Sunday, October 21, 2007

Its OK to touch













The technology of the future of the book is problematic. How do we engage people beyond the screen? How do we improve on the spine of the book as the interface? How do we create a technology that is at once collective and intimate?

Experiments, scenarios and prototypes abound - and here is an example of a technology that may contain the seeds of the future technology - and it works? Interactive poster technology.

Between 18 October and 03 November The Aram Gallery presents ‘Intergraphics’, a merged- media installation by Matthew Falla.
Interaphics is a first public showing of a uniqe interactive touch activated printed graphic developed by Osmotronic and applied to original designs by Build and Danny Sangra.

The Aram Gallery, 110 Drury Lane (near Aldwych), Covent Garden, London WC2B 5SG.

http://www.thearamgallery.org/ >

http://www.matthewfalla.com/ >

http://www.dannysangra.com/ >

http://www.wearebuild.com/ >

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Manolis Kelaidis - Standing Ovation at O'Reilly Tools for Change













Manolis Kelaidis, launched his prototype of a solution to bridge the Analog and Digital realms at the RCA IDE Summer Show last year. On the strength of that he was invited to be the keynote speaker at this year's O'Reilly Tools for Change in Publishing Conference in San Fransisco, 20 June 2007.

His presentation hit a chord with the audience and Tim O'Reilly has blogged the audience reaction.

Follow the links

TIM O'REILLY'S BLOG >

TOOLS OF CHANGE CONFERENCE >

BOOKTWO.ORG >


Nicholas Evans was the blueBook’s graphic designer and it was produced by Book Works.

BookWorks >

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Thursday, July 06, 2006

La Lectrice

By VINCENT CANBY
Published: April 21, 1989, New York Times

Michel Deville's new movie, ''La Lectrice'' (''The Reader''), is about the joys and the occasional perils of reading the works of, among others, Marguerite Duras, the Marquis de Sade and Guy de Maupassant, as well as of Raymond Jean, who wrote the novel and the stories on which the screenplay is based.

A movie about reading would seem to be something of a contradiction except that, in the case of the French film [opening today at the 68th Street Playhouse], one spends as much time reading the English subtitles as watching the action. That's an irony denied French-speaking audiences.

''La Lectrice'' is what is sometimes described as multi-layered. It begins with a young woman named Marie (Miou-Miou) in bed reading aloud to her lover (Christian Ruche) from Mr. Jean's novel ''La Lectrice,'' which is about the adventures of a young woman who hires herself out as a professional reader. As she reads, Marie becomes Constance, the central figure of the book.

Constance's first client is Eric, a teen-ager paralyzed from the waist down. Eric asks Constance to read Baudelaire. Listening to the words and seeing a bit of Constance's bare thigh, Eric becomes so erotically aroused that he has a seizure.

Her next client is a nearly blind, bedridden Hungarian countess for whom she reads ''a marvelous text on precious metals'' by Karl Marx. The countess's beautiful young maid complains of being bitten by spiders at night. The bites begin on her calves and are working upward. Constance is unsurprised by such confidences. She suggests that the young woman wear tight panties when she goes to bed.

''La Lectrice'' is full of odd tales, some of them read aloud, some of them told, in which the actors who play characters Constance meets turn up as characters within the tales. A few of the stories are funny, including the one in which Constance plays the role of a sex therapist to a busy businessman, though she continues to read while being therapeutic.

Miou-Miou is comically deadpan as she goes about her trade, but the movie is too clever for its own good. Though all of the actors throw themselves enthusiastically into their roles, the movie remains a stunt. One doesn't laugh as often as one searches out the inside jokes based on the literary works being read. Most are fairly simple.

There is something sort of elitist about this method, even condescending. At one point Constance finds her photograph on page 1 of the local newspaper. It had been taken when she was hanging a red flag from the window of the Marx-loving Hungarian countess. Says a policeman, ''Reading is fine, but look where it leads.''

