The printed quarterly Uniformagazine ran to ten issues, from 2014 to 2017, gathering contributions by the writers and artists that we work with, sometimes thematically, as well as slighter or singular content.
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Uniformbooks
Summer 2017
ISSN 2056-6301
32pp, 215 x 145mm
£4.00
No.10
die wiese herman de vries & susanne de vries | Terms (2) Tom Benson | Middlefield Ian Waites | The Observer Anon. Stells Helen Douglas & Telfer Stokes | Fictions: Arp Adam Scovell | Echo / 0,0000000001mm Heinz Gappmayr | Broadcasts from the Edge of the Horizon: The Beacon Volkhardt Müller & Dawn Scarfe
With this tenth issue, Uniformagazine’s quarterly structure of sequence, and direction, the gathering and grouping of content, has now become an almost habitual activity of attempt and demonstration, in each instance informed by what has gone before. The issues so far don’t exactly amount to a regular accumulation, not in a linear sense, but maybe an expanding whole, the parts placed at the edge of something that is gradually defining its own limits.
As well as articles and extracts to do with current Uniformbooks, for the most part invitations and proposals, content is very often borrowed, or commandeered. Edited piecemeal from varied sources, including information located online via blog or tweet, it has become another variant of the plain and ongoing form of the printed pamphlet, page by page, and issue by issue.
Spring 2017
ISSN 2056-6301
32pp, 215 x 145mm
£4.00
No.9
On Media Meteorology Jussi Parikka | From Outside to Inside Jean-Luc Vilmouth | Imagined, Observed, Remembered Peter Blegvad | Recalling Mister Paranoia Michael Hampton | these folders… Simon Cutts | Reading Hollywood in the Smog David Gissen | Estuary Phil Owen | Cloud Study John Bevis | The Lane Luci Gorell Barnes | Devonmoor Pottery | Reflection on the Atomic Bomb Gertrude Stein | Field Gate | Where We Are Erica Van Horn
Several parts of this issue are concerned with place, whether by definition or naming, or visibility and detail. Erica Van Horn’s description of the five separate named elements that comprise the postal address for the remote Irish location of Coracle, the publishing project she directs with Simon Cutts, is from the online journal that she has kept for almost ten years (somewordsforlivinglocally.com), extracts of which were published as Living Locally by Uniformbooks in 2014.
Despite the expansive means of online publishing and social media—the new structures of dialogue and response—the passage of communication by post, the direct despatch and dissemination of printed publications, remains the prevailing means of exchange for small-scale independent publishing. From the local to the global and back, connections are established and cultivated in a network between publishers, bookshops, libraries and readership.
Winter 2016–2017
ISSN 2056-6301
32pp, 215 x 145mm
£4.00
No.8
Self-build Brian Lewis | stick with it Stuart Mugridge | Starbucks Joy Drury Cox | A Box of Disquiet Tim Hopkins | Portraits of John Mordaunt… Tony Hayward | Weighed John Aubrey / Josef Albers | Remembering ‘Dawn Chorus’ John Bevis | Subway Joy Drury Cox | between something and nothing Éilis Kirby | Bunched Watercress labels
It has been five years since we published our first title, Anticipatory history, the result of an invitation to participate in a research network about accounts of environmental change, and the request to “make a book”, as a residue of what was explored. It took the form of a glossary, with individual contributors writing up their interpretations of the varied topics and terms that had been prominent in the discussions. Unwittingly, this book became the model for an approach, both in terms of a physical format, and also as an editorial strategy, combining ‘research’—be it scholarly or artistic—with a determinedly flexible and collaborative engagement with ‘the book’…
Uniformagazine continues to gather and include material directly related to our book publishing programme, as well as a variety of expansive subjects, not intendedly urban or rural in theme, but as a regular vehicle to enable us to continue looking in all directions, waiting to see what might be coming along next.
