Sunday, February 12, 2006

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.

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