen in the mind’s eye (what is seen in the mind’s eye)
Sign: Anything that can convey meaning (the “denotation”)
Denotation: the relationship between the signifier and the signified
Connotation: the situation in which the sign appears which determines how the sign is interpreted

• Not everyone will interpret a sign the same way. A sign will be interpreted by an individual based on their background regarding culture, age, education, gender.
See Roland Barthes, Wittgenstein, and Per Anders Nilsson’s book

January 22, 2023:
Format of Data/Information Delivery (re: scores)

   The means of delivery, the format, changes how we perceive the work—audio, visual, tactile. We perceive text or musical notation presented on coated paper differently than if it is presented on uncoated paper or on a computer screen. The dimensions of the delivery medium and size of the information being presented also play a role in how it strikes our visual reception system. But what we read from the format goes beyond visual stimulus because our other senses pick up sensations that help us form an image of the experience, whether we are aware of it or not.[1] The delivery system has a tactile element—the feel of the paper from a physical object such as a book, magazine, or newspaper; the stylus, mouse, keyboard or touch-screen if the format is digital—from which we embody a haptic sense of the experience and capture elements of our proprioception of it. We also experience the olfactory elements of the process, some of which are related to the delivery medium (e.g., the musty smell of an old book; the odors given off by polymers used in plastics for computer components) and others related to the environment we inhabit while reading (e.g., a library, a computer lab, a coffee shop, a rehearsal room).

    My sense is that the digital formats, while combining portability with a high-density storage format compared to printed materials, reflects the increased pace with which we move through our life as part of a feedback cycle created by digital technology. On purely digital platforms, we can format our written communications quickly and disseminate them immediately. We can have them automatically sonified (e.g., text read to us; music notation played back to us) while we attend to something else. The verbal communication taking place during a meeting can be automatically transcribed in real-time, saving us hours of transcription at a later time. Furthermore, by utilizing these relatively new ways of processing and sharing information, we discover that we can do more work than we could have without it. In fact, it is expected that we will do more work—by ourselves or those we work for—if we are able to maintain the efficiency we know is possible and not lot other elements related to these technological advancements distract us or slow us down.

    What I will argue is that this increase in productivity and the speed at which we process information does not mean we increased the speed at which we can learn or embody the information. The sensorial levels in which we experience the world are becoming more shallow as the amount of processing require increases and surpasses our body’s ability to keep up.[2] My intention, however, is not to use this hypothesis as a universally negative judgment, because the level to which each person can organize and retain incoming stimulus varies. Rather, my intent is to point out that there is the possibility of slowing our experiences down to a level where we can make discoveries (or rediscoveries) that are impossible at a faster pace.

[transition]

The questions I feel need to be asked include:
• What do we lose by working only with digitized images of texts or musical scores?
• What can be gained by working with paper that shares a wide sensorial palette than a xeroxed reproduction of a digitized text?

   I find that, personally, I connect differently to the content of a work based on how I experience it. If my first engagement with it fully digital, for example solely on a screen, I get the sense that the content is transitional in nature; I have a heightened sense of its ephemerality, which is the result of the relative lack of a long-term lifespan for digital information storage.[3] (It is not because digital information cannot be stored in perpetuity: It is because that level of storage can be difficult to achieve. Storage formats are continually evolving, as is the connectivity to them. In other words, the Zip drive you were using thirty years ago might still have the data on it, finding a way to retrieve it becomes increasing difficult with each new technological development.)

   However, paper formats differ greatly, and some of them reflect this digital ephemerality. For example, when books are printed on-demand from digital sources, it is immediately obvious from the materialized format when a publisher has not considered the layout of the print edition. The ephemeral quality of on-demand printing is increased when the font is difficult to read, the paper quality is cheap, and there is a generic image is on the cover. Of course, one might not get such a profound feeling of transitory relevance with a textbook that is updated often and only used a single class. I am not arguing for the elimination of on-demand books, even the ones that are not well-thought-out in terms of their design: They serve an important function—low-cost, portable information in print—for the fast-paced, neo-liberal educational institutions focused on moving people through the system quickly and efficiently.

    While it is possible to embody learning from any of formats in these examples, they are intended to provide study materials quickly at a reduced cost.[4]

    In the realm of sound, the same source recording of a musical work will sound different depending on a number of factors of the storage and playback formats. For example, a in the late 1970s and early 1980s, you would be able to purchase the same album by an a musical artist on a vinyl LP, on cassette, and on an 8-track cassette.