The movie assumes that the rest of us know better. STORYTELLING HOUR - LA LECTRICE, directed by Michel Deville; screenplay (French with English subtitles) by Rosalinde and Michel Deville, based on ''La Lectrice'' and ''Un Fantasme de Bella B. et Autres Recits'' by Raymond Jean; director of photography, Dominique le Rigoleur; edited by Raymonde Guyot; music by Beethoven; production designer, Thierry Leproust; produced by Mme. Deville; co-produced by Elefilm, A.A.A. Productions-Xavier Gelin and Denis Chateau, T.S.F. Productions - Francois Ruggieri and Cine 5 with the participation of Sofimage; released by Orion Classics. At 68th Street Playhouse, on Third Avenue. Running time: 98 minutes. This film is rated R. Constance/Marie...Miou-Miou Jean/Philippe...Christian Ruche Francoise...Sylvie Laporte Agency Man...Michel Raskine Eric's mother/Jocelyne...Brigitte Catillon Eric...Regis Royer General's widow...Maria Casares Businessman...Patrick Chesnais Bella...Marianne Denicourt

FUTURE OF THE BOOK EVENT - LONDON 26 JUNE 2006 LSE



The Future of the Book network joined with the Organisation, Strategy & Design Seminar to listen to and discuss two very different projects. The first Macmillan Publising's eLearning English Campus and the second, a development of a Book with USB interface that enables online interaction through electronic ink, designed and developed by Manolis Kelaidis of the RCA's IDE.

After hearing from the two presenters, the group divided into smaller groups to discuss various the topics.

  • Macmillan eCampus


  • Manolis Kelaidis
    For my last project at the RCA I'm looking at books; both as a medium for experiences and information, as well as an artefact whose functionality and shape (the codex) have largely remained unchanged in human consciousness.

    In an era where the e-book is trying to find its way onto our shelves, will the book retain its appeal and qualities? Is there space for new design approaches in activities like reading, writing, exchanging, storing or making books, that would give them added value?

  • RCA 2006 Final Show - Generation
  • Friday, March 10, 2006

    Umberto Eco's 1994 Paper "The Future of the Book"


    Umberto Eco's seminal essay was delivered at the University of San Marino in July 1994 at the "Future of the Book" Symposium. It is reprinted in The Future of the Book (Berkeley; University of California Press, 1997)

  • Eco's Essay online
  • Sunday, February 12, 2006

    BRUNO MUNARI EXPLORING THE IDEA OF CHAIR

    "Scatola di Architettura," 1963-2003
    Starting with the square, circle and triangle, in an age when sophisticated materials took center stage, Munari shows how simplicity of means may result in poetry. From lamps to "animated" children’s books, his attitude of whimsy and sheer inventive imagination proves capable of delighting the child in all of us.

    This writer remembers entering Studio Danese in Milano more than forty years ago and asking if one could buy items designed by Munari and his partner, Enzo Mari. The woman who met me was taken aback that an "Americana" would come from California to ask such a question. Of course, she allowed me to see the products at hand. I already treasured a Munari letter opener that in retrospect seems like a pre-Frank Gehry design, a stainless steel ripple of sheer delight for the hand which I’d picked up at the Museum of Modern Art’s bookstore at the time. It was not that Munari and Mari’s designs were not known, but their name was not "indelibly stamped" on their products like star material. It was not like a Gehry or Michael Graves design today, distinctive in detail and recognizably linked to the architect or designer. It was a product.

    But Munari did not create "products," he created great design that consistently transcends utility. From the early days of joining the Futurists, creating posters and poems, to thinking in three dimensions, and creating experimental travel sculptures, simple yet exquisite lamps, or children’s books with vellum overlays, in all these endeavors he expressed his thesis that "Creativity is an end use of fantasy--indeed of fantasy and invention--in a global sense." He was a designer ahead of his time, creating Libri illegibili (Unreadable books), useless machines, travel sculptures, Xeroxes, and those wonderful books which may be examined in the facility’s library as a satellite exhibit of the art gallery.

    Thanks to Edizioni Corraini, many of the books have been reprinted, including a remarkable architectural box which gives children a chance to build their own fantastic structures, reflecting the artist’s habit of creating workshops for children from 1977 onward. The evidence here confirms Munari’s exceptional ability to stimulate surprise, irony, harmony, and the playfulness which emanates throughout his work. Judith Hofberg

    SCRIBING FROM THE LONDON EVENT

    QUESTIONS FROM THE LONDON EVENT


    One Group

    Why do people write books? We considered access and authority and content?
    We also realised that a simple politically correct solution is not possible – a book always ends positioning and creating some form of power. However books exist in networks. Authors have a craft which are something people desire. We don’t want a leveller – books for all and by all. But we want diversity and quality? Who says what quality is? What we want is wide communication, enrichment of context, and the support of creativity in the world.

