by Betty Kim
Introduction
In my first endeavor to “remix” the Brut, I created collages using copies of material from the manuscript’s cover and first few leaves. As this was my very first time engaging with this project, I decided to simply experiment with both digital and analog collage with no particular goal in mind; my initial goal, if there was any, was just to “play” with the aesthetics of the Brut’s cover and first few leaves. In this blog post, I’ll be talking about the digital collaging process — what worked, what didn’t work, and the significance of collaging as “remix.”
Observation and Planning
To start, I went to Rauner Special Collections Library to take a look at the manuscript and decide how I’d engage with it using collage. At this point, I had no plan at all for the collages, not even what parts of the manuscript I would be working with. All I knew was that I wanted to experiment with both analog and digital collage and engage with the Brut in a visual manner.
As I opened up the manuscript and leafed through its pages, I found myself overwhelmed with the possibilities for artistic exploration. My usual process as a collage artist is to take a couple of magazines or illustrated books, cut out the images within these pages that interest me, and experiment with many different combinations of these cut-out pieces. With the Brut collages, this would mean I’d have to print a copy of the entire manuscript (which is available here on the Digital by Dartmouth Library website), spread them out, and cut and paste at random. Though 200+ pages is a lot, it would be easy enough to do this for analog collage, even if it meant my room would get a little messy. However, the program that I use for digital collages (Procreate for iPad) would make the collage process never-ending; I would have to upload all 100+ images as separate files, and even then, I could only work on each page individually. I wanted to work with many different pages at once, combining the visual elements of separate parts and experimenting with a cut-and-paste process.
I needed to set constraints on the collaging process in order to proceed. After examining the manuscript further, I decided on the first constraint: I would only work with images of the Brut’s cover and the first few leaves of the manuscript. The reason for this choice was quite simple; the Dartmouth Brut is not heavily illuminated, with the first few leaves containing the most decoration and color. The cover in particular was probably the most visually interesting part of the manuscript to me; parts of the cover (binding, etc.) that had been removed during the conservation process were contained in boxes or bags of hard plastic, and I guessed they would provide aesthetic variety to the collages, as most of the manuscript maintains the ink-on-parchment look.
The second constraint I decided to set for myself was to only work with the visual or aesthetic elements of the manuscript, rather than focusing on any of the textual content contained within the pages; that is, I chose not to consider the words on the manuscript, or their meaning, while making the collages. My goal was to meditate on the manuscript as a visual entity, not to analyze the text. It would be too complex to do both at once, at least for now.
As I got ready to begin the actual collaging process, I decided on the third and last constraint: I would try to use as little outside visual material as possible. For example, drawing or painting on top of magazines or other raw collaging material is one of my favorite forms of “playing” with visual materials, but I tried to refrain from painting over the manuscript in any way. This would introduce too many choices in the artistic process. Additionally, I wanted the collages to represent the manuscript in a somewhat straightforward or traditional way; whether or not I ended up following this rule, I’m not sure, but it certainly helped me overcome the obstacle of too many choices.
I finally had a loose goal as I began creating my collages: to visually represent the cover and first few pages of the manuscript in a “remixed” form.
The Collaging Process
Even with these constraints, there were a lot of choices to consider when starting off with collaging. I could “paint” traditional pictures by taking parts of the manuscript and arranging them into recognizable images. I could utilize a more abstract approach, taking separate visual elements that interested me and arranging them (a sort of compositional exercise).
Eventually, I began the artistic process by creating digital collages with the Brut by creating what I will call “textural collages.” In this part of the process, I was trying to represent the visual “background noise” of the book. I wanted to see what visual patterns would come out of combining, cutting, and pasting different parts of the first few leaves.
The process for these collages consisted of cutting and pasting the most visually appealing parts and arranging them so they made sense compositionally. (Here, “most visually appealing” is an arbitrary phrase; they were simply the most decorative parts of the manuscript.) Then, I played with effects on each layer (each layer contained a “cut-out” part of the manuscript), which affected the way the layers interacted with each other. This would make the texture darker, brighter, duller, or more brilliant; it would also affect the visibility of each layer, changing the way each cut-out played a part in the texture.
Making these “textural” collages was a soothing process as I dealt with the overwhelming number of artistic choices I could make. In many ways, it felt like the most simple approach to a visual analysis of the manuscript’s first few leaves.
Having dipped my feet into the water with a relatively simple visual experiment, I started trying to come up with other ways to approach collaging with the Brut. I began to come up with thought experiments for more complex, large-scale visual projects that could be done with the manuscript. For example, if a publishing company wanted to create a version of the Brut that contained detailed illustrations depicting its stories, how would they go about doing this in a way that stayed true to the preexisting visual elements of the manuscript? In this thought experiment, the goal would not be to create a graphic novel or “modern” version of the Brut; this particular project would involve adding pictures to the manuscript in its preexisting form. Perhaps the publishing company would ask the artist to create illustrations using only copies of the original.
This thought experiment prompted me to create a collage portrait of King Arthur. I used only materials from the first few pages, only drawing on top of the original manuscript to draw his face. I used the binding to represent his staff, the aforementioned “texture” collages to make his robe, and the metal clasps from the cover for his crown.
Conclusion/What next?
Exploring the aesthetics of the Brut via Procreate was a learning experience for several reasons. First and foremost, it helped me realize that putting constraints on your own artistic process is often freeing — the possibilities within digital collage are overwhelming, and it was only possible to engage with the Brut’s aesthetics once some limitations were in place.
Working with the Brut using digital collage also got me thinking about the way we represent “analog” materials digitally. The digital collaging process felt somewhat detached, partly because I’m more accustomed to analog collaging; working with a picture of something, rather than the thing itself, can make you feel you’re not interacting with the original manuscript at all. In the same vein, the photos that I used for the collages felt more like a random collection of pictures I’d taken, rather than representations of the Brut. (Michelle recently taught me the phrase “vernacular digitization,” as opposed to “official digitization” — maybe part of the reason why I didn’t see my own photos as “real” representations of the Brut is my unconscious bias against vernacular digitization.) At the same time, the photo-taking part of the process had its own allure; it was yet another way in which the Brut could be filtered through my artistic lens, another opportunity to “edit” the original manuscript.
In future posts, I’ll be covering the analog collaging process and the differences between digital and analog collaging with the Brut. There, I’ll continue reflecting on questions regarding the artistic process of collaging, vernacular digitization, and digital vs. analog materiality.