Autumn 2016
ISSN 2056-6301
32pp, 215 x 145mm
£4.00
No.7
Votive Leaves David Matless | The Reader’s Digest Family Encyclopedia of World History Kasper Pincis | tap-root Simon Cutts | A glance to the past Martha Hellion | Condensations Nathan Walker | Trago Mills, Newton Abbot Phil Smith | Black Magic Martin Fidler | About Colin Sackett | Unua Libro L. L. Zamenhof | Painting highlights on trees Janet Boulton
Uniformagazine has so far published contributions by Derek Beaulieu, David Bellingham, John Bevis, Peter Blegvad, Janet Boulton, Paul Bowles, Angus Carlyle, J. R. Carpenter, Chiara Caterina, Rebecca Chesney, Les Coleman, Jeremy Cooper, Simon Cutts, Stephen Duncalf, Martin Fidler, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Michael Gibbs, Kenneth Goldsmith, Michael Hampton, Martha Hellion, Geoffrey Hutchings, Elizabeth James, Ronald Johnson, John Kannenberg, Brian Lane, Cathy Lane, David Matless, Chris McCabe, Claudia Molitor, Gavin Morrison, Reinhard Mucha, Stuart Mugridge, Maria Papadomanolaki, Mark Pawson, Kasper Pincis, Rick Poynor, Steve Roden, Colin Sackett, Dawn Scarfe, Theo Simpson, Grant Smith, Phil Smith, Tim Staples, Gertrude Stein, Peter Suchin, Michael Upton, Erica Van Horn, Jan Voss, Emmanuelle Waeckerle, Ian Waites, Nathan Walker, Eric Watier, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Willats, Ken Worpole, L. L. Zamenhof.
Spring–Summer 2016
ISSN 2056-6301
32pp, 215 x 145mm
£4.00
No.6
A Downland Index Angus Carlyle | TCP Les Coleman | Aggregate Colin Sackett | Hashkerville Stuart Mugridge | Artificial Rubbish Heap John Bevis | Journey-Book Michael Gibbs | Some Ironmongery Erica Van Horn | Why Listen to Museums? John Kannenberg | A Little Chantr’y for Spring Stephen Duncalf | TCP Les Coleman | Book Things Jeremy Cooper | Google Landscapes Tom Wilkinson
To say that Uniformbooks is a publishing house is precisely correct. The history of publishing, and printing, has been importantly one of location and often in the most basic form, of residing. This small terraced house is laid out conventionally room-by-room, but for one on the first floor being used exclusively as an office. Books are produced, stored, distributed, and in principle sold, ‘off-site’, while the preparation of the content and the formatting is done in-house, the means of communication—the discussion of detail and process—has become increasingly varied. These circumstances are wholly different than say, fifty years ago, when exchanges would have been either by letter or by telephone. Now, connection and content can be got from anywhere in the world, with no handicap for distance, and dialogues are made via networks of similarities, either global or next door.
Our next title will be John Bevis’s definitive study of the pioneering natural history photographers The Keartons: Inventing nature photography, illustrated throughout with their original images. The first essay in this issue, by Angus Carlyle, reflects on the sequence of one hundred short runs that comprise A Downland Index, which will be out in early summer. Other projects in progress include a new book in collaboration with geographers Hannah Neate and Ruth Craggs which will highlight the diversity of current responses to modernist architecture; a survey of the work of Michael Gibbs whose activities included poetry, performance, film, and publishing, and his immersion in what he called “a genuinely ‘underground’ culture… which owed nothing to the official art establishment”; and a book with the sound poet and performance artist Nathan Walker from his residency in June at the Armitt Museum in Cumbria.
Winter–Spring 2016
ISSN 2056-6301
32pp, 215 x 145mm
£4.00
No.5
Dividers Mark Pawson | Daisies Asleep, Daisies Awake John Bevis | Stonehenge Anon. | The Sea and The Trees Gavin Morrison | Bleaching Fields Centre spread | A Handmade Web J. R. Carpenter | Wartesaal Reinhard Mucha | Label Ian Hamilton Finlay | Descriptions of Literature Gertrude Stein | Monotone Press Eric Watier
Mark Pawson’s amiable description of domestic order that begins this issue might, in a way, suggest a prevailing interest in classification and placing. In 1981, John Bevis, whose essay about the Kearton daisy photographs is included here, made a small boxed work, in an edition of fifty copies: a rolled length of dymo-tape, pressed with a text seemingly concerned with the dilemma of labelling, commandeered from Arthur W. Clayden in his 1905 book Cloud Studies. It states: “There is always a danger that the use of any system of names based on types shall lead to the neglect of everything not typical”.