    The elite authors – authors with a special craft – Arthur Ransom, Beckett, George Bernard Shaw for example, play a special role in making the world and will always be with us.

    The group referred to Pepys and that dairies are going to be made illegal to be kept amongst civil servants.

    The group also referred us to the film – La L’ectrice.


    Two Group

    This group considered what is a Book and what is not a book. Form relates to use rather than production constraints. Magazines for example are about quality, considered content and temporality. Context is important. A book read aloud is not a book – it is performative and possesses a different function Under a restrictive regime, content is more important, books could be a threat. Books can become symbolic – burn my clothes but not my books. We have emotional relationships with books

    Books up until 1990 were reflected light – now they can also be emitted light.

    Authoring and intention – is important – a book is ordered and structured

    Daniel: I found very interested the idea that a book is a book when it is being read. This taps into the point about life. But that could change now.

    Tom: We came up with a similar things – the book is only animated by the reading of it. Neville Brody talked about it being wet paint – the digital media is wet while the paper medium is dry.

    Daniel: Even on Skype you have to press send.

    Garrick: Yes, and at that point it immediately becomes something else. If you consider the social form of the book, once it is published (or sent) it immediately enters the domain of critical discourse.

    Ola: The perception of book is not just dead content within the book but it can move to another form.

    Matt: We decided that frozen was better than dead – frozen, packaged, shipped, microwaveable.

    Tom: You’ve got a good point, the book of the play of the film.

    Kyriaki: You’re not an author until you’ve been read.

    Daniel: Its not the same for a drawing or a poem.

    Kyriaki: How do you define this point?

    Ola; Authorship can be claimed when someone says “Ola says this”.


    Three Group

    This group considered what is a book? Carols definition of viewing a book as a receptacle for holding together different stories. The types of media could change depending on the context.

    This would allow different books to be interpreted. Different forms of interpretation are imposed by the reader, if books involve to include different forms of media.

    An issue we discussed – with books going on line – gives the reader the chance for the reader to be involved in extending the book. The book wouldn’t be frozen. Would authors subscribe to the idea of readers buying chunks rather than the whole thing?

    Books have traditionally been associated with a certain calibre of thinking but with new media we need to attract this calibre in different formats.

    What proportion of people actually read books versus watching tv.

    The Future of the Book?

    Tom: There is a question of the suitability of the book or the format.

    Daniel: This relates to expectations.

    Tom: I do get slightly concerned about the worthiness of the book

    Ola: Values determine our perspectives on the book. I think we need to consider how to link to the generation that’s been left behind – so that they can also participate.

    Tom: Second hand American cook books going back to the 60’s have no value, because the context has shifted.

    We considered the way forward?
    A visual bank of what people accept as books?
    Could it be a collection of extreme books? The borders of books. It would be fun to have a mixed inter-disciplinary conference – screening of abstracts, and papers, also bringing in different kinds of stakeholders.

    Create a dream list of Papers we would like to hear from?

    Create a dream list of Stakeholders?

    Does the AHRB sponsor this – it would be good for them because of the physicality.

    Our proposal to Bloombergs was to salvage books that were over produced – many books are pulped and before doing so are sent to prisons to have holes drilled through them – I wonder if there’s something to explore – reuse, remainder and redundancy – the material lifecycle of the book.

    A WISH LIST OF COLLABORATORS

    A Wish List of Collaborators

    It would be great to bring in people from Google,
    the guy from Microsoft who invented the autosummary,
    Jimmy Wale from Wikipedia,
    the Library of unwritten books,
    a list of books by weight,
    the Knowledge Store,
    the design of libraries,
    Architect David Adjaye, reading places, and reading. The need for screen reading changes the way that houses or public spaces are used.
    Neville Brody.
    Derek Birdsall
    Typographers - Matthew Carter.
    The technology for the recognition of objects on misaligned grids – Lev Malevich – alghorthmic typesetting of books and of course Umberto Eco.

