A book is more than text set in type. Its format, binding, paper, and layout all contribute to the reading experience. The four books presented here explore different ways of bringing these elements together. Each begins with a specific text or subject and develops its own form through typography, materials, and the craft of bookmaking.

In June 2014, the collective Institute of Jamais Vu moved its gallery to blip blip blip in Leeds. There, the group rebuilt its twenty fibreboard exhibitions, all at once, into a single hall: Thunderdome. The works were layered on top of one another, each maintaining the position it had held in the gallery. In the book, I replicate this layering. A shape of the exhibition space is glued to the cover. The same plan is printed on the flap, and the list of all the exhibitions is placed inside it, so the reader begins with a map. Inside, there is a panorama of the show. Headings and subheadings function as a timeline, presenting the exhibitions in chronological order.

In L’Alouette Anouilh turns to historical material, although the time of action in his plays is often indistinct. How can a book convey this ambiguity? The running head remains unchanged from the first to the last page. Surrounding it, the illustrations move freely, blending historical references with postmodern wit. The central image is the lark, hanging motionless in the sunlight while an archer takes aim. For one of the characters, it symbolizes France itself.

The starting point is speculative realism and its critique of correlationism—the view that we can only know the relationship between thought and the world, never either term in isolation. The argument extends this principle to all relations, placing humanity among many others. Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude provides the textual basis. The photographs stem from this premise. What does an image reveal when the human is merely one relationship among many?