    The version on vinyl (in a stereo format) will have been mastered in a way that avoids problems during playback that are incompatible with the format such as having low-bass frequencies panned to one side of the stereo image, or a dynamic range that is too wide. These two problems are mitigated, respectively, by panning bass frequencies to the center and by placing a compressor/limiter in the signal path between the master source and the disc cutter. On top of that, there are limits to the amount of music can be stored on vinyl records that have to do with diameter of the disc, the overall volume of the program material, the amount of low frequencies are in the mix, and the playback speed.

    The cassette tape, on the other hand, has its own format-related issues to contend with, such as noise-reduction schemes, bias frequencies, tape quality, playback speed, and the speed at which the program material was duplicated from the master to the copy. Each of these aspects will affect the sound of the music being reproduced, both in spectral domain and in terms of dynamic range. A cassette can store more music than a 12” LP.

   The 8-track format has a special problem to deal with: the noisy track changes, arbitrarily placed…

[1] This is a place to reference earlier reflections on this by authors.

[2] Find research about this.

[3] Not only because storage/retrieval formats change, making it difficult to gather decades-old data, but because the lack of a physical object means that its ephemerality is greatly heightened despite the seeming ubiquity of its digital footprint at the time it is created. As we create and process information more quickly, the lifespan of the information decreases in inverse proportion in order to make way for what comes next. As an example, years after MySpace lost its dominance in the market, all of the music uploaded to the site was “accidentally” deleted. Do the artists whose music was solely digital have backups on a digital format from twenty years ago that they can still access? [find the reference for this, and other references for digital data’s impermanence[

[4] By quickly and at a reduced cost, I am not just talking about delivering the product to the consumer, but also in terms of its creation. The amount of money paid to authors for their work. And AI is on track to be the next content creator.

December 30, 2022:
Improvisation as Play (Bees)

Like many, I see improvisation as a form of play: the concept of play extending beyond mammals and into the world of birds and bees. What comes to mind for my work by contemplating the “five criteria for accessing play in animals”:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/12/bees-like-to-roll-little-wooden-balls-as-a-form-of-play-study-finds/amp/

“Five basic criteria must be met:
• First, the behavior should not be performed in order to get food, attract a mate, or find shelter.
• Second, the play behavior should be “voluntary, spontaneous and rewarding in and of itself,” instead of being associated with a reward of some kind.
• Third, the motor actions for the play behavior should be different from the actions performed when searching for food or trying to mate.
• Fourth, the play behavior is repeated but not stereotyped, in order to differentiate between a one-off occurrence vs. an habitual tic.
• Finally, the play should be initiated when the subject is relaxed, to distinguish it from stress-related behaviors like pacing or walking, both which are often observed in caged zoo animals.”

December 22, 2022:
Scoring that emphasizes process/community over result

What if, rather than interpreting a graphic score or a set of preconceived instructions, you could generate either or both as part of the process of interaction, realization, materialization; and do so with an emphasis on community or mutual trust and support and exploration and process and joy and game-playing without a care about the “result”, the artifact.

It is a form of process art.

• Papermaking as a means of placing participants in a specific place-time.
   …in order to free the results from being shaped without taking into consideration its part of the conversation.

• Note that the paper maker in Amalfi says the process does not chemically changing the water’s pH.
• Add a “brief discursion on the potential of hydrogen as it regards the materialization of paper”

• See the book “Rethinking paper and ink” (re: sustainable publishing/printing model)

December 20, 2022:
Italian papermaking cities and museums

In preparation for a 2023 visit, these are notable Italian paper mills or museums organized by city.
The variety of links for each is intended to give a fuller picture of each place in order to determine how to use it in research.

Vocabolario: 
         filigrane = watermarks
         cartiera = paper mill
         la carta a mano = handmade paper
         ricciclaggio = recycling        
         il support di ponitura, a schiena d’asino = “humpbacked poniture support” curved couching setup

• See Lynn Sures articles in Hand Papermaking
Living Museums of Papermaking in Italy Part I: Amalfi (Winter 2002, vol. 17, no. 1) p. 10
Living Museums of Papermaking in Italy Part II: Bevagna/Fabriano (Summer 2002, vol. 17, no. 2) p. 12
Interview with Lynn Sures: https://helenhiebertstudio.com/podcast/lynn-sures/

• Paperinfo.eu: https://paperinfo.eu/paper/history/
• CIU touristy overview: https://ciutravel.com/italy-handcrafted-paper/
• A Brief History of Paper (STICC) with Italian info: http://users.stlcc.edu/nfuller/paper/