    RESHAPED WORDS

    Bruce Sterling, in Shaping Things, proposes a future in which a new kind of thing - the "spime" - is user-alterable, baroquely multi-featured, and programmable. John Thackera had a lot of fun responding to Bruce’s book in a “web take” (invented by series editor Peter Lunenfeld as a ’zine for grown-ups) in which words of his are enhanced by cool California designers at Schoenerwissen OfCD.

  • Mediawork MIT Press



  • (from Doors Report)

    FUTURE OF THE BOOK EVENT - LONDON 14 DECEMBER 2005 LSE

    Event London 14 December 2005 LSE

    THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK

    14 December 2005


    Participants:

    Daniel Charney – Senior Tutor Design Products RCA – project about reading and recording your reading into a book from the postural or the intimacy of reading – the sound of your voice or some one elses – my project is trying to reading into the book and getting rid of the electronicss
    Manolis Kelaidis – MA IDE RCA – I’m planning on doing a project on books – I’m interested in the book itself as an object. The reason I’m here is to get inspiration
    Pascale Scheurer – Surface to Air – enables creative initiatives in architecture – we’re building up a network of young architects, we’re creating a publication, and we’re interested in the relationship between events and publications
    Matthew Falla – MA Interaction Design RCA – Looking at producing responsive networks, working with Carol Lorac at looking at augmenting printed books.
    Suzi Winstanley – Design Heroine interested in architecture and peoples interaction – we recently produced a book with a DVD and am interested in moving it forward
    Carol Lorac – Research Fellow London Multi Media Lab and Institute of Social Psychology – ecurrently writing a book about the the composing process in multi-media compostion – audi0-visual, multi- media composers – how are stories told through the multi-media process. I am committed to maintaining the written book but also have a relationship with the multi-media
    Ola Ogunyemi – Senior Lecturer in Journalism in University of Lincoln I am interested in how indigenious groups have been marginalised in communication. I am interested in the African Diaspora who have been marginalised – these people want to express themselves and they need empower. Technologies are helping people express themselves in these cultural identiies – from planning through production and performance. It would be interesting to see how we can have a hybrid from oral and technological
    Kyriaki Tortopidou – I am a great fan of the book, I am writing about the history of the book – here we are looking at the Future of the Book and I’m interested in the question of what’s wrong with the book today. A lot of images are used in my PhD and I’m interested in producing a Publication that will use new technology and make me a fan of the digital future of the book.
    Harriet Harriss – Design Heroine – We’re innovating in a new market which hybridises between architecture, interaction design and play. We’re interested in our book which had many tactile elements we’re interested in the physical engagement of the book.

    Patrick Humphreys – I first got interested in the history of the book when I was 5, it was about a typewriter – it had a lovely typeface – then I found you could turn the pages but nothing happened – I wanted it to be an interactive system.. I’ve also been always interested in showing and telling through film. I was dreaming of things in terms of what technology can do for everyone. It now becomes possible for everyone. You also when you read about what people say. A lot gets lost, and I realise that things I know from many different domains begins to inform what is possible. I’m interested in keeping it open. We’ve also had dreams of working in practise. Some of it is about the interface with computers, however this has changed. I’m not convinced that technology is putting paper out of date. There’s a lot about talking and reading. I’m also interested in the functionality about what is book? You can take it to the beach. The book has all kinds of functionality. We still think that the book itself as an idea has been so successful that it has a special future.
    Garrick Jones – future of the book, collaborative authoring
    Tom Barker – Professor of Industrial Design & Engineering, also chair of special advisory council to Arts Council. I’m here as an author. I’m particularly concerned about archiving. Also the death of narrative – in Hollywood is about sensation and impact. As the book morphs into the digital form its becoming fragmented. I guess my concern is about narrative getting lost – on the other hand we have the emergence of live narrative blogs and filming of disasters. In the past the book was personal and an elite occupation.
    Lewis Pinault – Fellow Institute of Social Psychology


    Apologies from Bob Stein – Voyager Expanded Books, Night Kitchen (open source) Mellon Foundation

    Annenburg School of Communication – University of Southern California


    Here are the three big questions for the round table, but please feel free to introduce your own:

    1. What is a book?
    It could be claimed that some key developments in the history of “what a book is” were:
    - Codex rather than scroll form (improved random access, portability)
    - Use of paper (rather than cloth or skin) for the pages
    - Printing – enabling for wide distribution and access (initiation of “mass” – one/few to many) communications
    - Indexing
    - Inclusion of interactive components
    - Simulation of interactive components
    - Simulation of “book” features in electronic documents (later with incorporation of multimedia and interactive elements).

