POets
interfacing
the book
Amaranth Borsuk
University of Washington, Bothell
@amaranthborsuk
amaranthborsuk.com
Sumer, 3300 BCE Mesopotamia, 2041 BCE Egypt, 1900 BCE China, 1600 BCE
India & Sri Lanka, 200 BCE Peru, 2500 BCE / 1500 CE Greece, 800 BCE Rome, 55 CE
China, 700 CE China, 800 CE China, 1200 CE China, 1300 CE
150 CE
Abbreviated timeline
- 2800 BCE – 100 CE — Clay tablet
- 2600 BCE – 700 CE — Papyrus Scroll
- 1400 BCE – 300 CE — Waxed tablet
- 150 CE – present — Codex
- 600–1200 — Monastic illuminated manuscripts
- 1041 — Chinese movable type
- 1450 — Printing press, movable type, oil-based ink
- 1932 — Audiobook records for the visually impaired
- 1971 — Project Gutenberg Ebooks (Michael S. Hart)
- 1986 — Earliest e-readers (Franklin, NuvoMedia)
- 2007 — Kindle & iPhone
- 2009 — Nook
- 2010 — iPad
- The Book as Object
- The Book as Content
- The Book as Idea
- The Book as Interface
The book
Alison Knowles, The Big Book (1967).
Performative Materiality
As much acts of interpretation as material things, as much processes as objects, media are not merely storage mechanisms somehow independent of the acts of reading they record.
—Craig Dworkin
No Medium (2013)
Tender Claws, Pry (2014).
the Reader
It might be any art: an artist’s book could be music, photography, graphics, intermedial literature. The experience of reading it, viewing it, framing it—that is what the artist stresses in making it.
—Dick Higgins
"A Preface" (1985)
Emmett Williams, Sweethearts (1967).
Sweethearts, digital facsimile by Mindy Seu, sweetheartsweetheart.com
The Book as VR
A book is a sequence of spaces.
Each of these spaces is perceived at a different moment - a book is also a sequence of moments.
. . . .
A book is not a case of words, nor a bag of words, nor a bearer of words.
—Ulises Carrión
“The New Art of Making Books” (1975)
Tunnel Under The Thames (S & J Fuller, London, 1826). Hand-colored peepshow. Collection of State Library of South Australia.
The Book as Cinematic Space
Michael Snow, Cover to Cover (1975).
The Book as Recombinant Structure
Regiomontanus, Kalendrium (Venice: Maler, Ratdolt & Löslein, 1476).
| Raymond Queneau, Cent Mille milliards de poèmes (Gallimard, 1961).
The Book as ephemeral
Wait, later this will be nothing
—Dieter Roth
Snow (1964/65)
Dieter Roth, Literaturwurst (1969).
The Book as mute object
Alisa Banks, Edges: Cornrow (2007).