Illustration beyond the page: Mechanical music, artists' books, and sound weaving

My proposal for my paper explores how mechanical and coded systems shape contemporary illustration practice by examining the intersection of sound, book arts, and historical apparatuses. My research focuses on Tapestry Sound Book (2019), my artist's book that encodes sound through woven patterns, drawing connections between the heritage of mechanical music devices, illustration, and experimental book forms. My illustration practice is rooted in a lineage of mechanized creative processes, from the Jacquard loom - an early computational system using punched cards- to mechanical music boxes, player pianos, and early printing technologies.

Aligning with Sound Weaving, a practice that translates textile patterns into musical compositions, my artists' books align with demonstrating how historical craft traditions inform contemporary digital and machine-based art. These encoded systems establish links between sound and image.

I will discuss how sequential structures in artists' books expand the definition of illustration beyond representation into performance and interactivity. My work engages with the broader heritage of illustration, positioning artists' books and prints as mechanisms for encoding and transmitting complex ideas. This paper incorporates insights from theorists such as Douglas Kahn and Johanna Drucker to examine how machine objects redefine artistic production, challenging the boundaries between sound, illustration, and mechanical performance. A key reference point is John Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis (1961), an indeterminate score based on celestial mappings. Like Cage, I embrace unpredictability and procedural systems to shape creative outcomes. My latest project, Sounding Star Atlas (2025), consists of a folded, miniature leporello featuring a section from Norton's Star Atlas (1966) that can be fed through a 30-note mechanical music box to produce sound. Additionally, I explore how punched cards can inform time-based illustration with sound, drawing inspiration from The Diapolyceran Screen, a multimedia sensory-kinetic work presented in the Czech Pavilion at Expo 1967.