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The book PAUSE, CUTE, FO(O)L+D, FLY was made as a performing ground to experiment with amateurism. As is apparent in its etymology, the amateur, as a lover in the professional world, examines love as a critical force that challenges that world. Richard Sennett describes crafts[wo]manship as the labour of love. He describes the crafts[wo]man as someone who is “dedicated to good work for its own sake” and who “exemplifies the special human condition of being engaged” instead of going about life without dedication. Such an approach to craft was at the core of this book.

 

The book consisted of papers with various textures, colours, materials, and thicknesses, bound or sewn together with a red thread. The cover of the book was closed; in order to read the book, the reader had to cut it open. The book was sent to the readers in a package that included a pair of scissors, with which the reader could cut it open. David Gauntlett writes in his Making is Connecting, "Making is connecting because you have to connect things together (materials, ideas, or both) to make something new. Making is connecting because acts of creativity usually involve, at some point, a social dimension and connect us with other people. And making is connecting because through making things and sharing them in the world we increase our engagement and connection with our social and physical environments.” In this way, the book was made to connect to the reader not only through the act of reading, but also through the act of making.

 

Paying attention to the details, working with fragile material, careful binding, was a comprehensive effort not only to print a book, but also to craft it. While it was made with care and through a fragile process, the reader was asked to cut it, destroy it, to be able to read it. Through this experiment, the aesthetics of amateurism were performed through the combination of fragility and violence, creation and rupture.

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