Out of ink - Research Report by francesca coluzzi

OUT OF INK Research Report Âś Francesca Coluzzi 02/2013

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Index: SECTION ONE INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH FRAMEWORK. ¶ Phase 1. September – October – November. 1° Session. 2° Session. 3° Session. ¶ Interval 1. Statement of the field of inquiry. Activities and profiles. 2. General questions and research framework. Main issues. ¶ Phase 2. November – December. Interviewees and case studies. Interview schedule. Basic Questionnaire. ¶ Final analysis

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SECTION ONE – INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH FRAMEWORK. The Out of Ink research is an inquiry on the present publishing domain where many shifts are occurring in the media, in the technology and in the communication processes, as well as in the uses of these in a networked environment. The research project was launched two years ago by the Institute of Network Cultures with the purpose to understand which were the most interesting and ground-breaking features of the publishing domain to analyse for a future positive and open development. Since the beginning several people have been involved in the research, each of them at a different stage, bringing a new point of view to the whole project and collecting opinions and thoughts from the stakeholders of the publishing domain and different professionals who concur in the making of a book, both in print and digitally. In 2011 and 2012 the Institute of Network Culture in collaboration with other partners was one the promoters of the series of conferences called “Unbound book – Boek uit de band” which took place in Amsterdam. These conferences had almost the same field of interest: getting to understand how the digital shift and all the resulting changes in the reading/writing/publishing activities are shaping the human ways of producing information, getting knowledge and interacting with each other in a networked environment, where the dissemination of texts is making the concept of the book as a medium itself extremely varying. In this context, the Out of Ink project can be considered as a format of inquiry to collect ideas, and a general overview of the main subject, following the process of the qualitative research1 and using the instrument of the qualitative 1 “Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed than large samples. In the conventional view, qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only propositions (informed assertions).” From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research

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interview – flexible and far less structured than the quantitative survey research – to address specific questions to all the professional profiles involved in different ways in the publishing domain, focusing especially on the Dutch one. Alan Bryman and Emma Bell in the book called “Business Research Methods”2 explain that “the qualitative interviewing (unstructured or semi-structured) is very different from interviewing in quantitative research in many ways: while in quantitative research the approach is structured to maximize the reliability and validity of measurement of key concepts, because usually the researcher has a clearly specified set of research questions that are to be investigated, in qualitative research there is an emphasis on greater generality in the formulation of initial research ideas and on the intervieweesʼ own perspectives. In qualitative interviewing, interviewers can depart – and are even encouraged to do that – from any schedule or guide that is being used. As a result, qualitative interviewing tends to be more flexible, responding to the direction in which interviewees take the interview and perhaps adjusting the emphasis in the research as a result of significant issues that emerge in the course of the interviews”. I have been involved in the Out of Ink project as an intern researcher for the Institute of Network Cultures since September 2012. For 5 months my job has consisted mainly in carrying on with the inquiry through further interview sessions, providing new ideas to give a proper structure to the entire project, and finally giving a report of the most interesting outcomes from the information collected during each interview session focused on different cases studies. At first I took over what the other researchers had been doing before me and I reframed the whole and narrowed the field, according to both Institute of Network Cultureʼs interests and my personal ones. I started from an in-depth study on information collected during the previous interview sessions – most of them addressed to Dutch publishers – and on the lectures recorded during the “Unbound book – Boek uit de band” conferences. 2 Alan Bryman and Emma Bell, “Business Research Methods 3rd” Third Edition, Oxford University Press, 2011.

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Since the beginning of my job I have been convinced that the interview format was the best to be used in this specific case, because of the nature of the topic and because it was a good source tool for inspiration to better understand what to focus on at a later stage. The whole period of my research activity for the Out of Ink project (September 2012 – January 2013) can be thus divided in two phases, between them an interval and at the end a final analysis: ¶ Phase 1. September – October – November. ¶ Interval: two weeks at the middle of November have been completely dedicated to restructuring the entire research framework and formulating new questions as a result of the outcomes from the first interview sessions. ¶ Phase 2. November – December. ¶ Final analysis: the month of January has been completely dedicated to the analysis of the information collected through the interviews to the case studies, especially the ones I have been focused on during the second phase of the research.

SEPT 2012

Structure

1° phase

2° phase

Inquiry

JAN 2013

Analysis

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¶ Phase 1. September – October – November: The first phase of the Out of Ink research project has been a sort of preliminary study to figure out what a possibly more structured kind of research could focus on, which could be its main goals, in the academic field of social sciences but moreover to all the different stakeholders of the publishing domain to take advantage of in a more practical way. From this perspective the basic questions were: What is the current situation like? What do we need? Which tools, ideas and behaviour around the concept of the book can turn the reading and writing practices into more considerable knowledge experiences? This first phase can be divided into three sessions (1° session, September; 2° session, October; 3° session, November) in which the general topic is combined with a more specific sub-topic that prompts further specific questions to ask together with the general ones in each interview session. Each sub-topic has been introduced by a small article published in the Out of Ink blog and then tackled with an interview session: Three sub-topics > three articles > three sessions of interviews. Thus, because of the new ideas arisen from both the answers to the general questions and the more specific ones in each interview session, it has been possible to re-formulate the questions related to the general issue and therefore, also the main research issue evolved over time. These are the specific topics for each of the three interview sessions: 1° Session: Digitalization and de-digitalization, movements and changes across print and digital in both the directions – interviews to designers which work with both print and digital formats. NIELS SCHRADER, DESIGNER, MIND DESIGN STUDIO, AMSTERDAM; DIMITRI NIEUWENHUIZEN, DESIGNER, LUST STUDIO, THE HAGUE.

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2° Session: New ways to conceive the book, new kinds of book formats – interviews to mainstream publishers, independent publishers and start-ups which deal with the content management in a different and original way. ERIK KESSELS, KESSELSKRAMER PUBLISHING HOUSE, AMSTERDAM; MAXINE KOPSA, KUNSTVEREIN GALLERY AND PUBLISHING HOUSE, AMSTERDAM; DELPHINE BEDEL, RESEARCHER AND PUBLISHER OF HARDCOPY MAGAZINE, AMSTERDAM; MICHELE AQUILA AND VALERIA DI ROSA, U10 PUBLISHING START-UP, MILAN. 3° Session: Teaching in the publishing field, teaching about publishing and publishing tools for education – interviews to researchers and academic lectures, teachers, students and people involved in some publishing teaching programs. YOLANDE VAN DER HEIDE, CASCO PUBLISHING CLASS, UTRECHT; LARS BÖHM, UNCOVERED MAGAZINE, STUDENT 2012 MEDIALAB HVA, AMSTERDAM; RAOUL BOERS, LECTURER IN E-PUBLISHING AND CONTENT MANAGEMENT HVA, AMSTERDAM. ¶ Interval: In the middle of November I took a break from the interviewing activity to provide a new framework for the entire research, as I had several new ideas, questions and aims, which later would have been the reference for the making of a Basic Questionnaire for the next interview sessions. According to my plan, this Questionnaire would also have been the basis

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to collect further information for a cross-case analysis to which to dedicate the entire month of January, my last one. The new structure provided was adopted for the update of the Out of Ink web site, which is the container to collect all the research material (interview transcriptions, articles etc.). The new structure of the research has been provided through the definition of the field of inquiry and the framework of the research â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s main issues and sub-questions: 1. Statement of the field of inquiry. The context in which the research takes place is the Publishing domain: The Publishing Domain is defined through the different activities and the resulting profiles involved in the act of publishing today. Activities and profiles: Production / Publisher and Self publisher Designing / Designer Content / Artist-Author Software and devices / Developer Collecting and Selling / Librarian Reading, Buying, Sharing / User-Reader Research and Education / Researcher Enabling communities / Aggregator

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2. General questions and research framework. The Research Framework explains the hierarchical structure of all the issues that the Out of Ink project aims to investigate: From the Main Issues – which are the core topics of the research – some Subquestions are generated. Both the Main Issues and the Sub-questions are references for the Basic Questionnaire, the schedule for the interviews. Research Framework: Main issues > Sub-questions > Basic Questionnaire. Main issues: Print to digital – Book form and content translation across print and digital medium. Tools and software – Tools and software in all the steps of the publishing practice. Collaborative practice – Digital environment and new possibilities for collaborative practices. Reading experience – Reading experience, content access & usability. Publishing cycle – Digital technology shaping the publishing cycle. Platform and networks – New publishing platforms, self-publishing & social networks. Changing roles – Changing roles in publishing. Open source – Ideologies in the publishing process, commons & open source culture.

