[Image: “Webster’s New Inner Diction” (2007), by Brian Dettmer]
From Neil Gaiman’s Twitter feed, I learned of the artwork of Brian Dettmer. Dettmer uses surgical tools — scalpel, tweezers, and such — to dig down into books and other media (such as cassette tapes), revealing deep layers of what might or might not be meaning in the words and images therein.
From his “artist’s statement”:
The age of information in physical form is waning. As intangible routes thrive with quicker fluidity, material and history are being lost, slipping and eroding into the ether. Newer media swiftly flips forms, unrestricted by the weight of material and the responsibility of history. In the tangible world we are left with a frozen material but in the intangible world we may be left with nothing. History is lost as formats change from physical stability to digital distress…
In this work I begin with an existing book and seal its edges, creating an enclosed vessel full of unearthed potential. I cut into the surface of the book and dissect through it from the front. I work with knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each layer while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. Images and ideas are revealed to expose alternate histories and memories.
Besides books, Dettmer also works with maps, audiocassette tapes, VHS tapes, LPs… For the items of plastic, instead of carving or cutting them he sometimes melts and/or fuses them into new shapes, such as animal (or human) skulls. Regardless of medium, the results are both beautiful and a little disconcerting.
(That said, I can’t go so far as some of the commenters I’ve seen on other sites, who are appalled that he’s treating books so shabbily.)
Here’s a seven-minute interview with Dettmer, with lots more examples of his work:
The ultimate resource, unsurprisingly, is Dettmer’s home page itself. Scroll way down on the page to see all the images.
No word, as yet, on any plans in the offing for his vivisection of Kindles, Nooks, and/or iPads. Probably not for a few years, if ever; his focus seems to be on old media threatened (or already supplanted) by new.
Ashleigh Burroughs says
I can’t decide – do I love the creativity, the notion of “what’s really in there” or am I aggravated by the assault on the tome itself? There you go again… getting me to run after my hat on this.
a/b
John says
If he were savaging rare books, illuminated manuscripts and such, I’d probably feel a certain amount of indignation myself. But — although they’re mostly not household names — most of the source books seem to be fairly generic, almost interchangeable titles… encyclopedias, textbooks, and such.
And you know I’d be first in line to film you running after your hat. :)
cynth says
I don’t know…I like the “repurposing” of books, or even tapes, dvds or whatevers. It seems to fit with the recycling frame of mind with an artistic twist.
John says
Oh, you. You just KNOW that anyone who uses the phrase “seems to fit” in this neighborhood gets a free pass!
There’s a whole subgenre of sculpture which uses so-called “found objects” and either arranges them or just poses them, unadorned, with a label alongside. (I’ve also seen “found poems,” including a whole series by The Missus which I wish she would do something with.) Even if the artist doesn’t carve or dismember the object, just leaves it as-is, the bottom line seems the same to me: it’s now out of circulation for its original, intended purpose. So I just can’t get worked up about an art form which makes something wholly new out of something comfortably, familiarly old.
marta says
I’ve seen his work around on the Internet, and the cutting up of books for art doesn’t bother me much. Cutting up my own work has given me a different attitude about that sort of thing.
What interests me also in this post is the artist statement and the way he talks about his art. These aspect of being an artist has long been a problem for me. I want to write a statement that doesn’t sound like I’m trying to impress an art critic but that I know what I’m talking about…not that I do.
John says
You know I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t chimed in, you book defacer, you. :)
I couldn’t decide whether his artist statement was profound or not. I just wanted to acknowledge that — at least in his eyes — he’s not just trying to be clever or “cool.” He’s saying something, indirectly, through his preferred medium.
Forget art critics. If someone whose mind you appreciate asked you, “What are you trying to say with your art?” or “What does your art mean?,” well, how might you begin to answer???
marta says
I don’t think I could deface someone else’s book though. I’ve got a set of old reference books and once I mentioned to my son that maybe we could make something out of them. We’d been to an art festival and seen boxes and things made from books. My son–7 at the time–was appalled at the idea. I thought he had a rather strong reaction about it for his age.
I guess my problem with the whole artist statement thing is that I’ve got nothing statement-y to say. My art is not a statement on society or an investigation into an aspect of humanity or a reflection of a historical context. I get an idea, I do what I can with it, and I use my own writing, paper, ink, glue, and pencil. That’s it.
If asked, I can give a bunny story to explain the bunnies. People usually ask about the bunnies and “because it’s an animal I can draw” is never a satisfactory answer.
But to your question, “What am I trying to say with your art?” …stall for time… yeah, I don’t have a good answer. I mean, these are images I like and I’m very happy when spending hours in a corner drawing and coloring in spiraling trees. Yep. Not a good answer.
What else might I be trying to say? Like pretty things.
Not art world fame for me!
John says
Your son is an extremely sensitive young man. Or he was at 7, anyhow. :)
Just to play devil’s advocate here, riffing off the top of my head about some things you might address in a statement:
1. You say “because it’s an animal [you] can draw” is why you do bunnies. But there are other animals at least as easy to draw; why not them, instead? What is it about bunnies in particular?
2. …and anyhow, you don’t just “draw bunnies,” usually. You depict them in some very unbunny-like poses — reclining within the curve of a crescent moon, for instance. They’re often looking up at the sky.
3. The fascination with trees is also interesting. On one level, it’s just a sort of artistic pun — the paper you’re cutting up started life as trees, and you’re metaphorically returning them to that form. And there’s something about the branching (and branching and branching…) of tree trunk to limb to branch to twig to leaf; you don’t take the easy way out by showing, like, a vertical stick crowned with an empty circle — like a balloon or lollipop. It matters that these are trees (sometimes even with roots…!)
4. Ditto the skylines-from-words you do. Might they be saying something about words, or stories, or skylines — or the people who inhabit the skylines?
There y’go. You may have been saying something all along, without even knowing it!
Nance says
I do believe I have fallen completely in love with Mr. Dettmer. To me, rather than disrespecting analog media, he has created a mystical, beautiful shrine with each piece. He’s a high priest of historical media.
John says
I have tried repeatedly (and failed just as often) to duplicate, mentally, what the experience of creating one of these works for the first time must have been like. Actually, for the first N times — until he got the hang of making a cut only AFTER anticipating what he’d find beneath it.
As I understand it, he somehow seals these things (lacquer or epoxy or polyurethane, something like that) after they’re complete. Which has the advantage of ensuring that don’t disintegrate… but also ensures that we can’t, like, lift up a page at a time to burrow down into the source book, a layer at a time. Like slicing into an onion.