    But are these development those which define the essential functionality of the “book” as we understand it today? What is special about the form and functionality of “book”.

    Patrick: I’m interested in the history of the book and what it can be today – although I’m sceptical about the future of technology – Bruce Robinson was the founder of the Diagram book – invented and designed things not simply in terms of pages and texts. When I first got hold of the NightKitchen toolkit – an expanded book – we had pages that we could do indexes, and pages, you could also make annotations, you could trigger videos. Bruce was very critical, he said it was the idea of the text book. We kept that idea for MSc students from scratch without the benefit of composing. It required quite a high level of skill to get right in the amount of time they had. We found that giving people was quite good at teaching people how to annotate very quickly – because it was build around the spine – people could understand the form.

    People originally created narrative in space, like cathedrals, through the network.

    Carol: I think Eco says it quite usefully about books you read, and books you consult. This leads to the question of narrative. I think the narrative is crucial to the way we understand the world. I think there are dangers because of the way the audio-visual language is developing – we’re at the same point when writing was for the elite. I think we’re at the same stage in the audio-visual component. Because this is in the hands of the elite it could be dangerous.

    Tom: I think narrative as a concept won’t be lost. We have this situation where a large number of narratives are required in a book – a website doesn’t need a narrative. I’ve seen Hollywood movies being effects based which is alarming. Its about quick fix and not narrative. What’s very interesting is what happened to virtual reality? The most successful form of virtual reality every developed is the book. Its not a battle of whether the new technologies will replace it. There’s an element in the brain which has evolved which is a language centre which is different from the centre processing image – this enables us o have the power of language which is part of our physical system. Apart from a powerful virtual reality system it is intrinsic. We still have only two ways of recording it – in audio terms and writing it down.

    Carol: So much communication is visual as well.

    Tom: Its pretty difficult to split these media

    Daniel: You were talking about two types of books – may be there’s a third type -= that of authorship. The interpretation of the reader is becoming part of the book. The media allows you layer interpretative layers. You not only consult you also become part of the authorship. Like Wikipedia.




    So three:

    Books you read, Books you consult and Books you Collectively Author.

    Tom: I’d argue that that’s a development of the book

    Daniel; It’s one of the biggest shift – it enables publishers to offer these facilities.

    Carol: You’re suggesting that this can only occur in electronic forms.

    Daniel: I disagree about the narrative. People are a lot more fluid of storyboarding – the shift from designing objects to designing things for use is narrative based.

    Tom: There’s no narrative coming out of cycle times and fast production in the East. The contribution of the reader is pretty profound, Calvino’s ruminations about the context in which we’re reading is very important.

    Daniel: An image of Bruno Manari trying to read in an uncomfortable chair.

    Ola: What are the problems inherent in todays books? One of the problems is the way it has caused a gulf between the illiterate and the illiterate. Nigeria 141 milliion people (1 in 5 African). 30% are literate. 70% are illiterate. Which leads to problems – the elite are only talking amongst themselves. Books make negotiated meaning irrelevant. A book causes a delayed response. We need to find away to bring the masses on board. They’re not illiterate visually – but in terms of the text. Its note available for those who cannot afford.

    In Nigeria there are 250 languages - if you want English language to be the language of government then you need to teach everyone to speak English. There are indigenous communities, traditions and oral history that is very rich.

    Tom: Is literacy improving?

    Ola: There’s no incentive. Most of the problem their parents are too poor to fund education. As scholars we need to think about this.

    Daniel: What are the things that reach these communities? If you want to get the literacy, what else is getting there. Can the role of the book be transferred to another object.