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¶ Phase 2. November – December: The second phase of the research is on the other hand more structured and organized, following the process of the qualitative research (main research questions and sub-topics, case studies, semi-structured interviews, cross-cases analysis). The Basic Questionnaire became the schedule for the second phaseʼs interviews, in order to have all the answers gained well organized under all the topics for the final cross-case analysis. Furthermore, in this phase of the research I wanted to narrow the field of interest, to have the opportunity to observe the main issue from a more specific point of view that could possibly help in finding some more relevant cases and insightful concepts. Thus, I decided to focus on the design and art fields to get more into the issue of the book as a medium, but soon I realized that some additional questions about the cultural aspects and behaviour couldnʼt be dismissed: especially in the field of publishing and especially nowadays communication processes and the cultural issues are so connected to each other and they should always be analysed together to understand how they are changing in a fulfilling way. As case studies I looked for designers, artists and also publishers that make book with a particular attention for visual communication and user interaction, both traditional paper books and digital projects, and for specific projects which I thought were interesting and suitable for the topic. Interviewees and case studies: MONIKA PARRINDER, RESEARCHER, RCA LONDON – PROJECT “LIMITED LANGUAGE”; ANNA AND BRITT FROM VISUAL EDITIONS, PUBLISHERS, LONDON;

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DAVID BENQUÉ, DESIGNER, LONDON – PROJECT “THE INFINITE ADVENTURE MACHINE”; WILL HOLDER, RESEARCHER AND PUBLISHER “F.R. DAVID” JOURNAL, PUBLISHED BY DE APPEL, AMSTERDAM; ANTHON ASTROM, DESIGNER, ASTROM / ZIMMER STUDIO, ZURICH – PROJECT “LINES, INTERACTING WITH AN IDEA”; WALDEMAR WĘGRZYN, DESIGNER, KATOWICE – PROJECT “ELEKTROBIBLIOTEKA”. Interview schedule: 0. Personal introduction. A. First part, book medium. B. Second part, book culture. 00. Explain of some projects. In some of the interviews, especially the ones which are about a specific project, the structure of the Questionnaire is the same (A. – B.) but the questions are slightly different because they are specifically related to the project (books, or software, or research projects done with different media). Basic Questionnaire: A. WHAT IS A BOOK? – Materiality, cognitive experience, design process. A1. BOOKS, E-BOOKS, READING EXPERIENCES. Question 1. What is the main difference between a book and an e-book? What about other digital editorial products (iPad applications, digital magazines, devices for reading in the web etc.)? What about calling them all “reading experiences”?

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A2. DESIGN/PUBLISHING PROCESS AND IDENTITY. Question 2. What do you think are the new parameters, limits and rules in the design process for the digital book? How do they differ from the design of a paper book? Question 3. In which elements of the project do you think your identity as a designer reside? How would you manage to keep it – or even change it – in the making of digital book projects? Do you think you will make digital books in the future? A3. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEXT AND IMAGE. Question 4. The relationship between text and image has always been one of the core matters in visual communication. How has it changed in the digital environment? Do you think this relationship could become something different in digital publishing, and how? A4. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONTENT AND STRUCTURE. Question 5. What about the relationship between content and structure in the laying out of a book (indexes, hyperlinks, different ways of visualizing etc.)? How does it change with digital text? What about in digital publishing? A5. MEDIA CONVERGENCE: PLATFORMS, FORMATS AND COLLABORATIVE PRACTICES. Question 6. Do you think interactivity and media convergence can affect the design of a book? What about the proliferation of different formats (ePub, PDF, iPad etc.)? What about collaborative practices? How does it change with the digital? What about it in digital publishing? A6. TACTILITY, MATERIALITY, PHYSICAL PRECENCE. Question 7. Does the digital book have an element of tactility? If so, which is it?

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B. BOOK AS A PROCESS – Book culture and its uses. B1. DISSEMINATION, OVERLOAD ON INFORMATION AND CONCENTRATION. Question 8. Do you think we are risking an overload of information in publishing, especially in online and digital publishing? Question 9. We are living in the era of the dissemination of information. Do you think we are lacking of concentration? Do you think that dissemination and concentration can coexist or do we have to choose between one of them? B2. SELF PUBLISHING, OPEN SOURCE CULTURE AND ECONOMIC MODELS. Question 10. What do you think about the increase of self-publishing, both on paper and digitally? Has the traditional book changed? Can we talk about a sort of “paper response” to the digital shift in publishing? Question 11. What do you think about open source culture? What economic models do we have now in publishing and which do you think will take over in the future? B3. OBSOLESCENCE, LONGEVITY AND VIRTUALITY. Question 12. What do you think about the obsolescence of the digital? Is putting the content back onto paper the only choice that we have to overtake this obsolescence? Do you think we could find other solutions? B4. TOOLS AND DEVICES. Question 13. Do you know of or use any dedicated software to design a digital book? Which tools are you missing and what do you think is still needed for digital publishing? What do you think about open source software?

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B5. ART AND DESIGN CONTRIBUTION TO RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PUBLISHING. Question 14. Can art and design practices give a contribution, with a different point of view from Corporates’one, to the development of proper structures, models and devices for digital publishing, and how? In which direction would you like the research on digital book to be developed? As a designer, what do you think is really necessary to explore? ¶ Final analysis: All the interviews have finally been transcribed and later some relevant quotes from them have been highlighted and organized under the main topics (A. – B.) and under the sub-topics for the cross-analysis, as they were placed in the Basic Questionnaire. The next section of this report will be the a sort of result essay of the crossanalysis. The quotes placed under all the sub-topics have been read together and joined in a different order, finding a conceptual path for them to understand which was the most relevant out-coming idea for each topic.

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Index: A1. WHAT IS A BOOK? – BOOKS, E-BOOKS, READING EXPERIENCES. Materiality, cognitive experience and design process. § A2. DESIGN/PUBLISHING PROCESS AND IDENTITY. A3. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEXT AND IMAGE. A4. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONTENT AND STRUCTURE. A5. MEDIA CONVERGENCE: PLATFORMS, FORMATS AND COLLABORATIVE PRACTICES. A6. TACTILITY, MATERIALITY, PHYSICAL PRECENCE. B1. DISSEMINATION, OVERLOAD OF INFORMATION AND CONCENTRATION. B2. SELF PUBLISHING, OPEN SOURCE CULTURE AND ECONOMIC MODELS. B3. OBSOLESCENCE, LONGEVITY AND VIRTUALITY OF DIGITAL FORMATS. B4. TOOLS AND DEVICES. B5. ART AND DESIGN CONTRIBUTION TO RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PUBLISHING.

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SECTION TWO – ANALYSIS Both the interview schedule and the cross-analysis process follow the points of the Basic Questionnaire – created to be addressed specifically to the ʽBook makersʼ after the first preliminary phase of the project – which is divided into two wide topics: A. is focused on the book as a medium and as an object – its materiality, the cognitive experience, the design process; B. is focused on the book as a process – the usage of the book, book culture, the social and political context and effects on publishing. Paragraph A1. (WHAT IS A BOOK? – BOOKS, E-BOOKS, READING EXPERIENCES. Materiality, cognitive experience and design process) will be a complex overview on the general issue, the digital shift occurring in the publishing process and domain, which inspired the first question of the basic questionnaire. Here the interviews done to some people, both designers and researchers, about their own specific projects and experiments, will be particularly taken into account in order to see how their ideas can be framed in a more practical context and then to link them to the main categories of the analysis. All the other paragraphs (from A2. to B5.) will follow the topics of the Basic Questionnaire, using the quotes from the interviews and making some comments on them.

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A1. WHAT IS A BOOK? – BOOKS, E-BOOKS, READING EXPERIENCES. Materiality, cognitive experience and design process. In the field of publishing issues like the materiality, the cognitive experience, the design process of the book are interesting ones to quest from the point of view of the people that practically work together in the making of a book, both designers (traditional book ones or interaction designers) and visual artists. With the occurrence of all the digital-driven changes in many fields of knowledge, itʼs interesting indeed to observe how different containers for the information change their nature, their shape and their structure in a kind of movement that in a way is making them all converge – web sites, e-readers, books etc. interact with each other and seem to be becoming more and more similar to each other too – but on the other hand is making each medium and device specific in its formal and cognitive features. All the professionals that are dealing with these changes in the reading/writing activities are a good starting point to understand the current state of the medium of the book itself and how could it look like in the near future: free and creative thinking can really make the difference and address the direction that the book – or any reading display – will take, even in all its cultural movements that now have become so evident and disruptive, like self publishing. Therefore, giving a voice to the arts and finding effective connections between artists, technologists and people of the independent market is now more than ever becoming crucial, because it could make technology develop from a different perspective than big companiesʼ one. § In the context of the Out of Ink reseach at first has been taken into account the topic that since the beginning of the inquiry seemed to be the core of the research issue, although very overall and generic, and for years has been the only layer of the debate: books vs. e-books, what is changing and what is go-

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ing to stay1 – but we’ll see later that this issue is far more complex than what it seems. Therefore, at the beginning of each interview during our inquiry the following question has been addressed in order to have a first overview and an immediate and spontaneous response and to make the equivalence in the language evident immediately: there is a great complexity in how we call ʽa somethingʼ which is very new, but may be not so new, that we really don’t have a clear idea about what it is yet nor how to frame it. What is the main difference between a book and an e-book? What about other digital editorial products (iPad applications, digital magazines, devices for reading in the web etc.)? What about calling them all “reading experiences”? This first question will be taken as a introduction point to the whole analysis part of the report. § The debate about the future of the book and how we will read in the near future started to be really popular and perceived as a burning question only since the birth of e-books: however, we should ask ourselves why, given that we already had so many different ways of reading and interacting with texts before e-readers came on the market – almost since the Internet was born and quickly turned into Web 2.0. However, that was indeed also another reason for asking that question at the beginning: I wanted to make the equivalence in the language evident immediately so that there is a huge problem in how we call ʽa somethingʼ which is very new, but may be not so new, that we really don’t have a clear idea about what it is yet nor how to frame it. But, has the book really changed? Or did simply another way to conceive it arise? Or maybe is it that books, as we have always known them, are the 1 One of the most quoted analysis of this opposition is the essay “The Future of the Book” by Umberto Eco, From the July 1994 symposium “The Future of the Book,” held at the University of San Marino. This essay is also found in “The Future of the Book” (Berkeley; University of California Press, 1997). Edited by Geoffrey Nunberg.

