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)