Amalfi

• Paper museum: https://www.amalfipapermuseum.com

Ascoli Piceno

• Museum of the Papal Paper Mill (and Orsini botanical collection)
  https://visitascoli.it/en/attractions/the-museums-of-ascoli-piceno-the-museums-of-the-papal-paper-mill/

• Museum info: https://www.provincia.ap.it/index.php?id_sezione=990
• Some photos here:
  https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g194676-d3545440-Reviews-Musei_della_Cartiera_Papale-Ascoli_Piceno_Province_of_Ascoli_Piceno_Marche.html
• Info on Wikipedia: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartiera_papale

Fabriano

• History site: http://www.fabrianostorica.it/
• “The First Paper Mills in Italy at Fabriano”: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=2949
• Video Library of Congress talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4SYBy8O9to
• Manualis Cartiera – creates paper from unused fashion clothing and experimental materials

https://www.manualis.it/
https://mailchimp.com/courier/article/manualis-cartiera-paper-recycling-fabric/

• Video Carta Fabriano papermaking process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMr-WOzFjuU

Florence

Papermaking workshop: https://www.italysbestrome.com/product/florence-papermaking-workshop/

Marbled paper: https://triciaannemitchell.com/2022/08/14/handmade-italian-marbled-paper-florence-italy/

Genoa

• Mele Paper Mill: https://www.museocartamele.it/
  Very good photos on this site. Closed late December to mid-February, and August to early Sept.     

• Video excellent overview of machinery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cETymcA4yCI
• Video papermaking demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RKzAjMvoHY
• Handmade paper from fruit: https://www.museocartamele.it/prodotto/carte-a-mano-da-frutti/
• https://www.museocartamele.it/2020/08/19/video-museo-carta-mele/

https://www.italianstories.it/en/museum/4/museo-della-carta-di-mele

https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/blog/paper-museums/

Perugia, Umbria

Pale di Foligno and Belfiore ()

• Cartiera della Rupe
  https://www.paledifoligno.it/le-cartiere-di-pale/cartiera-della-rupe-o-innamorati-vincenza
• Historial note in newspaper: http://www.umbriaonline.com/foligno_pale.phtml
• History, includes other local paper mills: https://www.sentierinellafasciaolivata.it/attrattore/cartiere-pale-in-umbria/
• see the Word article “The Pale Paper Mills” on this subject.

Pescia (Pistoia)
Museo della Carta seems to be one of the best organized of the museums.

“The old factory of the Le Carte paper mill in Pietrabuona, today the operational headquarters of the Paper Museum of Pescia.”

• https://museodellacarta.org/
• Video historical overview: https://vimeo.com/307715184?from=outro-embed
• Video re: archive: https://vimeo.com/307509164?from=outro-embed
• Another overview + subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slNNHns8mU4
• 2010 video of mail art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k8aN9nh1D4
• “Ricordanze di un Cartaio di Carlo Magnani Alpignano” (1961)

      • Carlo Magnani video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ui_K7W4t84
In this video, a master papermaker describes handmade paper in poetic terms:
“A sheet of that good, handmade paper—clear, smooth, that smells like bread; has a soul and a voice. … this paper isn’t manufactured anymore in the world, except for some insides for vanished people, in balance between love and oblivious dementia.” (badly translated from Italian by YouTube)

Video 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ9lGNjtlBk

Video 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsFWJYGm96M

Video 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8WICFbhkrM

Video 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66hr91-qXHY

Video 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRqUAR4MmKQ

Video 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnvq4k53GYU

• Video (brief) showing papermaking elements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L_yW7Se_C0
• Video archivio storico Magnani: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0TQjWQifGc

The curator explaining how the move from postcards to email changed our perspective (see near the end of video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1S-fa_gSks

• Video: the papermaking family (poetic): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2HN6Q__L3s

NOTE: Interesting note from its book-art exhibit: “The book itself becomes a work of art, either as an object or as a content. In fact, it ‘undermines’ the proper function of the book, as well as its form, becoming an instrument of artistic communication.”

                   This is what I’m doing with paper!

Toscolano Maderno (Lago di Garda)
          closed in the winter

• https://www.valledellecartiere.it/en/
• https://www.valledellecartiere.it/en/The-Paper-Museum

Bevagna (Umbria)

• Francesco Proietti:
  

  Master Papermaker Francesco Proietti

  
  https://idesignquest.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/umbria-bevagna-papermaker/

• Video (short) of retting machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StVkcG2ttuk

Venice (paper dealer)

Il Pavone (the peacock): https://educated-traveller.com/2020/08/04/il-pavone-the-peacock-paper-maker/
Perugia (Monte Castello)

International Center for the Arts
Fee-based residency (May-October) & workshops: https://icaitaly.com/paper/ 

December 19, 2022:
Printed scores/books are alive

Printed scores, like books, are alive; not just in the metaphoric sense of their ability to speak anew when first experienced, but in the material sense.