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same as an object, but there are now so many other ways of reading that have made us re-think the act of reading itself (and also producing, absorbing, exchanging knowledge) and the object as well? Moreover, does it make sense to make a distinction between digital and analogue? And what is the point in that? Even if in the end we all affirm that we are not making such a distinction between books and e-books, at least not in such a rigid way, why do we feel that this shift is so important for us as human beings? – much more than other digital changes in other fields, as for example music. The interesting thing goes beyond the difference, it’s rather about how technology impacts the language. Thus, to sum up all these burning questions, in the first question we asked about what the difference was between books, e-books and other reading formats, suggesting calling them all ʽreading experiencesʼ. Book and e-books – It sounds particularly paradoxical that in almost every interview the answer to this question has been stating apparently opposite concepts: On one hand there is not a huge difference – in both cases (print/digital) people said they are making and communicating a content, and that should be the main point. On the other hand there is a huge difference – people said the book is now unbound and has become something totally different. However, this is easier to understand if we compare it with what happened to painting when photography was invented. The painting survived (and is still here) but had to completely reinvent itself. Here another interesting point of view can be introduced: these differences are not really a problem or important on their own, but could rather be seen as a set of contrasts, formal and cultural contrasts, that could help both the analogue media and the digital ones to express better their own features in a comparison process. As a matter of fact one of the most insightful points of

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view came from people that were interested in how the print book is responding to all the new practices generated by technology. Generally speaking, the issues about the differences between analogue and digital media are not so interesting in terms of end products, but rather looking at the cognitive structures, the ways the content is processed and the metaphors – both the linguistic and the formal ones – that we use. Moreover, almost every interviewee has been saying that the e-book is indeed no more than half a product. For now, what we call the e-book and what is supposed to be the new book, is just the book translated into digital. The e-book is actually imitating every formal feature of the book – even in a very untimely way. Those which are supposed to be the most innovative publishing projects frequently end up being just a mix of too many layers of content and too many interactive possibilities in a totally non- sensical order and with no structure at all. The reason for that is probably that we got overexcited about technology, but we are actually forcing it into the same categories of thinking, and that can only cause confusion. We need to find a way to sort the huge amount of information available at the moment, not to put everything inside anything just because we can – we all, as tools are accessible and not so difficult to use. And to make it happen we need for sure to go beyond the concept of the book. In order to lead this change, the first step could be to start thinking of the traditional book as a technology itself that has been tested over a thousand years and has become almost perfect. The mechanical aspect of the book is the sum of all the elements that make a book work as we know. Concepts such as ʽuser interactionʼ have always existed in print too, as well as the understanding of the page as a display. Nobody here complains about the perfection and the cleverness of the book. But something really serious has changed and ʽperfectionʼ doesn’t make any sense if ʽperfectʼ features simply get attached to a very different medium.

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Communication itself is perfect only when it works. So, we should rather ask, what is the information like now (ever-changing, quickly disappearing, fragmented, etc.)? Itʼs hard to tell because everything here seems to be the contrary of everything. Furthermore, how do we evolve as human beings interacting with all the technology we create? Because of the Internet not only do we read and write in a different way but above all we are also living in another way and not to get into a loop of detached speech, we should look at the so-called book culture: books not only as objects and media, but as products and experiences of shared thoughts. It becomes really relevant talking about the book as a medium and the formal ways of content management and communication only when relating it to the entire cultural context. Digital media now provide so many new possibilities, because of both their material features and the way that we use them. This relationship is something that we haven’t explored nor exploited yet, and these connections create new metaphors that are good to understand the bridge between analogue and digital and also enhance very engaging practical projects. A good example of this way of thinking, keeping the formal and cultural discourse together, concerns the fact that we still prefer paper books for many reasons. It seems that we find it difficult to separate ourselves from the book idea and from the way it works. So we are asking, Why? but we are also asking, Should we? I think that the reason is just that paper books are still so much better in so many ways. And above all it’s something that we know well, it’s kind of soothing. Itʼs also interesting to see how spontaneously people usually associate the print object to their equivalent on the screen and vice versa, trying to find a bridge. Sometimes some of these ʽbridgesʼ turn into totally crazy projects. But, quite frequently craziness is something that runs together with cleverness and development, especially in the field of visual arts. Additionally, kinds of crazy attempts through association like those ʽbridge-

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likeʼ ones are fascinating to observe also in the language realm. Without any doubt we now have some problems with the words that we use to call the things we read/write with. For example, the word ʽe-bookʼ is quite confusing and ambiguous, sounds like an oxymoron. We need to invent others, because the ones that we are currently using are just dangerously limiting our imagination. That difficulty could be because digital that has opened up new metaphors of what a book can be, but also because there is not a clear idea of what a book is – traditional, digital or whatever – and we have started to wonder about that only in the last few years. Besides, are we merely talking about e-books? What about blogs and other digital formats? Itʼs clear that defining the field is a problem too. Reading experiences – In the first question of interview schedule, asking about what was the difference between books, e-books and other reading formats, we also suggested calling them all ʽreading experiencesʼ. ʽReading experienceʼ was thus an attempt to try to call any kind of bookconcept in another and more open way. Many of those interviewed said that it was fine, but some of them said it was not totally complete: it can give the idea, but in a way that is far too passive – there is also a ʽwriting experienceʼ and to be really open we should always refer to the nature of text and to the medium/interface combination both in print and on screen. One of the few critiques to this term came from Anthon Astrom, one of the two designers who years ago created the projects called Lines, “a digital writing environment based on annotation. [Lines] inherits from the idea that everything we write is a comment on something else. The initial idea was to create a space for authors to create texts in a way that reflects new reading habits online – targeted, fragmented search-and-find – and still maintain a stringency in argument. It’s free writing and reading, but with context.”2 Anthon Astrom, Lines. “The term ʽreading experienceʼ feels like a passive action – something that comes out of reading in a certain medium, using a certain interface. That medium/interface combination can then be 2 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/30/interview-with-anthon-astrom-thecafe-society-astrom-zimmer-lines-interacting-with-an-idea/

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alities that can be accessed and triggered while reading, just as a digital interface on the screen

has. The ʽexperienceʼ is the sum of these functions plus the act of using them.”3 Anthon Astrom, Lines.

One the most interesting thing that came out from this provoking first question, definitely was that people, in order to answer and reveal the differences between books and digital formats, focused on the features of each medium and came out with a sort of taxonomy for both. Categories and definitions – The following paragraphs are a list of some of the most relevant categories and definitions of books and other formats that we have been calling ʽreading experiencesʼ. The selection of these particular concepts from the interviewsʼ sessions was made because of them being quite common thoughts or different positions that in a certain way inspired further questions and an in- depth analysis. Focusing on which differences, one of the most recalled concepts was the space of the book. In the digital environment space is no longer a problem since we can have a huge amount of information at one time in a smaller space. So there is no need to limit texts and images as in a physical book. Whilst we have learned to appreciate these limits in analogue books and to consider them as their main values compared to the limitlessness of the digital, itʼs here where the limit really becomes a crucial choice and where good editing can make the difference in quality, even more than in print. In the digital book something that we have to be aware of is not to overload the reader and make good editorial choices. Another point was about the dynamics, so how we move into this space. In a digital environment we can jump, browse and in general command the text. The dynamics is also referred to its temporal aspect: a text can be a work in progress which could also be endless. 3 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/30/interview-with-anthon-astrom-thecafe-society-astrom-zimmer-lines-interacting-with-an-idea/

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In general, all the book elements get unravelled, remixed and everything is completely de-structured. One interesting aspect of this concept is the series of oppositions related to the main one, the book vs. e-book supposed one, like for instance: Fix vs. unfix, or bound vs. unbound, and in particular how those elements – the ones which here pertain the medium – are strictly connected to some cultural issues, like for example: Authority vs. non- authority, so how the fixity of the traditional book cross- refer to an authority and authorial way of producing knowledge; One-to-many vs. many to many mass communication, that concerns the democratization of the media and the easy accessibility to the production and dissemination tools. All these issues come from one of the main features of the digital media, being part of a network environment, as well as being a process pursued by many. Other very interesting things regarding this topic are all the experiments done in the field of the production of content on social networks, like Twitter. The Italian studio called U10 invented during the last year a format to collect and store in an e-book some content found in Twitter coming from the flow of tweets on a certain topic, and recently they have been working on the development of a software to make the production of these containers, they called them ʽTweetbooksʼ, automatically and easily user customizable, providing also a sort of real- time system of annotation. “We noticed that this was such a powerful tool, that could self distribute, we were just launch-

ing it, telling two or three people, that if they were happy to be in it, they would themselves tell someone else. […] So we started to think about the second step […] we don’t believe the future to be simply doing Tweetbooks, but maybe it is creating the tools to make them.”4 Michele Aquila, U10.

