Any thoughts?



"Vertical Complexity Engine" was a term coined by Brian Eno and applied to a method of his for producing ambient music. It involves inputting a relatively small number of elements, but combining them in as many different ways as possible. My Chaos Chronometer: [link] employed this idea to produce collages. At one frame per second it takes twelve days to repeat the same collage. There are only eighty image elements, but they combine in over a million ways before repeating. I did this five years ago, and it was only a prototype. I just never got back to it to switch in better images.

What I'm wondering now is how many interesting ways we might come up with (possible and impossible, serious and whimsical) to make a book that is a vertical complexity engine. Something to think about while you are all working hard on your entries for the Dream Book Contest, which I am sure are coming... aren't they?

I guess you could say that Julio Cortazar"s "Hopscotch" was such a book, and Borges seems to have something like this in mind in his story, "The Garden of Forking Paths." Other examples from actual literature would be appreciated as well. If I get enough material together (images welcome, too) I'll give it a journal page. Thank you for indulging me.
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Dream Book Contest Now Open for Entries
Prize Package Growing!

This may be premature, but I have decided to announce a contest. As prizes I am offering a print of your choice from my works in the club gallery, a feature in the club journal and a news item. In addition, our newest Scout, *Adeimantus, has pledged a one-year subscription to DA for the winner.
Thank you, !

The theme of the contest is DREAM BOOK, which you can make of what you will - a book that appeared to you in a dream, a book you daydreamed or pipedreamed, or a book that explains all dreams. Or perhaps it is a catalog of dreams that you can choose to have. Whatever you decide it is, your entry should be its cover, its title page or a sample page from the inside.

It can be an illustration in any media, or pure typography. Plain text will also be accepted - and could win - but I encourage you writers to try to make a page image. I find it much more satisfying than default font/formatting on the screen. Works already in the gallery are acceptable, as are other works already completed.

Entries will be displayed in the club journal, and all of the ones I really like will end up in the permanent gallery.

The contest is open to all deviants. Entries should be submitted via note, with "contest" in the subject line, and a thumbnail or link to the piece in your gallery. I will choose a group of five finalists, and the membership will decide the winner. Deadline for entries is Decmber 31st, 2007.

You may now begin dreaming books.

I'd also appreciate any help with spreading the word, and the donation of any additional prizes.

FIRST ENTRIES




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Links Page Created and open for your suggestions Nov. 3, 2007

Separate LINKS page created [link] , for links to Lost Books beyond the dA Universe. It may take some time, but this will be a great source of inspiration. I will organize it when when it starts getting bigger.


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The LOST BOOK CLUB Now Accepting Members

Forty days into this endeavor, The Lost Book Club and Museum still languishes in relative obscurity here in the dA universe, but it appears to have hit a major chord with a few of you, and that is very encouraging to me. Therefore I have decided to begin accepting members.

To be a member you must add the club to your Friends List, and choose your membership category. There are to be two categories, and you are welcome to sign up for both, if you like.

1. DONORS: This is for those of you who intend to submit works from your own galleries to The Lost Book Club and Museum. Submitting as a Donor does not guarantee posting, but it does guarantee careful consideration of the suitability of all pieces submitted, and you get your avatar on the front page and will be invited to participate in contests and such.

2. SCOUTS: This is for those of you who will be on the look-out for exhibits for our museum, whether by simply being attentive to the work of friends and the work you happen to see around dA, or by actively scouring the dA universe for artifacts for our museum. You may then act as go-between or simply note me about prospects and I will check them out. Scouts are also encouraged to help me build a LINKS page, for appropriate materials outside of dA. As a Lost Book Scout your avatar will appear in a separate roster on the front page.

If interested, note me.

Also, today I have replaced our DeviantID and avatar with the work of enthusiastic new member, Thanks to for sending him our way.

WHAT IS THE LOST BOOK CLUB AND MUSEUM?

It is a gallery of fragments, both text and image artifacts, connected by a common theme: The Deconstruction and Reimagining of Books and Book Culture in our Post-Literate Age.

EXAMPLES: Fragments of ancient texts in forgotten languages, scientific & technical illustrations from unknown sciences and technologies, false starts of books, covers or title pages for non-existent books, impossible bindings, enigmatic fragments of torn burned or rotted pages from mysterious religious works, histories, cosmologies, fragments of art, diaries, found poetry, interesting scraps of paper found in the street, books made of unexpected materials or hollowed out to contain unexpected objects, banned, burned, forbidden, unfinished, unwritten books, unidentified alphabets, hieroglyphs, ideograms, iconography, books from prehistory, books from the future, books from parallel universes, books with built-in lenses and peep-holes, pop-up books with animated scenes, magical books, books of pressed flowers, pressed bugs, pressed dreams and nightmares, catalogs of stains and odors, unnatural histories, abnormal philosophies, Readers' Digress condensed and compacted books, Books of tree rings and geological strata, books of Tibetan sand paintings that spill into the gutters as you turn the pages, broken books exposing their inner workings, or with their guts spilling out, neodada collage, putting bits of image and text together haphazardly like the early attempts to reassemble dinosaur bones, books made of folded-spindled-mutilated IBM punch-cards, books written in UPC code, suggestive receipts and office memos, shopping lists and telephone doodles, fragments of catalogs of fragments of catalogs of fragments, et cetera, et cetera...

(The above list of examples is, itself, a good example of an acceptable text submission)

SUBMISSIONS: Entries may take the form of images of these artifacts, text descriptions of physical artifacts, text excerpts from lost books, and/or image and/or text explorations of things related to the main themes of this club. As with other clubs, you submit via note with a link to the image or text already placed in your personal gallery.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I, James Koehnline shall be, for the foreseeable future, the sole curator, librarian, gatekeeper and judge, making all decisions regarding what gets into the club gallery.

If the quality is high and the quantity sufficient I may have discussions with the contributors of the best submissions regarding the possibility of publishing a real book in the form of a catalog of our imaginary museum.

I am looking forward to hearing from you who find this an interesting experiment.

OUR MEMBER ROSTERS

DONORS:








SCOUTS:






SCOUTS HONOR ROLL
Our Scouts Honor Roll starts off with two of you: , who helped to spread the word of this club, pointed out some great work and brought in several enthusiastic members,
and , who has brought to my attention many treasures here at dA, as well as great resources from beyond for our Links Page [link] Thanks to you, and to all who are helping this club grow and evolve.

A FEW INSPIRATIONS:
The fiction of Jorge Luis Borges [link]
Peter Greenaway's film "Prospero's Books" [link]
Writings and Projects of Hakim Bey [link]
Current Exhibition at the Seattle Asian Art Museum: "Shu: Reinventing Books in Contemporary Chinese Art" [link]
Ernie Kovacs' "Eugene" TV special (especially the library scene, of course) [link]


LINKS PAGE: [link]