    Ola: People in Nigeria are taught about Buckingham Palace, the first time I became aware of my culture was when I went to Russia and people asked me about my culture.

    Tom: Do you have children?

    Matt: A stepping stone to literacy – would the goal be to increase literacy with something that’s in between. Or would we say 70% are illiterate, we need to find something else.

    Patrick: Its an enormous problem – we assume that all countries want to promote literacy. In the first years of school we privilege all forms of learning – and then we prioritise reading, writing and arithmetic. Literacy is also about disciplining and positioning people as Foucault says.

    Ikea creates instructions without a word of text.

    To understand literacy, and audio-visual literacy as a language, we need to talk about layers – an interpretive layer where you comment on it – but this interpretation can also be different for all. An audio-visual component contains far more information, as distinct from the textual. Language is coded, and control can be a force for direction and control. Certain poets try to make it more open.

    Multi-media attempts to make it more open. Current joint authorship is at the microlevel of the text. In the 1980’s I was writing abook “How Voters Decide” with Hilda Himmelwite – we each had different political ideologies. It was slower and at the high level of text.

    When we work with students we encourage them to bring in other voices. But once you have “Book” in a multi-media sense of something you get many layers present simultaneously. Which enables a richer view through the layers. There are many issues like how do books work like this, how is this about rich and restricted languages. There’s alot required to understand functionality about how these different layers work.

    Daniel: You’re raising a particular point . I’ve recently seen the “Centre of the Book” - they work with artists to work within the medium of book. They started with 700 people now 15000. Their motive is very different they want to preserve the book.

    My interest is in creating a different type of book.

    Garrick: Infrastructure that relates to rules that bound systems may be the “new spine” e.g. Wikipedia, which has scaled through the application of an infrastructure operating according to a very simple instruction set. Process is also worth considering. For example Bruce Mau the designer has created a new type of book (S,M,L,XL) and “Life-Style” through the application of collaborative processes in his studio.

    Daniel: Bruce Mau makes luxury items

    Garrick: I agree, but process can be put to many uses.


    Lewis: If on the one hand you possess the richness of the web, and there is a sufficiency of independent agents and f the system is bounded correctly you get a blooming of new stuff.

    Daniel: This is the strength of the browser

    Lewis: And there are rules, alghorithms in the background that enable things to emerge. I would be interested in this discourse. How do we recognise the new pattern when its there, are their definitive systems, how do we know the mathematical forms.

    Patrick: We mustn’t forget about people in the system. Like Blogging, for a while it opens a possibility, but then it settles in. Sara was a participatory media project in Peru – where people were given cameras and were good at creating narrative. The key point was about sharing and exchanging, where we used restricted language and layers. People would interchange video by hand. It was slow but exchange was taking place. There was a lot of interchange. Now the net enables this to happen. We wanted to make it sustainable. When people went back to make their second movie – they wanted to make it better – later on they started to think about the received video . People had to make things that people would enjoy making as well as making things that people would enjoy receiving. Otherwise you just make a fad. You need to discover a process that internally itself enables the ground for sustainability..

    Eco talks about 3 types of labyrinth – On writing the name of the Rose

    1. The thread of Ariadne – the linear labyrinth
    2. The Engineering view of the labyrinth – you can see the labyrinth from the outside (Chartres0
    3. He prefers the Cognitive View of Labyrinth – the idea of the Rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari) the labyrinth you’re always making. The problem with this labyrinth is its massive it could go in any direction. The problem is how do you know where to go next – navigating through uncharted waters.
    4. Type 4 Labyrinth – when you realise you’re not the only active agent in the labyrinth – when it becomes collaborative. If you can do that then you’ve succeeded in doing things that are more than evolutionary. Although it’s a very exciting way of working together to reduce the complexity of the labyrinth.

    Lewis: There’s an important irony. When we say we reduce complexity, we have to desire to embrace complexity, to revel in its richness. If you seek the simple you reduce the richness of the system. In the context of the book – is there out there a sufficiently light set of bounds that will let us pour our experiences into it the in hope of finding each other.