4 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/01/interview-with-michele-aquila-andvaleria-di-rosa-u10-milan/

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Other categories get more into how we engage with computers in a wider sense: the beginning-middle-ending structure vs. non- linearity of storytelling. Digital stories can be considered more like a video game with rules rather than a defined plot and demanding for interaction. The Infinite Adventure Machine (TIAM) – a project by the graphic designer David Benqué made in the context of a collaboration between the RCA of London and the Microsoft Research Center of Cambridge – is an experiment that deals with the topic of narrative in the digital environment, inspired by the work of the Russian structuralist called Vladimir Propp who reduced the Russian fairy tales into 31 basic functions. As David has explained to me in the interview, TIAM is not an e-book in the usual sense of the word, itʼs rather a computer program to generate fairy tales probing the user with fragments of plot elements and images, and making him improvise from those elements. However TIAM will surely make the boundaries of what a digital book is really blurred and also makes evident how creative projects can pinpoint some of the main highlights of the whole digital/analogue topic. “So my question, when I started the collaboration, was if we could find a DNA for stories. Once you have this DNA, the set of parameters, it’s a short step to think of what you can do with it

computationally and the potential to automate storytelling, which is such a core human activity. That was the starting point and from there I came across the work of Vladimir Propp which was a perfect fit and I also looked at a lot of different attempts ranging from artificial intelligence experiments and how we engage with computers in general.”5 David Benqué, The Infinite Adventure Machine.

Nevertheless, probably the most complex and still unexplored field that should be really be analysed in-depth concerns the tactility and mobility, and in general the physical presence of digital formats. As a matter of fact, these are issues which have many aspects, some of which are good in the translation ʽanalogue-across-digitalʼ, while others haven’t found the right equivalence yet, and in these lies exactly what people don’t like about digital reading. 5 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/02/01/interview-with-david-beneque-theinfinite-adventure-machine/

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Very frequently people say that the e-book is good only because it lets one carry all his books with him. But, when it comes to arranging books in the space, could be a library, could be a shelf, it is so limited, because they can all just be stored in a device. In most of the interviews has been said also that with any kind of digital book you canʼt leaf through them, hold them in your hand, or give it as a present and share them with friends. In general, we don’t encounter digital books in our daily life, and that kind of tactile aspect and physical presence seems to be very important, something that any computer, smart phone, e-reader, iPad, hasn’t found the right way to satisfy or obviate yet. Also concerning the topic of book materiality, the Elektrobiblioteka project, carried out by the graphic designer Waldemar Węgrzyn for his diploma in the Academy of Fine Arts of Katowice, is an interesting metaphor in that sense. As it effectively and physically combines the interface of a paper book and a computer interface, it provides a tactile element which is typical of a physical book, for example flipping the pages, to navigate the content in the digital space. “Since the beginning it wasn’t my intention to design some new and useful solution for an

interface that would be comparable to e-books, for example, although Elektrobiblioteka is often described as a DIY e-book. Instead, what was really interesting to me was to combine these two

forms of media and look at the connection, which I think is meaningful in and of itself. So it was

interesting for me that the book could be considered as an example of a text based interface, that you can compare to older ones and also to the newer ones,[...] I also think that the mechanical

aspect of the book – that it has spreads, numbered pages and a spine, etc. – is very interesting in

comparison to the web site interface, because you can treat the space of the book in similar ways to the space of a web site.”6 Waldemar Węgrzyn, Elektrobiblioteka.

Another thing that we see as really relevant for this particular topic is the fact that the book has some physical limits that makes it still being considered the space for reflection and for making a fixed point about the knowledge collected in such a big source like the Internet for instance, although these issues of course can change quite a lot whether we are talking about e-books or rather 6 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/01/interview-with-waldemar-wegrzynelektrobiblioteka/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 31

about other different digital media: thatʼs why one of the most interesting things was asking if a blog could be considered as a book. These ideas are explained in a very compelling way by the project called Limited Language, initially only a web platform started since 2004 and then in 2010 a book too, made by Monika Parrinder and Colin Davis, researchers in RCA. LL is good example of a blog- format container that gained a different way of treating its content when transposed into a book. “Texting or writing for blogs, unlike the traditional book, is a temporal process. It’s a space where ideas can gain momentum, often in encounters with other readers: this is something very different to the traditional book. Most blogs, of course, are used as means of personal record, and so

on, and do not necessarily constitute a paradigm shift. But, in the sense that they are ‘relational’ – in dialogue with other readers, texts and technologies – they always have the potential to become something other… […] For instance, in Limited Language, we realized that while collaborative

practices are great for generating discussion, we decided to write the book because we wanted to reflect on how these ideas had coalesced, for the longer term. But we also realized that we need-

ed to take a position – to ‘draw a line in the sand’ as it were – so this involved a more traditional, solitary role of writing. But we used printed hyperlinks to our blog so that this could always feedback into discussion in an on-going process.”7 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

In conclusion, I think that we will surely keep on having all of these products, both analogue and digital ones, because probably we need both the ways of dealing with information to have knowledge, as long as they provide different experiences, trigger different cognitive capabilities and, why not, make the new ones arisen develop in a way that really can add something more. Probably one of the two (the digital) some day will be something that in daily life will be used more and more commonly for many reasons, while the other (the analogue) will no longer be the most immediate and intuitive way we approach texts, as the book still is today. But this will happen of course when we have understood really how to make the digital something to our own advantage and we have set up considerable ways of engaging with a content in the digital realm. 7 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/

SECTION TWO - PAGE N掳 32

There is no question that we as human beings are changing in our cognitive skills because of some new needs that we have, or because we are just adapting to a new environment, whether we decided to have it or truly not. One example of that can be observed in how we are getting used to shorter texts. However, we can始t just passively adapt to any situation because that would be just fulfil some dystopia where machines have the best over humans, and technology is not an enemy but it始s one of the greatest expressions of our mind, because it始s a mixture of imagination and logic thought. Coming back to publishing, we are in a phase when all the new possibilities and points of view brought by the digital can be inspiring also for the paper book because of the contrast with its most distinctive features and qualities that can be thus emphasized. And the other way round these new approaches to the paper book, suggested by digital formats, can be inspiring back again for digital projects themselves on many levels. We believe unwaveringly that one of the main guidelines in publishing is to learn to take advantage of this particular moment in order to set a dialogue and a constant negotiation between old and new behaviour, even in the fields of economy and culture, using each one to test the other and making the most of keeping our imagination free from any dogma.

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cess – perhaps an art form, but certainly as an art form-in-context. By that I mean that people

are becoming much more overtly interested in its materiality and use. […] These aspects have

always been present, but implicit – now we are engaging with them explicitly, it’s going to create a whole new set of book practices.”1 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

“I don’t really think in terms of an end product, whether it’s a book or an e-book. I think much

more in terms of all the production processes that produce occasions for publishing, so I’m much more involved in all the processes that precede that formal decision and in that sense I don’t make much of a distinction between a book and an e-book. But obviously, graduating in ’94

which is when the Internet became public, I’ve been extremely influenced by how the Internet has changed our reading experiences, as you call them.”2 Will Holder.

“Over the course of the years we developed a design methodology which was later called ‛process based design’ or ‛generative design’, and is founded upon the development of an analytical pro-

cess which eventually leads to a final-product that designs itself. Using this kind of methodology means that you know from the beginning that there is no difference whether the end result will

be a book or a magazine, an urban area or the whole city, because the process is what defines it.

[…] We have always tried to find the bridge between information and the carrier of information, so now we are just doing the same with the digital world. For example looking at a digitalized

text, we can create algorithms to figure out what this text is about. […] we can find algorithms

to trace the meaning of it in terms of semantic orientation and location. Another interesting way

to analyse a text is to have links to the context: who is the writer, where did he study, what is his 1 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/ 2 Not published yet.

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 36 background etc., and any other kind of meta information. We create something like a fingerprint, so that the computer can use its semantic orientation to find other information, for example,

what is the emotional value of each word, or where are the people who are talking about any

given subject. Again, for me, a stream of tweets is also like a book …”3 Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen. “I believe the role of a designer has spanned over the tasks of an editor. His role is not limited to just combining images with text anymore. By applying the interactive hyper-structure to books, the designer has to anticipate all different choices the reader can possibly make. Therefore, the designer is responsible for layering the information and defining the structure of content.

[…] All my work deals with the logic of network structures. I have even been called a “network

designer”, and it seems there is some truth in it. Concentrating on hyper-structures comes mainly from my belief that they are the only true communication model of the information age. The growing ease of use and pace of technological developments stimulate the fragmentation of

communication, which in turn is dictating more and more the style of how we interact. The ever shrinking attention span of humans and the general shortening of messages people exchange are examples of this process. The hyper-structure addresses these problems.

