Hinges and Pencils

Hello webloggers.


Last term I did a group project on artists’ books, a conceptual form of book that challenges the notion of what a book is (you are probably all aware of what artists’ books are). This form of book is potentially, but not necessarily, a huge departure from the codex book. It can take any form and the narrative is not necessarily expressed through words; it may not have pages, it may not be rectangular, it may not be made of paper. It can be something completely new and exploratory, and potentially quite political in nature. Form is very important to this kind of “book”, but form is adapted to the function (the message, the concept) communicated through the form. This was a healthy exercise for my brain and I valued the way it challenged my preconceived notions of what a book is. This form of book potentially conceptually links to many ideas, makes you conscious of the act of consuming it, and is very much an “off the page” kind of experience. And yet the artist-writer continues to call it a book because they consider the function of it to be what a book is and does. I would describe this form of book as being highly conscious, due to its conceptual nature, but that doesn’t mean that it is uniformly consumed or experienced.






It is hard to choose one from among this genre of book because they are so wondrous. Instead of identifying a specific book, I will choose the genre for its exploratory and conceptual nature.







If a book can be all these things it is not a stretch at all to consider that a book can also exist in digital, coded form, as something that doesn’t adhere to the recto-verso concept of pages, where even the narrative takes a new form. This ties into Joanna Drucker’s point in her book SpecLab: Digital Aesthetics and Projects in Speculative Computing, that developers of the e-book have been much too focused on “simulating the way a book looks” rather than considering how it works.






Paul Duguid’s chapter in Material Matters: The Past and Futurology of the Book makes some interesting points as well: one, that the creators of the e-book have possibly failed thus far (Duguid’s paper was of course published in 2007) to create something more interesting because people haven’t been able to reconceptualise the book, in part due to a “pastoralisation” of the book, but also because of the focus on form and not function. Perhaps, too, they have overstated the notion of isolating the text (or information) from the container. As Drucker pointed out, the form of the book evolved out of the changing relationship with the act of writing and reading; the move from pure consumption for religious purposes to a more conscious act of creating narrative and scholarship, and the necessary evolving methods to navigate these texts; also, the written language as an oral construct itself changed as reading became an act carried out in silence. It is far too simplistic to dismiss “the book” as a constraining form, and it is certainly true that each time a book is read or interacted with, it is a new experience, it is dynamic.








Perhaps e-books could “take a page out” of the artists’ books sphere and shake free the notion of mimicking form (though this has already started to happen) and focus on what the purpose of a text and “container” is; that is to say, how they interact and support each other.








Ultimately, Duguid’s point that the nature of thinking surrounding the book has been far too dualistic, or binary, and the rush to dismiss an old technology for the new is foolish. At the very least, much can be learned from the way the form of the book evolved (that of supporting the function) and that it is a very highly evolved, apex type of entity. It is not easily swallowed up by some new, “gadgety" thing. Unless the e-book can offer the same sophistication, with added features of layers and dimensions that the digital world can offer, it will fail. The book itself has never insisted that it remain unchanged.