    Patrick: I think storytelling is important. Its difficult from a grammatical perspective. However, to your point about enjoying complexity. Storytelling for the point of providing enjoyment for the person who hears it is vital. There are two main histories – story telling you say and storytelling you read

    Daniel: One of the things about storytelling, is the next time you tell it changes and it’s a bit different. Storytelling can be much stronger perhaps. Character building – can be important in the future of the book. I was interested in the functionality of the form - the spine. One of the ways of looking at it might be looking at it from this perspective.

    Garrick: The points about the spine, bounding the system with simple rules and Storytelling for other peoples enjoyment reminds me of the story that I heard told by a group of singers from Zimbabwe. They played on a combination of original African instruments and contemporary instruments. They told us that most of their music had been recently composed, that some of the music were tribal chants that shifted with the times, but that there were 5 songs that were handed down from mother to daughter, were always taught, and were not allowed to be changed. Ethnomusicologists thought that these unchanging tunes were probably 30,000 years old. These tunes contained all the information that was necessary to enable the continuous innovation of the other forms that they generated.

    Ola: The songs haven’t changed because they are routed in rituals and beliefs. The documentation of these unchanging songs are held in the person of the King. I think we should try to map out a trajectory to entry of time and space. Then there’s a salad bowl of ideas. Then there’s an exit.


    Tom: The salad bowl is a strong metaphor as are the layers. I have a partial background in computer programming – I see code moving around when I see typing. When you meet a great author – you don’t say that was a fantastic book what typewriter did you use. The evolution of the code is interesting. The code was a green text and linear. Then parallel computing arrived and we had to work out micro-threading. Now its object based and you cannot look at the code or script. Even in Linux the codes are object based. It only became easier for everyone. Has that had more of an influence? The AA are very interested in 3D programming – they use this programme called Maya which comes from animation. People who create with it claim these designs as their buildings – who is the author of the building?

    Lewis: I think there is a loss, by learning to work in base codes people can be more creative. “In the beginning was the command line” Neal Stephenson.

    Patrick: The French used a very different approach – they put layers on top of common lisp – you had to create a conceptual model. But without having a use for the model you don’t know what you’re going to programme. Then the model has been formalised – object orientation made it easier. In parallel, Carnap wrote you need the conditions of use of the logical frames – and ascribing referents in the descriptive. Then along came windows. Director allows you to do this – object orientation in the back and the front is audio-visual. You can’t find the code. I think that coding has got professionalized. What people buy in everyday computer magazine there is now less to buy. Except in audio-visual material. I would like to have the computing power back. [Tom has done the same]

    Daniel: You’re using Director to combine what?

    Patrick: We want to create a user interface which can deal with everything and behind that we need code to deal with it. What we build are interactive software and expanded books.

    Daniel: The environment is what? Aptrick: Director.

    Tom: There was a golden rule in programming not to mix data with code – which Director broke and which became accepted.

    Perhaps it’s easier to say what is not a book? A book is not an obect orientated thing.

    Carol: We have to revisit our definition of what is a book. We were looking at complexity. These notions have occurred because we all see and hear. This has to be translated into symbolic systems. The complexity today is that we have a second authored way

    Interactive and non- linear – we have to think about how this works together with the book.


    Part Two

    The Group spent time after lunch coming up with a list of questions they would like to take forward.

    - Discussion about how things going forward could be organised?

    - The notion and definition of literacy?

    - The idea of literacy in the mobile phone market – the book in the network?

    - The issue ownership – the craft of making and receiving literacy?

    - SMS – multi-media literacy?

    - What kinds of mass literacy do we need

    - We could make a book? Have we talked about the definition of what is book?

    - The idea of the physical and the virtual book-?

    - The emotion of the book – the haptics of a book?

    - Education and the book?

    - Mechanisms for entering the technology – like the title of the book – successful mechanisms for entering the technology?

    - When does something stop being a book – or become something else?

    - What is the Future of the Book?

    - what is under threat?

    - Author & Authority?

    - Are we moving toward cognitive reading?

    Following a discussion about organisational forms, the group divided into three, in order to consider the questions.




    One Group

    Why do people write books? We considered access and authority and content?
    We also realised that a simple politically correct solution is not possible – a book always ends positioning and creating some form of power. However books exist in networks. Authors have a craft which are something people desire. We don’t want a leveller – books for all and by all. But we want diversity and quality? Who says what quality is? What we want is wide communication, enrichment of context, and the support of creativity in the world.