My fascination in hyper-structures grew actually out of my experiments with translating the in-

formation between different ‘states of aggregation’. And by states, I don’t mean media or content, but the structure. It’s all about finding the most suitable model for the information and then

implementing it in the chosen medium, regardless if it’s a book or a website.”4 Niels Schrader. “Yes, these types of media all work simultaneously but the point is thinking about what it means. That brings us back to the first question, why publishing? It is certain that all activities undertaken during the course will result in one book, but primarily we want to ask ourselves the question why do we publish? With which we are not saying do not publish, but think why you publish.”5 Yolande van der Heide.

“I think we need now to refresh digital magazines, now the concept is no longer new, we need to find a balance between the interactivity of the digital and the original structure of the print magazine.”6 Lars Böhm.

3 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/09/interview-with-dimitri-nieuwenhuizen-lust-the-hague/

4 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/06/interview-with-niels-schrader-minddesign-amsterdam/ 5 Not published yet.

6 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/05/interview-with-lars-bohm-uncoveredmagazine/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 37 “Some of the existing books are also digitally available but the thing is that most of the content of the book already exists digitally; all I do is take it from its context and make it into a print book

again. So sometimes you can also do it the other way round, when you find a good book it is nice to make it digital, but when I find something interesting on a market or online, I would not only do a digital book because the material object is very important to me. […] When you make a book you really have to do it for a certain purpose.”7 Erik Kessels.

“I think that if you want to do effective e-Publishing, you should above all, think about the content you are publishing and how the content changes according to the format you use.

From a publisherʼs point of view the best way, is to publish content in a format that reaches the

right audience, this for me, is the point where both content management and e-Publishing really converge.”8 Raoul Boers.

“All the books that we publish – which are both physical and digital – are based around this idea of visual writing, which really ties together everything we do. The core feature of visual writing is looking at writing that uses visuals as a key part of the storytelling. So everything that we

make, or produce rests on this idea of great looking stories, which is our line, but also a different reading experience and way of writing, as well as a different way of making books and of telling stories.

[…] It’s not just a matter of copy and paste, as it could be simple to go from print to screen or from print to screen to real experience, itʼs more about thinking of how to produce a particular story in the best way. Its about giving it the best possible life upon the platform that has

been chosen to live. So it’s all about pushing the platform towards its special potential, not just replicating something that already exists on another one. […] It’s not about using technology

because you can, it’s about choosing which technology because it’s relevant and only if it makes

something into a better experience. There is no point in using technology just because it’s a new innovation if there isnʼt a particular improvement in the reading experience.

[…] Iʼd suppose our role as publisher is mainly about interrogating that process and making sure that along the way there is nothing extraneous or just for the sake of it, and that the visual and the story are really embedded with each other. […] At the moment there is really so much you can do, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to be selective, and I guess that the exciting

part is actually trying to find the boundaries of what makes reading into a better experience or what makes it, in a way, a bit painful.

7 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/13/interview-with-erik-kessels-kesselskramer-amsterdam-2/ 8 Not published yet.

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 38 […] We bring the designer into the process before there is even a book. So the conversation usually starts between us and the writer and in most cases, especially where a new writer is

involved, we also bring the designer into that conversation, in order to develop something really amazing.”9 Anna and Britt, Visual Editions.

“Itʼs very important for me as a designer that the process of designing a book is now totally different. Now you have to think about e-books or applications and even PDF files – well, maybe

not PDF files as much, as they look the same on most screens. e-Books especially, though have a fluid layout and both text sizes and typefaces are variable, so the user can increase the text size,

for example, and he can change it as he wants depending on the size of the screen.”10 Waldemar Węgrzyn, Elektrobiblioteka.

“Basically itʼs a relationship between a designer and an artist and the point is to find an interesting balance between what each one of them can bring to the entire project. So every book I’ve

made so far is designed every time by a different designer – over 60 designers by now – and this

can also provide a panorama of the different design practices at the moment. For example, some of them would emphasize the work through typography, others through elaborating layouts and so on, but it’s always about trying to find an interesting collaboration of two visual languages,

the artistʼs one and the designerʼs one. So every project is very specific and therefore very differ-

ent because the design practice places the rules in defining the object; what an artist would have made on his own would have definitely been different.”11 Delphine Bedel.

“We had never been involved in the publishing industries before, but according to those who

used to live on paper books, it always turns out that making e-books nowadays lies in the setting up of some new codes to make people understand each other, because suddenly there are many different kinds of professionals who work on it.”12 Michele Aquila, U10.

Comment on the answers: Question 2. and 3. are both focused on the design and publishing practices, 9 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/08/interview-with-anna-and-britt-visualeditions-london/ 10 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/01/interview-with-waldemar-wegrzynelektrobiblioteka/ 11 Not published yet.

12 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/01/interview-with-michele-aquila-andvaleria-di-rosa-u10-milan/

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in particular about the processes and the book makers’ own identities across analogue and digital media, and therefore these topics have been analysed together. Both the questions were asked to get more into those activities on a practical level, in order to get to know what the new challenges and also the new possibilities for the design of a book are, and also for content management, the curatory practice and for the publishing process in general, and how the designer’s and publisher’s own identity changes or remains within the digital shift. Some of the most interesting quotes from the interviews are general thoughts, whereas some are more specific examples from those interviewed’s own practice and suggested guidelines for such kinds of activities and how to drive the change towards the digital in a proper way. The most interesting outcomes move along the concepts of the publishing practice as a process and as a collaboration between different kinds of professionals and different approaches to the book medium – visual languages or book practices on the Web. The content – both in finding the most suitable medium and also in thinking about the reasons for any kind of communication across each publishing platform – should be now more than ever the starting point of the whole process, which is now characterized mainly by the practices of layering the information and defining a structure, driven by an analytical way of processing any kind of knowledge, in a context where communication is totally fragmented. Only in that sense is it possible to move the content across different platforms – such as analogue media and digital ones – and also across the many digital formats which all demand a certain flexibility in adaptation and a layout which is not closed but conceived to be processed in different ways. It is the same for the publishing, the curatorial activity and in general the content management, as well as for the design practice: so looking more at the process that creates the opportunities for publishing in a certain context,

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 40

and always interrogating that process, in order to be selective and find a path – both the right medium and the right kind of professional to work with – to make the reading experience significant, depending on the entity of the content to communicate each time and without stressing the many possibilities that we now have in technology. A3. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEXT AND IMAGE. Question 4. The relationship between text and image has always been one of the core matters in visual communication. How has it changed in the digital environment? Do you think this relationship could become something different in digital publishing, and how? “Images and texts are only different in form, but actually they are quite close. Images were the

first form people used to try to easily pass information on to other people. Later, somehow, those images became symbols, and then symbols became characters and, combined with one another, they became sentences.

With an image, with one glance you can find multiple layers of information, this of course has a different meaning, but there actually is not so much of a difference between text and image.”13 Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen.

[The relationship between text and image in the digital environment has changed] “on two

levels. The act of reading (and writing) on the screen has a lot more common with image analysis than old-school paper pages, since itʼs dynamic, and information can blend in and out as pixels, not having to follow the rules of linearity. This also means we have a lot more possibilities for

replacing lists and linear argument with images, and have images carry a lot more of the “hard” information we traditionally had to put in writing.”14 Anthon Astrom, Lines.

“As I have already stated, in my opinion the main difference between digital and print is space: when publishing on a digital medium the available space is practically limitless.

Printed books become more expensive to produce once more content is introduced, especially

when dealing with images. So in the print publishing process hard choices have to be made in the 13 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/09/interview-with-dimitri-nieuwenhuizen-lust-the-hague/ 14 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/30/interview-with-anthon-astrom-thecafe-society-astrom-zimmer-lines-interacting-with-an-idea/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 41 editing of the final product, what to keep and what not to keep. In digital publishing an author

can implement as many images as he wants. But this presents the added danger of less relevant content being published.”15 Lars Böhm.

“Of course we have new possibilities, for example putting animations or interactive elements into texts, but there are also lots of useless interactive animations and e-books. e-Books for children are especially full of images that don’t necessarily emphasize the text.

I think now that Google can provide so many images on any subject it’s not necessary to use the

image as only a way to visually explain a concept. In other words, you don’t have to illustrate the text by representing it with connected illustrations because everybody can look at thousands of different images on the same subject on the web.

Images are now used more to attract the reader’s attention and to present it, by having a book

with game and video elements in it as well, which can be good but can also be bad. I think publishers somehow treat the text in books as if it was boring so they have to put a lot of different things in addition to the text.

I think that especially for graphic designers this is a very new situation because you don’t have

control of the special relationships between text and images anymore, because on one device it

may appear smaller and on one it appears bigger, for example. It’s becoming very difficult to connect these two elements.

To conclude I would say that maybe now text is only part of a big image made of web browsers or interfaces, or whatever you can have on the screen, and it is no longer the opposite as it was when images were only considered as parts of the text.”16 Waldemar Węgrzyn, Elektrobiblioteka.

