Work for Assessment 10 - You are Here

This is such an open brief I didn't know where to start. I did some general googling and amongst other things came up with and artists book called You are Here by Julie Chen and a film You are Here with a Saul Bass like poster. This didn't lead me to any specific ideas so I went to my sketchbook.

There's a song with the line in it "wherever you go there you are" It's always fascinated me and it's now annoying me because I can't remember the song. (There is a song with that title but that's not the one I was thinking of) We think that we are moving through the world but in a way we are always in the same place and it's just the scenery that changes. I decided to do an artists book on that theme with a static figure and a revolving disc of scenery.

I wanted to represent being on the top of a mountain (I actually looked at the view from the top of Everest)

So when this is drawn onto the background disk this is the view.

 And these are the other pages.

 Here the cutout shape is supposed to be the view through divers goggles.

I considered different layouts for the text part of the book.

I know that typography is a weak point. I wanted to have small handwritten comments which inform but don't distract from the visual elements of the book. I was influenced by Veronica Dearly but my handwriting isn't as nice as hers. Maybe I should have printed the text using a font from my computer.

This is the first page.

I've always been fascinated by pictures that show themselves repeated so this is what I've tried to do here.

To animate the book you turn the exposed part of the background disc which I have left exposed on the right hand side of the picture. Here is a video of the book in action.

The basic plot of the book is;
You are here and wherever you go (to the top of a mountain, to the bottom of the ocean even to the moon) wherever you go, there you are.

Reflection
This project has worked out better than I'd expected but I have a nagging feeling that it's not good enough. I had some technical issues with the cardboard that I used for the pages and I think that I need to remake the book and count this version as a prototype but I'm trying to move away from killing an idea by pushing it towards perfection so I'm going to get some feedback from my tutor before I do so that I only make one upgrade and try and keep the images fresh.
Any comments would be welcome!

Feedback
My tutor liked the basic idea but agreed that it needs polishing. I need to look back at both the way that I've bound the book and probably modify the windows. Watch this space.