Dr. Louisa Preston: Publishing in a Postdigital Age
I am an artist-publisher/researcher. I trained in Fine Art, specialising in sculpture, and went on to develop mixed media installation work employing drawing and photography (www.louisapreston.net). These creative skills of drawing and making, honed through professional contemporary art practice between 2004 and 2011, are now incorporated and explored as tools for developing understanding in my research in publishing and book studies.
My research explores the relationships and intersections between publishing activity in the visual arts and the publishing industry. Current research adopts an autoethnographic approach to produce an aesthetic and experiential understanding of the artists’ book fair, artists’ publishing practice and the associated networks of cultural production, consumption and dissemination. The research aims to contribute to our consequent understandings of the book as a commodity and publishing in a post-digital age.
I was born in Stockport, England but grew up in a house up Birnam Glen, close to Birnam Wood (yes! – the one that features in Shakespeare’s Macbeth). I currently live in Perth, Scotland with my husband and four-year old son.