After four issues, the purpose of this magazine might seem to be to publish what is typical, that the gathering of articles is a matter of seeking similarities and commonality, whereas, it is also to do with looking out for what might be exceptions, the barely visible, and the improvised.
But not as much is hidden away nowadays, the online archiving of marginal and significant works and ephemera is vast and ever-expanding. Backwaters of pre-internet culture are documented in close detail, the obscure edges of one subject exposing others there beyond the periphery.
The sort of job that a printed quarterly might do in these times—to offer up thirty-odd pages of commentary and images every few months—is as unpredictable a prospect as ever. And the archetype for any publication focussed on sampling and variety is the Reader’s Digest, middlebrow and conservative, read and re-read in waiting rooms and lounges worldwide.
Autumn 2015
ISSN 2056-6301
32pp, 215 x 145mm
£4.00
No.4
Solar Eclipse David Bellingham | From the Top of Harvey House, Brentford Towers Stephen Willats | Unshelfmarked Elizabeth James | Allotment 3 Simon Cutts | Drawing Landscape The Work of Geoffrey Hutchings | Unprinting the paper Jan Voss | Death by Denim Rebecca Chesney | Kern Derek Beaulieu | The Long Shed Erica Van Horn | Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide Ken Worpole | Watercress farm Waddock Cross, Dorset
Recently The Guardian critic Jonathan Jones wondered scathingly if the late Terry Pratchett might have wanted his final posthumous novel “…pulped by a steamroller”; pulped…? Surely flattened more like. Here, as if plucked from a laundry list, then hung out to dry—aired in public maybe—this fourth issue has once again been naturally attracted to, whilst avoiding, some theme or other.
Five new Uniformbooks titles have been published so far this year: in the spring a new edition of the modernist seasonal poem The Book of the Green Man by Ronald Johnson; the visual score Sonorama: listening to the view from the train by Claudia Molitor; and in late-summer three books at once: The Regional Book, geographical descriptions of the Broads by David Matless, Reading (Story of) O in both French and English by Emmanuelle Waeckerlé, and Michael Hampton’s disruptive history Unshelfmarked: Reconceiving the artists’ book.
Vision and Reality by Stephen Willats will be published towards the end of the year. This important book of photographs and interviews made with residents of English housing estates since the 1970s is marked here by the examination of an iconic tower block work made at Brentford Towers in west London. Also included is an article by Jan Voss of Boekie Woekie, the Amsterdam bookshop which will have been open for thirty years in January—an early note of this anniversary.
Spring–Summer 2015
ISSN 2056-6301
32pp, 215 x 145mm
£4.00
No.3
Chalke Way Cathy Lane | On the road / Another orchard Kasper Pincis | Sonorama: listening to the view from the train Claudia Molitor | Lens of Sutton Rick Poynor | Time/Space: 4 Metaphors Peter Blegvad & Paul Bowles | Shopland: a productive misreading Michael Hampton & Peter Suchin | SoundCamp Grant Smith, Maria Papadomanolaki, Dawn Scarfe | Quite Yellow Sounds… Brian Lane | Once there were roundabouts Ian Waites | Nature Writers From the ‘Readers’ Guide…
The following commentary was written about three books by Richard Long from the late 1970s: “Throughout these publications, the photographs are definitive records of moments within a landscape, whether of a single geometric form made with material from the particular terrain, or a composed view of a landscape from within the duration of a journey. Where a sculptural form has been introduced into the landscape, this will occupy a central, foregrounded position within the image. The language is distilled, precise and economical, referring numerically to periods of time (hours, days) and distances (miles), or descriptively to repeated actions (walking, throwing), forms (lines, circles), materials (stone, driftwood), and locations. The uniformity of presentation highlights the variations and particularity of each combination of text and image—the singularity of each work is established by its relationship to other works.” (Numeracy, uniformity and structure, Dundee, 1999)
It is as good as any specification Uniformagazine might make for itself, which as well as having included the durational, the graphic and the concrete, and the geographically particular, has, in the first two issues, suggested a continuity of subject. In this issue especially, which, as is the model, was put together in a period of a few weeks, there are potential connections between several pieces. What arrived when and how it affected the overall balance and pitch of the content is probably forgotten already; so be it.