   Even if we consider a printed document from an austere, Eurocentric/scientific point of view, the paper is never in a stable state, but is host to microorganisms. From the moment it forms a memory/record of its materialization, the paper-object can be considered to have a lifespan; it carries a trace of this journey through form/function.
[Include a new materialist/neo-animism perspective: which resources provide examples of indigenous knowledge where life-spirit-place beliefs resonate with the material-collaboration concept in performative papermaking?]

• What can this suggest when improvising with papermaking? 
• In what ways can this knowledge affect the subject/object considerations? 

    A sheet of newly formed paper provides a materialized record. It embodies a memory of the environment in which it materialized, and the elements from which it was created. The papermaker must work with the constant variability of the materials, based in large part of elements that are only partially manageable—air temperature, ambient humidity level, water temperature. One measure of a papermaker’s skill is based on how well they are able to work withing the particular behavioral properties of a given pulp type as it reacts to the environmental variability. Historically, papermaking was centered in areas with a generous source of fresh water, because how the chemical properties of the liquid interact with the pulp (and any additives such as neri or formation aid) has a significant impact on the materialized form that results. For example, the pH level of the water and of the pulp influences the results. Industry-funded studies continue to explore the topic in order to improve consistency as well as in the search for new types of materials (particularly plants that are abundant, have a lower impact on the environment than trees, and are capable of quality elements that match the goals of the producer in terms of color, strength and so forth.

Two articles re: alternatives to the common plants used in paper:

“We can look into a system across time and across multiple samples, and for the first time determine who’s there and what they are potentially doing, and what we have found is astounding. We are now able to take a holistic rather than reductionist approach to try and explain how different microbiomes are involved in ecosystem and biosystem function.”

May 9, 2017 Julian R. Marchesi
https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-issues/the-microbiome/article/the-microbiomes-of-things.html

“Populus has become the model woody perennial organism for researchers interested in testing mechanistic hypotheses related to plant–microbe interactions. … Further, understanding these interactions may be particularly important socioeconomically as poplar trees currently are cultivated for pulp and paper production [16, 17] and have potential as a cellulose-derived biofuel feedstock [14, 18,19,20].”

12 Feb 2018, M.A. Cregger et al

https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-018-0413-8

See: Barbara Grespi (2019)
“The technical object and somatic thought: Theories of gesture between anthropology, aesthetics and cinema”
https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/aisthesis/article/view/10726

Note: Tap water in the United States has a range of ±1.5 pH from neutral. Anecdotally, I rarely not seen any discussion about analyzing and modifying the local water by those involved in hand-papermaking. On the contrary, plant material that is intended for use as pulp is routinely treated with some form of alkali to balance its pH (primarily to attenuate acidity).
How useful would it be to test the pH of the water being used for papermaking at the non-industrial level? Would “pH testing at home” be useful? https://www.healthline.com/health/ph-of-drinking-water#home-tests

Find out how Farnsworth treats the subject in his practice (from his book “Determinate Hand Papermaking”, Magnolia Press)

“The effect of pH on fiber and paper properties, during beating and sheet formation, was investigated for three different pulps. The pulps were pH adjusted to four different pH levels between 3 and 9. Isotropic laboratory sheet were made of both unbeaten and beaten pulps. The beaten neutral sulfite semi-chemical pulp and bleached softwood kraft pulp were affected by changes in pH; bleached softwood kraft pulp in a minor extent due to less fiber surface charges. Compared to the other pH levels, pH 3 showed a lower fiber surface charge, water retention value, tensile index, tensile stiffness index, compressive index and edge crush resistance index. SEM pictures showed a denser network at pH 9 than for pH 3. This was seen for both neutral sulphite semi-chemical and softwood kraft pulp. The unbeaten pulps and beaten bleached hardwood kraft pulp were not affected by changes in pH. SEM pictures showed no difference in the fiber network for bleached hardwood kraft pulp. A mill trial, with neutral sulphite semi-chemical pulp, at pH levels between pH 4.8 and pH 5.6 was completed. No significant difference was seen for any mechanical property.”

Abstract from “The influence of pH on fiber and paper properties Different pH levels during beating and sheet forming” by Jennie Jansson, 6/17/2005

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:823180/FULLTEXT01.pdf