“At the moment the dominant narrative is that we are in a culture of images but actually there is a surprising amount of writing – the word is everywhere. For us, it’s the balance that is inter-

esting: images obviously are more ‘sexy’ – they are moving, sometimes speaking and they play

better on the high-res screen. Words tend to be reduced to the sound-byte to compete – think of scrolling news and so on… But recently there is renewed interest in how to engage with longform writing in the digital context.

This is the realm that Limited Language operate in, I guess. We’re not interested in competing

with the culture of images, but in thinking about how writing might provide this breathing space I’ve been talking about. Something that works with image culture, but something that might

15 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/05/interview-with-lars-bohm-uncovered-magazine/

16 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/01/interview-with-waldemar-wegrzynelektrobiblioteka/

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 42 linger, soak in – for reflection.

[…] In terms of writing we now have to think about the ‘word-image’, the ‘word-environment’, the ‘word-event’ and also things like ‘type-animation’, ‘type- sculpture’, and all the things these

new hybrid forms open-up. I think that, within them, there is a huge potential for different kinds of engagement.”17 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

“What is happening nowadays is that by uploading images online, we disseminate representations, but we also write about them, we produce additional information which places those

images in a geographically and temporally unusual relationship with a lot of other meanings created by other people.

That is a form of textual production that everybody is going through and it’s something I’m re-

ally interested in because the core of my work is looking at the production of texts as a form of

cataloguing and organizing information. So, my book projects are absolutely engaged with that

kind of language production and quite often it’s the relationship between text and the image that makes that extremely explicit.

‛F. R. David’ has always been about this negotiation between texts and images. Another example

could be the old identity that I made for De Appel: it was not only an apple but also an ‛A’, which was for ‛Apple’. The whole idea for De Appel production was based on these two elements to-

gether, so the ‛A’ and the ‛Apple’, as well as the text and the image, in a kind of perpetual modu-

lation, a machine which is constantly producing new values in the transformation of meaning, so

you are constantly going from the image to the text and back to the image again.”18 Will Holder.

Comment on the answers: The aim of this question was to concentrate on some of the formal relationships in visual communication, related specifically to the medium of the book and to what could happen along the way across the borders of print and digital. The relationship between texts and images, in all its semiotic features, is a basic one and moreover can help a lot to understand how to process the information through different media and with different approaches. The first relevant outcome from the interviews has been exactly that semiotic difference between image and text: for example, that with an image you can 17 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/ 18 Not published yet.

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 43

tell information at one glance and it is kind of an immediate symbolic communication. What is really important in the digital realm is that, in the act of reading and writing on screens, texts have much more in common with the images because of the analytic way of processing them both. In addition, there is a great disposal of space for information that makes it possible to use the images without the need to set any particular limit, to have more interaction in them and also to use them to replace texts in many cases. However, we have to be careful because in the Internet we have such a large source of images which are very accessible. Therefore the image in digital publishing and in general in any kind digital communication is not used any more for its original purpose – to visually explain a concept – but to attract the reader, and this is what frequently causes the risk of an overload of information. When with print the limits and the editing choices were compulsory, in digital publishing the space is limitless but that’s why a reasoned curatorship in digital publishing becomes more important. Unfortunately many editors treat the text as boring, so overusing the images even when unnecessary. As a matter of fact, a quite common thought is that we are in a culture of images. Actually we also write a lot, but mainly short texts. This could be seen as a way for the text to compete with a more immediate and sensational kind of communication provided by the images, which now can also be fast-changing, interactive, easily accessible and absolutely disseminated. The Web itself could be seen as a big image where everything is a part. Hence, I think that the most interesting thing is looking at the hybrid forms between text and images that digital and network communication spawn, because this is really the novelty in that field, and also looking at the textuality, and so all the texts that we disseminate together with those images that we produce and put online.

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A4. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONTENT AND STRUCTURE. Question 5. What about the relationship between content and structure in the laying out of a book (indexes, hyperlinks, different ways of visualization etc.)? How does it change with the digital? What about it in digital publishing? “Deconstructing the linear code of a story entails learning to read and write again. The storyline has now turned into a network, a hyper-structure. In a book, for instance, a network could be a

structure that connects different pieces of content through different types of hyperlinks: referring to the same topic, presenting a related thought or even changing the whole narrative.”19 Niels Schrader.

“So you have much less control of the outcome of the project, but it’s also quite interesting that

the content and all the logical connections are becoming very important. For example, you have to divide the content into headlines and paragraphs that will be treated differently, or you can provide a browser to scan all of the content.

Thatʼs why you have to design the structure very carefully, especially when you are designing a

layout which is used not only for one text but which can be adapted. So you have to think about all of these elements as logical parts of the whole structure, which has to be considered not as

one closed layout. In a certain way this concept is similar to the way it has always been in the laying out of a magazine.”20 Waldemar Węgrzyn, Elektrobiblioteka.

“Digital books and magazines become easier to navigate when users can open the table of contents onto the same page they are reading at any moment.

It also becomes much easier for the user to find a single line of text throughout the book for citing quotations or specific research.

Hyperlinks provide a valuable context for the text that the user is reading, but also are also a

potential distraction from the main text. Whether hyperlinks can or cannot be used depends on the nature of the text.”21 Lars Böhm.

“The index and hyperlinks … if you think of the Encyclopedia, all of these concepts have been 19 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/06/interview-with-niels-schrader-minddesign-amsterdam/ 20 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/01/interview-with-waldemar-wegrzynelektrobiblioteka/ 21 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/05/interview-with-lars-bohm-uncovered-magazine/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 45 around in the traditional book form for hundreds of years, but they have been of secondary im-

portance: so we have the content pages at the front of the book, while the index is at the back. In digital culture these become primary, because itʼs the linking between texts and the searchability of texts that becomes dominant.”22 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

“Because digital interfaces are dynamic we can compress a lot more information on a smaller

space. It started with simple hyperlinks, moving though old HTML image maps, and nowadays there seems to be no limit to how we can ʽhideʼ large amounts of information – text, more images, videos – behind parts of images or points in graphs. This makes for a super playing field for coming up with new ways of indexing stuff on the screen. And whatʼs perhaps even more

interesting – by taking the things we learn from this digital indexing, and applying it to print

publications, we can start to completely rethink the paper. Visual indexes have started to appear more and more in print books, and Iʼm very sure weʼre still only scratching the surface of whatʼs possible.”23 Anthon Astrom, Lines.

“I believe that language does not exist in isolation. A hyperlink is also an additional piece of language – the coding of a hyperlink – that’s written within another piece of language, in order to

transfer it somewhere else. Like I was saying earlier, these associative or multiple readings – like readings going on at the same time or readings that are not linear – are all a product of a demo-

cratic development of the authorship through the Internet and again, I’m trying to bring that idea back into books, back into this very fixed form that we don’t expect to have hyperlinks.”24Will Holder.

Comment on the answers: The relationship between content and structure is probably one of the first things that gets turned around in the shift to digital media in publishing. It is interesting to see how the medium and the ways of interacting in the Internet too are driving these changes. With digital media we can have a huge amount of information in a smaller space and anything can be linked to anything else, making the information an 22 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/

23 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/30/interview-with-anthon-astrom-thecafe-society-astrom-zimmer-lines-interacting-with-an-idea/ 24 Not published yet.

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 46

hyperstructure. In such a networked environment we have less control on the information, therefore indexes and other ways of creating a structure for such a huge amount of de-structured information (like tables of content) searchability and other ways to easily browse through it (like research tools and hyperlinks become very important, while in the traditional book these were also present but secondary. That makes even more evident one of the main features of language itself: its relational nature. In the traditional paper book, which is adopting the same kind of structures, this concept gets more emphasized and represents an interesting way of rethinking paper too, exactly because of this contrast between the fixity of paper and the non-fixity of such a fragmented kind of information. A5. MEDIA CONVERGENCE: PLATFORMS, FORMATS AND COLLABORATIVE PRACTICES. Question 6. Do you think interactivity and media convergence can affect the design of a book? What about the proliferation of different formats (ePub, PDF, iPad etc.)? What about collaborative practices? How does it change with the digital? What about it in digital publishing? “New media and e-books, allow not only for dynamic content but also for multi-sensory stimulation (e.g. audio or movie fragments). However, in the field of publishing, these new possibilities are not exploited as much as they could be.”25 Niels Schrader.

“When publishing an e-book you have to take into account the compatibility with as many different types of devices as possible. It would be a terrible user experience if a customer were to

purchase an e-book and then wouldn’t be able to open it, it’s the equivalent of buying a book in a language you don’t know. When creating a custom application for a digital book the cost is very high and the book is usually only available on a single platform (e.g. the iPad’s iOS or Google’s Android.)

25 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/06/interview-with-niels-schrader-minddesign-amsterdam/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 47 Sticking to an easily readable file format drastically alters the design process: there is relatively little left to customize, that is my experience of digital magazines.”26 Lars Böhm.

“What I consider to be a very good use of digital possibilities is the chance to update a book

whenever you want to, or the fact that you can do social reading, as you can, a text and comment it in-line on the book, or try and implement in social media some resources. Itʼs the interaction that can make the real difference.

