These two projects were early attempts to build three-dimensional, immersive picture books.

As all our mediations become digitized, I suppose I’m wanting an immersive environment that’s actually physical and material, as opposed to an ephemeral projection of mediated data into light and sound.

I’ve developed a craving for huge, impossibly clunky books,  and for building picture books that humans can crawl into.

Tunnel books are an actual type of pop-up book with a long history. This one was 6′ x 6′, ”open’. The front panels were on wheels, and could fold out, very much like the bellows on an old-fashioned large-format camera. The back was anchored in place with a heavy steel base and an old glass door I found in the street. It contained graphite drawings on paper and board. The panels were conncected along an expanding steel linkage as a spine. The idea was that the viewer would be able to turn it and drag it to get different perspectives on the drawings contained in the interior.

It was presented at Ateliers Jean-Brillant in 2010.

2008 – The ‘nautilus’ was also a book: 12, muslin-covered, heavy board ‘pages’ bound together by a single, 3 foot-long steel rivet.  

The inside contained graphite drawings on a blood red background you could only see by crawling inside. I was never able to persuade anyone to do this, except for a dancer who immediately wanted to take it away to use as a prop in a performance. ‘Open’ it was 5 feet in diameter, 3 feet tall at its widest point, shrinking down to 10” at the tip.