The World's Most Unusual Books

Turning the Page .........



......on the world's most unusual books

Book by Takeshi Ishiguro - The lamp can be powered by a simple low voltage adapter

As the title suggests, in this article, we are not going to be discussing books from a standard perspective, that is, by what is written on their pages.

As a matter of fact, most of the works we are about to describe are not designed to be read at all, or, if read, only accomplished with a substantial level of difficulty.

For example, the pop up book at left was created by Takeshi Ishiguro and can be lit with a voltage adapter as shown.

The volume at right is a complete New Testament. It must be magnified six-hundred times to be readable by a person with 20/20 vision. It is claimed to be the smallest complete version of a classical work in existence.

The World's Smallest Book - The New Testament 600

And, of course, if one has possession of the world's smallest book, the question is immediately begged in terms of what is the world's largest book, and where might we find such a thing. The answer is, the Codex Gigas, also known as the Devil�s Bible. And, where pray tell is it to be found?

Well, without further delay, let's proceed to tell the stories of some of these, the world's most unusual books.

The World's Smallest Book Explained

So how does one go about making the world's smallest book as the one shown above? Not surprisingly, such a project is complicated.

The first thing necessary is a modest nano-imaging lab such as found at Canada's Simon Fraser University.

The second thing required is a proper attitude. That is, the project not only must be considered a fun challenge, but must also be viewed as a piece of art that actually doesn't come close to paying for the equipment necessary to write and read the resulting work.

Tablets of World's Smallest Book Under Electron Microscope

The work requires an electron microscope to read. Has anyone out there priced your average electron microscope recently?

So how big are the letters in the world's smallest book? Well, small. The book itself is .07 mm x .10mm, and the letters were printed using a focused-gallium-ion beam. For the moment, we are going to leave it there, except to say that the beam is sort of like drilling with a piece of sand. The book is actually carved on tablets as opposed to printing in the traditional offset or typeset manners.

And, believe it or not, the team at Simon Fraser says they could make it smaller if there were a call for such a thing. If anyone is interested, there are copies available at a pricey ten thousand pounds sterling.

There are other labs currently vieing for this sort of record. If interested, the reader might wish to look in on MIT - Cambridge, Massachusetts.

World's Largest Book

World's Largest Book - Codex Gegas - the Devil's Bible

The Codex Gigas or Devil's Bible (named for the illustration of the Devil inside), is actually the largest extant medieval manuscript. No doubt man is capable of producing larger books if the urge struck in a meaningful way. The book is in a wooden folder covered with leather and metal. It is 92 cm tall and 50 cm wide and 22 cm thick. It weighs 75 kg or 165 pounds.

The Codex contains the entire Bible as well as historical documents. The book was actually larger at one time, initially containing 320 calfskin sheets of parchment. Today the Codex contains only 310 sheets. The missing pages probably contained the rules of the Benedictine Order, the parties who created this masterpiece in the first place during the early years of the 13th century.

National Library of Sweden

Of course, the Codex may be a bit difficult for the man on the street to read, this time not because of its size which is plenty big, but because the entire text is written in classic Latin.

The Codex is currently on display at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.

The story of how it arrived at the National Library is an adventure in itself.

It was taken by the Swiss Army from the former Bohemia (Now Czech Republic) as plunder. Although an historical treasure, Toy Tech might have been sorely tempted to allow Bohemia to keep its 165 pounds of calfskin, metal and wood.

Books by Takeshi Ishiguro

Street Lamp in Takeshi Ishiguro's Book of Lights

On to additional unusual books, this time stressing light, as opposed to classic languages.

Two works by Takeshi Ishiguro, both featuring lamps are shown here, one at the top of the article simply titled The Lamp, and the other Street Light, seen at right.

Both are featured in Takeshi's Book of Lights. The video below shows both lamps in their full performing glory.

Emotional Trees by Takeshi Ishiguro

Now working on his own in Japan, Takeshi spends all of his time experimenting with cutting edge technology, conceptual products and beautiful installations.

He says that he wanted to create something in which he could express his Japanese identity, so he has actually been working with other than books for some time.

Wood grains and other products of Nature from his native Japan have special appeal to Takeshi.

For example, we see at left a work entitled Emotional Trees displayed in Tokyo, Japan.

Brian Dettmer's Book Sculptures

I Know You're in There - Brian Dettmer

Brian Dettmer is sort of a book surgeon. He uses surgical instruments to materialize his ideas using previously published books as his "medium," in the same way geniuses of old used marble or wood as their materials.

Like the Marble Fawn of Nathaniel Hawthorne fame, Dettmer believes that the finished sculpture is actually there all the time. All he needs do is chip away the unnecessary outer husk to reveal the art within.

Brian says that doing what he does is a delicate job, and requires great patience.

Often, the book itself inspires the direction the work will take. For example, if Brian is carving an old science book, the theme of the finished product may have something to do with dissection. If it's a book on archaeology, excavation may be the theme of the resultant carving.

The first thing this artist does is seal the book's edges. The sealing in effect creates the block of material upon which to work.

BEFORE

Once he has the medium, the soul of the artist is called upon to provide the vision, and Brian rarely fails to surface a subject that is both interesting and technically superlative.

"The first thing I do," says Brian, is cut into the book's cover, working from front to back. I carve one page at a time, cutting around the images that eventually will make up the presentation.

Nothing already in the book is moved. It remains exactly where the publisher put it, and nothing is glued on or implanted.

I create art by removing each piece of the book's material that is hiding the substance of my vision.

The ultimate creation exposes new relationships between and among a book's original conception." Among Brian's favorite books are large reference volumes that tend to go out of date. An entire set of encyclopedias offers tremendous opportunities to create multi-leveled sculptures as shown in the work I Know You're in There at the beginning of this section.

If carving away big chunks of books doesn't sit well with the ToysPeriod reader, realize that, in effect, Brian is saving the lives of reference books which, once purged from collections, are thrown into incinerators.

AFTER - Work Entitled: THE KINGDOM

What is important to lovers of art is that Brian is creating beautiful objects, unusual objects that serve as support for the idea that, just when you thought mankind had exhausted ways to express himself, a Brian Dettmer shows everyone that such a judgment is similar to opinions held by physicists at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, physicists throughout the world were lamenting the fact that all of science was known, and all that was left was cleaning up a few details, and that would be all there was to do. It was believed then that future physicists weren't going to be needed.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity came along just then to confuse the doom sayers, thus demonstrating once again that man never seems to be at the end of anything.

Artists, Artists Everywhere

Now that we have warmed a bit to unusual books, and before we invite the ToysPeriod reader to take it from here, let us glimpse just a few of the works awaiting in the big world to be discovered. Please enjoy them. Again, we seem to be only at the beginning.

Ron - Toy Tech



Octopus Book

A Secret Forest

Birds of the Open Forest

Gunslinger Cowboy by Thomas Allen





Thursday, 2:10 pm | March 29th, 2012

Comments

Bibi on Thursday, 3:36 pm | March 29th, 2012 :

Most ingenious. I knew that there was sculpture, and other kinds of manipulative arts, but THIS, THIS is something special.

Thomas on Friday, 8:18 am | March 30th, 2012 :

For me, this art is as fascinating as the best origami.

Callum Ambridge on Monday, 1:46 pm | June 18th, 2012 :

Was looking through Gran's cupboard the other day and we found a box which consisted of two bibles. One of interest is my great granddad's who died over 80 years ago. The smallest of the two is a copy of the new testament which measures 15mm by 19mm. I was looking on the Internet for similar sizes but this is the only website that I've found which relates to it. Was wondering what the value would be or if there's any interest for it?