[…] Concerning this I can tell that for example the strategy that I propose at CMD, School for

Communication and Multimedia Design, where I take a course of Media Strategy, is to use vari-

ous channels to disseminate the course content. So for instance, we have the traditional Internet page where we put the lectures, but we also tweet the fact that there are these lectures, and we also have a Facebook page where we embed them.

[…] To me this is a challenge both to traditional readers but also to digital writers, because they

are no longer communicating on one level as the serially written word on the paper was, but they are using many layers of narrative.”27 Raoul Boers.

“Part of Publishing Class third edition is thinking about why we publish in the age of mass dissemination where we can use social media, whether Facebook or Twitter, and we try to think

about what it means to structure and share information. This is another area we propose to the

student to think about and actually part of the coursework is to collect and generate information through different platforms, blogs and social media.”28 Yolande van der Heide.

“Henry Jenkins talks about media convergence as a flow of content of cross multiple platforms

and also about the migratory behaviour of individuals. He emphasises the slipperiness of convergence culture.

Limited Language are interested in this point of convergence but, thinking in terms of a feedback culture, asking what kind of encounters you can have – between media, people and contexts,

images and texts, readers and writers, etc. The most exciting thing for us is that these encounters are not necessarily pre-determined: they can have unexpected outcomes and they can engage previously unimagined communities of people.

[…] The big shift has been from one-way, top down models of communication and publishing to the idea that information is collaborative. But in our work, we’ve had to face up to some practi26 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/05/interview-with-lars-bohm-uncovered-magazine/ 27 Not published yet.

28 Not published yet.

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 48 cal issues. For instance, in Limited Language, we realized that while collaborative practices are great for generating discussion, we decided to write the book because we wanted to reflect on

how these ideas had coalesced, for the longer term. But we also realized that we needed to take a

position – to ‘draw a line in the sand’ as it were – so this involved a more traditional, solitary role of writing. But we used printed hyperlinks to our blog so that this could always feedback into discussion in an on-going process.”29 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

Comment on the answers: This question investigates the digital shift from another point of view, concerning not only the publishing practice related to the books or e-books but the concept of the production of a content in a wider sense, for example in terms of publishing on the Web generally: it is a question that deals exactly with the connections between all the various channels of publishing. The concept of media convergence, first theorised by Henry Jenkins, has two main meanings: One is related to the multiple platforms that a content can get disseminated across – multiple media which stimulate multi-sensory perception and create different layers of narrative. The compatibility between all of these formats, platforms and levels is something really to take into account in the publishing practice. On the other hand, the second meaning concerns the behaviour of people through these various channels of dissemination: for instance, content can be published on a particular platform and then implemented in social media, and so used by people in different ways and contexts. What’s more, that can be also a reason for anybody to ask himself why publish anything, whether onto paper or digitally, as long as it can be done online. Last but not least, in the digital environment one of the main enhancements to the publishing activity is of course the shift from a one-way communication to a collaborative one in terms of the variety of encounters that it is now possible to have. But it’s also interesting to notice that, although the Web 29 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 49

is a great environment where to generate a discussion, the printed book is perceived as the place to reflect on content in the long term and it seems that none of all the ways of publishing digitally on the Web can provide such a level of immersive/in-depth knowledge yet. A6. TACTILITY, MATERIALITY, PHYSICAL PRECENCE. Question 7. Does the digital book have an element of tactility? Which is it? “Thanks to other relations, we have also realized that if we manage to provide an object too, a

concrete thing that one can carry in his pocket or bag – could be a Kindle but also a little roll of paper – people are happier, because they have a physical object that is not only a web page and that could also become a present.”30 Michele Aquila, U10.

“I’m old school about the tactility of books. I’m a little of a lazy reader and I need to scribble

things on the side, I understand that we can do it technically with e-books, but I still need some

kind of tactile element. Iʼm also thinking about arranging things physically in space, so for exam-

ple rearranging a room especially, or how do you rearrange a book shop, for instance.”31 Yolande van der Heide.

“At the end, with e-books I think the reading experience obviously changes, but I don’t think it

changes so much, it just makes it easier for you to carry many books at the same time, but if you look at the stage of e-readers now, they just mimic the paper in a very realistic way.

Otherwise, I think the main disadvantage of e-books is that you can’t share them with friends for

free. If you say to a friend “This one it’s a good book, you have to read it”, you can’t simply hand it to him, he has to buy it himself.

I read a lot of books and what I like is that I have a big book case at home and frequently I go over all my books, pick one of them out randomly and I browse through it. The feeling I have

with e-books is that you store all of them on the device and you never look back on them because you don’t encounter them in daily life, at least, not in the same way as you are surrounded by print books.”32 Lars Böhm.

30 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/01/interview-with-michele-aquila-andvaleria-di-rosa-u10-milan/ 31 Not published yet.

32 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/05/interview-with-lars-bohm-uncovered-magazine/

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 50 “Both e-book readers and the new gesture interfaces certainly add some kind of tactility to the

digital realm. […] One way to think about this could be that the iPad, the smartphone and the e-book make a physical connection between the digital world and the ‘real’ world that simple

blogging didn’t really do. Computers have been taken off the desktop and released into various

environments, so we now engage with these things when we are queuing, when we are traveling and in the lunch break.”33 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

Comment on the answers: When asking about the tactility of books, e-books and other digital formats almost everyone of those interviewed has been focusing on them all as physical objects, drawing attention to the differences between analogue and digital publishing. It was interesting to see that people highlighted a lot of benefits for the print book in terms of materiality and presence in space, whereas very few for the digital book, and also pinpointed the fact that these advantages of the book do not really have an equivalent in digital publishing yet: for example, the opportunity to share books with friends, to make a present of them, to scribble things in the margins, to arrange them in physical spaces. The only advantage of digital formats that has been mentioned has been about its mobility, so the possibility to carry a huge amount of digital books on a only one small device. Apart from that, people generally found decisive the fact that digital content is an object that one doesn’t encounter physically in daily life, a substantial difference between the two media and a reason to lean towards paper. However, I believe that the most insightful aspect related to this topic is again, the connection between two worlds: devices like smart phones, tablets and e-readers are seeking an element of connection that was not present with desktop computers, so probably the attempt here is to go towards this direction: the digital world and the ‛real’ one joining together and not being separated. 33 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 51

B. BOOK AS A PROCESS – Book culture and its uses. The second part of the analysis of the results of the interviews (B.) corresponds to the second part of the Basic Questionnaire. It concerns book culture, so the starting point for first the questions and then the analysis of the answers, has been to focus on the uses of the book, set in the social, political and economic context, as well as in the fields which deal with human behaviour, in order to gather the effects on the publishing process and on the book medium too. B1. DISSEMINATION, OVERLOAD OF INFORMATION AND CONCENTRATION. Question 8. Do you think we are risking an overload of information in publishing, especially in online and digital publishing? Question 9. We are living in the era of the dissemination of information. Do you think we are lacking of concentration? Do you think that dissemination and concentration can coexist or do we have to choose between one of them? “We live in times of data overload. Never before in history have functions, algorithms and

databases had more impact on our daily lives than today. Computers are capable of processing huge amounts of data within a short period of time. People are slower, but have the capability to understand data and draw conclusions based on this information. Both go well together in

modern communication: bitstreams need reasoning, and cognitive reflection requires processing

of information. However, at present, the speed of data transfer is passing the level of understanding. Our minds have simply stopped processing all available data. So the essential question to

consider when reinventing the book on the tablet is «How do we deal with this huge amount of information?»”34 Niels Schrader.

“I don’t know if you have read the book by Nicholas Carr, about Actually, I had a very interest-

ing conversation few days ago with a lecturer in Educational Neuroscience: he was very critical of social media and he cited this book saying that what Nicholas Carr has been writing about is

34 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/06/interview-with-niels-schrader-minddesign-amsterdam/

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 52 that we have a very short attention span and we can only read texts if they are no longer than a blog post because otherwise our minds would switch off.

Yet it’s a very compelling argument to say that we simply have to ban these various fragmented forms of communication and try to get back at least in school and in educational settings to a

more coherent and serialized text format where you simply read a book, understand the course and get the focus back.

I can understand this assessment but I don’t agree with it, you can’t completely turn back time.

This is a huge movement, itʼs a monstrous change in the way we communicate and in the way we

use media. You can’t just turn back those clocks. You might do it in a micro space, where you can say: «Put your mobiles in your bag and donʼt use them.» In a micro setting you might be able to

direct attention in the way you want, but in a large context you cannot change culture.”35 Raoul Boers.

“A few people I’ve worked with all are worried about losing concentration, whether it’s in music or in other disciplines. I mean, when you are listening to music it’s ok to lose concentration so, why is it not ok to lose concentration in other forms of information?

[…] I think there’s a quality in that, I think there’s something like a kind of abstract level of

information that we produce when we lose concentration and we lose our focus and I’m quite interested in that.”36 Will Holder.