Winter–Spring 2015
ISSN 2056-6301
32pp, 215 x 145mm
£4.00
No.2
Thurne: Squint David Matless | A Tips Alphabet Stephen Duncalf | The Green Man Ronald Johnson | Beginning and ending with trains on a table Steve Roden | Transmitter Masts Theo Simpson | Field Signals Angus Carlyle & Chiara Caterina | CapitalNY @CaptialNY | In House Publishing @Unpublishedwork | Bridge/Tunnel Colin Sackett
Uniformbooks published two titles last year, both by American writers, and both about distinct places: one locative and delineating, the other temporal and overflowing. Living Locally by Erica Van Horn selects entries from a daily journal about rural life in Tipperary; in plain words it makes remarkable what might otherwise have gone unrecorded. After nearly forty years the lyrics and images of Peter Blegvad’s Kew. Rhone. are exhumed piecemeal: “this delightful book, full of wit, pictures and Blegvad’s densely literary considerations, sprouting thickets of footnotes” (Clive Bell, The Wire 372).
The first book of 2015 will be a new edition of The Book of the Green Man, the forgotten English nature poem of the 1960s by Ronald Johnson. In the spring we will publish The Regional Book, by the cultural geographer David Matless, descriptions of locations in the Broads of East Anglia; and Unshelfmarked, an interpretation of the artists’ book by Michael Hampton.
We are working with the composer Claudia Molitor on Sonorama a book to accompany her soundwork for the train journey from St Pancras to Margate, as well as Emmanuelle Waeckerle’s Reading (Story of) O, in parallel English and French texts.
Later in the year we will publish a book with Stephen Willats about living in social housing in England since the 1970s, photographs and interviews made by the artist with residents about their private and communal environments. Other books are in progress with John Bevis, Angus Carlyle, Cathy Lane; the third issue of Uniformagazine will be available in May.
No.1
An Extra Box for Les Coleman Chris McCabe | Local History Sculpture Tim Staples | Language of Birds Rebecca Chesney | Reading (story of) O Emmanuelle Waeckerle | The White Duck Michael Hampton | Imagined, Observed, Remembered Peter Blegvad | Licence to Borrow John Bevis | Charmouth Forest Michael Upton | Latescape Eric Watier | at least it moves… Simon Cutts
Since the turn of the century models for independent publishing have changed markedly. In addition to bookshops and bookfairs, publishers can now reach readers direct through online networks of targeted information and focus.
Strictly speaking, publication is always to do with exchange; either by commerce, as in the traditional production and sale of physical books, or now by making online content available to view and to take—a radically different quality and scope to the connections between publisher and reader. With these two modes, online publishing and printed books, the uncertainty about what publishing now is, what it has become through these parallel tools, is often characterised as undergoing some sort of uncertainty, even crisis.
During its first few years of activity, Uniformbooks has attempted to keep a momentum of publication, and while online platforms and social media provide formats for posting regular announcements and fresh content, the actual books appear somewhat erratically. The diversity of the titles we publish results in several arriving at once, and we go to press as soon as possible, without the planned marketing schedules of trade publishing.
The plain form of the pamphlet has persisted throughout the history of publishing, its flexibility and limited extent perfectly suited to a single subject or to simple gatherings of text and imagery. Uniformagazine is intended as a quarterly occurrence alongside the books, for the variety of writers, artists and contributors that we work with and publish, as well as for slighter or peripheral content; not necessarily thematic, but with that possibility.