[-empyre-] empyre Digest, Vol 111, Issue 9 (Domenico Quaranta, Ethel Baraona Pohl)

[Ethel Baraona Pohl]

Dear Mathias, dear all
I found really interesting the questions you posed below and now by
Johannes (in the latest e-mail) about the importance of printed books in
relation with the tactile and the emotional feeling of sharing a book, or
memories, such or finding old side notes and try to remember why that quote
was important at that certain moment. In particular, I can say I love
smelling books and that's why is also so important for us to research on
the concept of *hybridization*.

As you may have seen on the two study cases I sent (AR and multiplatform)
none of them relies on the "digital vrs. printed" well known controversy.
Instead of that, we think on the potential of mixing up the formats, so if
talking about Augmented Reality, we can see that the digital contents
depends on the printed image to "come alive" as in our Weaponized
Architecture book (https://vimeo.com/52086224) and, from the other side,
the printed content get enriched by the expanded content.

On that sense, we totally agree with Domenico:

"good point! Actually, one of the reasons why I like print-on-demand is
that it evades the whole digital vs physical, ebook vs paper question. I
actually don't see any difference between a book and an ebook: they are
just two ways of distributing the same content. A book is an hypertext and
an ebook is a linear flow of text."

About this:

"Ebooks don't need strategies to increase their culturally connotated
paratex, as books didn't when they were invented. They will develop it
themselves, or die."

I would add that yes, I also agree with that. Maybe is on us, as publishers
to try to deeply understand the different platforms we have and use them
properly. e.g. I don't see any improvement when a book is simply
transformed into a PDF to be read on tablets, because we're not using the
possibilities that the device offers, such as implementing videos, podcast,
3D models, etc.

The big challenge can be to understand the diverse platforms as separate
nodes of the same network: which possibilities the offer independently and
at what point they can be linked or overlayed to create connection.

Best,
e.
---
Ethel Baraona Pohl | dpr-barcelona <http://www.dpr-barcelona.com/>
Curator Think Space MONEY <http://www.think-space.org/en/theme/money_2013/>
twitter @ethel_baraona <https://twitter.com/ethel_baraona> |
about.me<http://about.me/ethel_baraona>
(+34) 626 048 684

*Before you print think about the environment*


On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 11:54 PM, domenico quaranta <
quaranta.domenico at gmail.com> wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Dear Mathias,
>
>
>> My question is: Is there a way for new forms of hybrid publications of
>> dealing with the fact that books are not only dissemination platforms for
>> knowledge, but books are used in performative contexts like those:
>> - I apply for a job and want to put a printed book on the desk of the
>> interviewers (I do not want to recommend to them that they can download the
>> .pdf)
>> - I read a book on a train or in a coffee house and enjoy the ensemble of
>> paper quality, varying lighting situations, coffee stains on paper that
>> remind me of something, ...
>> - I have to convince a sponsor for a project that I did some serious
>> research in the past - via a book of mine -and know that he will not read
>> the book or any document on lulu, link or dpr.
>> In other words: what are your strategies to increase the culturally
>> connotated paratext of the hybrid publications?
>>
>
> good point! Actually, one of the reasons why I like print-on-demand is
> that it evades the whole digital vs physical, ebook vs paper question. I
> actually don't see any difference between a book and an ebook: they are
> just two ways of distributing the same content. A book is an hypertext and
> an ebook is a linear flow of text. Some of our books started when I
> realized that most of the articles that I sent to my ebook reader via
> Instapaper were written by the same author, or published on the same
> platform. I thought, why I don't contact them and ask if they are
> interested in doing a book. But the book was actually already there, on my
> e-ink screen. It just needed some editing, design and formatting, and a
> Creative Commons Licence.
> Then the "book" turns into a pdf and the pdf goes on Lulu, and Amazon, and
> Barnes & Nobles, and when people buy it, it suddenly becomes a book. If you
> buy it on Amazon, you may not even realize that it is done with
> print-on-demand: it lands on your desk fast, and the quality is good -
> perfect for coffee stains, and to impress job interviewers and sponsors.
> That said, sliding a tablet in front of a collector in art fairs has
> become a performative situation too, that probably will soon become
> familiar in other contexts, too; and people start to enjoy the dust on
> their e-ink screen, and their fingermarks on tablet screens. Ebooks don't
> need strategies to increase their culturally connotated paratex, as books
> didn't when they were invented. They will develop it themselves, or die.
>
> Domenico
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
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