    The elite authors – authors with a special craft – Arthur Ransom, Beckett, George Bernard Shaw for example, play a special role in making the world and will always be with us.

    The group referred to Pepys and that dairies are going to be made illegal to be kept amongst civil servants.

    The group also referred us to the film – La L’ectrice.


    Two Group

    This group considered what is a Book and what is not a book. Form relates to use rather than production constraints. Magazines for example are about quality, considered content and temporality. Context is important. A book read aloud is not a book – it is performative and possesses a different function Under a restrictive regime, content is more important, books could be a threat. Books can become symbolic – burn my clothes but not my books. We have emotional relationships with books

    Books up until 1990 were reflected light – now they can also be emitted light.

    Authoring and intention – is important – a book is ordered and structured

    Daniel: I found very interested the idea that a book is a book when it is being read. This taps into the point about life. But that could change now.

    Tom: We came up with a similar things – the book is only animated by the reading of it. Neville Brody talked about it being wet paint – the digital media is wet while the paper medium is dry.

    Daniel: Even on Skype you have to press send.

    Garrick: Yes, and at that point it immediately becomes something else. If you consider the social form of the book, once it is published (or sent) it immediately enters the domain of critical discourse.

    Ola: The perception of book is not just dead content within the book but it can move to another form.

    Matt: We decided that frozen was better than dead – frozen, packaged, shipped, microwaveable.

    Tom: You’ve got a good point, the book of the play of the film.

    Kyriaki: You’re not an author until you’ve been read.

    Daniel: Its not the same for a drawing or a poem.

    Kyriaki: How do you define this point?

    Ola; Authorship can be claimed when someone says “Ola says this”.


    Three Group

    This group considered what is a book? Carols definition of viewing a book as a receptacle for holding together different stories. The types of media could change depending on the context.

    This would allow different books to be interpreted. Different forms of interpretation are imposed by the reader, if books involve to include different forms of media.

    An issue we discussed – with books going on line – gives the reader the chance for the reader to be involved in extending the book. The book wouldn’t be frozen. Would authors subscribe to the idea of readers buying chunks rather than the whole thing?

    Books have traditionally been associated with a certain calibre of thinking but with new media we need to attract this calibre in different formats.

    What proportion of people actually read books versus watching tv.

    The Future of the Book?

    Tom: There is a question of the suitability of the book or the format.

    Daniel: This relates to expectations.

    Tom: I do get slightly concerned about the worthiness of the book

    Ola: Values determine our perspectives on the book. I think we need to consider how to link to the generation that’s been left behind – so that they can also participate.

    Tom: Second hand American cook books going back to the 60’s have no value, because the context has shifted.

    We considered the way forward?
    A visual bank of what people accept as books?
    Could it be a collection of extreme books? The borders of books. It would be fun to have a mixed inter-disciplinary conference – screening of abstracts, and papers, also bringing in different kinds of stakeholders.

    Create a dream list of Papers we would like to hear from?

    Create a dream list of Stakeholders?

    Does the AHRB sponsor this – it would be good for them because of the physicality.

    Our proposal to Bloombergs was to salvage books that were over produced – many books are pulped and before doing so are sent to prisons to have holes drilled through them – I wonder if there’s something to explore – reuse, remainder and redundancy – the material lifecycle of the book.


    A Wish List of Collaborators

    It would be great to bring in people from Google, the guy from Microsoft who invented the autosummary, Jimmy Wale from Wikipedia, the Library of unwritten books, a list of books by weight, the Knowledge Store, the design of libraries, Architect David Adjaye, reading places, and reading. The need for screen reading changes the way that houses or public spaces are used. Neville Brody. Derek Birdsall Typographers. The technology for the recognition of objects on misaligned grids – Lev Malevich – alghorthmic typesetting of books and of course Umberto Eco.


    Other ideas

    Documentation - we will create a CD ROM of digital assets for people to make something
    Different book forms – Nightkitchen, Saladbowl, Blog
    Applications to AHRB, Arts Council, Design for the Twentieth Century, ACE for funding.