“Certainly information is ever-changing and very fragmented. But the first blogs that came out

were an attempt to navigate and make sense of the links on the Internet. The digital theorist Lev Manovich talks about the Internet being ‘anti-narrative’. We aren’t interested in repeating the

cut and paste culture of the Internet, but in trying to understand how we can weave it back into a framework for thinking. I would say that this is about situating information and revealing its

assumptions, and it’s also about situating ourselves in the world of information. This is really important in countering the overload – it is about how we engage, holistically, as human beings.”37 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

“The new challenge lays in content curation, and here is also a much greater risk; over the last 10 years or so we’ve started to trust filtering services way too much, to the extent that our favourite online gateway – Google – has started to provide personalised search results. Theoretically this 35 Not published yet.

36 Not published yet.

37 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 53 is a great service, but the impact is that our world view becomes increasingly isolated. What we need is more overview – more blur – not more reduced sharpness.

[…] I have a feeling we’ve over-exploited the worldʼs resources in covering ourselves in paper for a very long time, and perhaps a more moderate consumption is in order. Itʼs great to see good,

fresh content finding itself out there in ways traditional publishing hierarchies wouldn’t allow,

but the trick – again – is how to orient yourself in a growing excess of material of variable quality. As the walls of publishing come down, the available content becomes diluted, and for the

single consumer (if Iʼm allowed to still use that term) itʼs tricky to see whatʼs really out there, as

long as our window is the personalised filter provided to us by the great web services.”38 Anthon Astrom, Lines.

“In many ways we are shifting into an environment in which skill isn’t about having knowl-

edge but about finding knowledge, but I don’t see this as a bad thing. Obviously there is an ever increasing number of situations in which different things want your attention and you’re just jumping all over, never diving into anything with any depth.

There is an interesting cycle where technologies are used to solve the problems they themselves have created. So now some people are making apps that cut off Internet access or allow you to

concentrate. Probably because to get anything done in your life you have to learn to be able to shut up the Internet access sometimes.”39 David Benqué, The Infinite Adventure Machine.

“I’m sure every era has thought of itself as an era of dissemination of information, but in a 24

hour, always-on culture it’s much harder to stay concentrated. But we move between different

forms of reading – we scan-read, we deep-read, we speed-read, etc. Of course, these are things

that we have always done. Katherine N. Hayles is interesting on this: she says that we need all

these different forms, but we need to understand what they are good for and the skill in future

will be how to move between them. It seems to be similar to what they call “trans-literacy”. For us, it’s the emphasis on sense-making that seems to be of renewed importance.”40 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

“We need to make choices. This reminds me of something that I read from a trend forecaster

who was writing about our generation, stating that all this technology and all of this overload of 38 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/30/interview-with-anthon-astrom-thecafe-society-astrom-zimmer-lines-interacting-with-an-idea/

39 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/02/01/interview-with-david-beneque-theinfinite-adventure-machine/ 40 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 54 information and constant bombardment in a certain way for us is a novelty, and that’s why we can’t switch it off, because we are constantly faced with everything.

On the other hand, younger generations, our kids generation, they will learn how to deal with

this, they will understand much more easily how to switch it off and, so for example when read-

ing a book on the sofa at night is appropriate and when reading the news paper on the iPad is.”41 Anna and Britt, Visual Editions.

Comment on the answers: The human mind in the ways of getting knowledge has certainly been improved by the use of digital media, as well as the process of interaction and exchange of information has become really fast and efficient. Digital processing of information and human cognitive reflection nowadays truly co-operate together in the production of any knowledge. However, such an intensive activity has led to the production of a huge amount of information which seems to being overlapping the level of understanding. We all are concerned that these times feature an overload of information. So here the question was: How do we deal with such an amount of information? In the last few years many research trends have pinpointed the effects of digital media on human cognitive skills and behaviour – one of the most famous is the theory of Nicholas Carr42 about what the Internet is doing to our brain – looking at, for example, the average problem of having a very short attention span, as we are easily losing concentration and never going in-depth into any kind of information. Rather than complaining and sighing for the old times, all the artists, designers and other people that have been interviewed in the context of this research asserted that we can’t completely turn back time and on the contrary have been really open minded about the current situation, which of course has some downsides, but on the other hand could be seen as an interesting 41 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/08/interview-with-anna-and-brittvisual-editions-london/

42 Nicholas Carr, “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains” W. W. Norton & Company, 2011.

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N째 55

and diverse environment for creativity. One of the most striking outcomes has been the idea of taking the advantage of this drop in concentration and loss into such an immense environment and start to think about that just as a different state of mind, an abstract level of information, which could bring many others opportunities, especially in the arts. The question is one more time, about situating information and to the bargain, situating ourselves in the world of information. We are living in a time when the problem is not any more having knowledge but finding it: orienting ourselves and making choices and for the ones that are producing this knowledge, providing some anchors and addressing people. Therefore, thinking about the role of the editor, a good content curator is now primary in the making of a publication. However, this idea could be also quite tricky: if the question is how to orient yourself across fragmented and overproduced digitalized information, yet we have to be completely aware of all filtering services provided by some Web services and in general, of that kind of attitude in thought shaping that the whole Internet realm is now embracing. Again, to orient ourselves in a way to keep our freedom to explore and to have a critical approach to knowledge probably what we need is more overview, more blur, and not more reduced sharpness. Putting it back again on the publishing and reading/writing activities topics, with digital media it became more evident that there are different forms of reading. I do believe that we need all these different forms, and therefore it is important to understand when different devices are needed for different reasons and to make the right choices and here lies one of most important features of the renewed role for all the different professionals involved in the making of a book.

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 56

B2. SELF PUBLISHING, OPEN SOURCE CULTURE AND ECONOMIC MODELS. Question 10. What do you think about the increase of self-publishing, both on paper and digitally? Has the traditional book changed? Can we talk about a sort of “paper reaction” to the digital shift in publishing? Question 11. What do you think about open source culture? What economic models do we have now in publishing and which do you think will take over in the future? “Overall, self-publishing is liberating. Although we are not so interested in self-publishing simply being about self-promotion; but as an attempt to re-engage the public sphere.

[…] In a culture of self-publishing, traditional book publishing processes are important because they emphasise the role of the editor.”43 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

“Books started to be perceived by readers and by people as a medium, so not only as “the thing

of book” but as a container for information. That’s why it became so popular to create your own book, instead of just buying and reading books that we can find in bookstores.

Thatʼs all very interesting and it’s a very positive movement, the self publishing, and I think itʼs also a response to the shift to the digital language in communication: people want not only to read but also to write and to introduce themselves to each other. So you can create websites

or your Facebook account, and in a similar way you can also create a book because it’s not so expensive and not so difficult to find a printer and all the stuff that you need.

I really like self publishing and I think we should treat books not only as products but also as a kind of thought sharing.”44 Waldemar Węgrzyn, Elektrobiblioteka.

“What we have seen happening in the last 4-5 years in the field of visual art is the absolute re-

emergence of the artistsʼ book. This has some common trends with what happened in the 60s and 70s with the re-appropriation of the production tools as a form of criticism to the art institutions

and to the new economy of the art work at large, but it has also a fundamental difference, which is that now the tools to publish are made extremely accessible to artists, since anyone can easily use the computer and can make his own book or her own book immediately even with very few 43 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/

44 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/01/interview-with-waldemar-wegrzynelektrobiblioteka/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 57 means. We can compare this process to the one that we saw years ago with the home studio in the field of video making. The same is now happening in the field of publishing: anyone can

publish, anyone is a publisher, and we are just at the beginning of this. So, on one hand you will

have the disappearance of the traditional publishing and of the usual economic strain – that now from the printer to the user, through paper companies, book shops and all the classic profiles of

the entire chain of production – but on the other hand you have at this stage, a niche publishing or self publishing, whether it’s in art, in fiction or non-fiction, and for me itʼs a very interesting moment to observe.”45 Delphine Bedel.

“I do not think that the democracy in publishing and exchange, which has been produced by the Internet, have negative effects on print publishing. People are finding ways of producing print

and exchanging print in similar ways. I think it’s beneficial to the book and emphasizes its more distinctive and intimate qualities, which you’d only receive by reading it in print, instead of re-

ceiving a piece of digital information, and I think it’s just great. I think this situation takes away

most of the aspects that were previously managed and organized primarily by logical Companies

in print publishing. Self-publishing takes the power out of their hands and makes it an extremely democratic and practical process.”46 Will Holder.

“Publishing and printed matter are definitely in a crisis, but at the same time if you look for

example at the last NY Book Fair it was one of the biggest events in the field of publishing that

I have ever seen. So, I don’t know what to call it and whether it’s the death of print or maybe a movement of print.”47 Yolande van der Heide.

“Even if pixels have now passed paper, book sales are still growing, and I think we can agree on

that the Great Book Death hasn’t happened. The question is what happens as soon as eBooks/au-

diobooks become cheap enough for the price to justify the value in the mind of folks. Itʼs already happened in the music industry, and itʼs just a matter of time until a flat-rate book subscription comes along.”48 Anthon Astrom, Lines.

“I think self-publishing has more impact digitally than in print, and I think it’s fantastic as a platform for people that don’t work in publishing to have their work available. Any open platform

for people to expose their talent, whatever their talent is, is always welcome. In terms of print, it 45 Not published yet. 46 Not published yet. 47 Not published yet.

48 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/30/interview-with-anthon-astrom-thecafe-society-astrom-zimmer-lines-interacting-with-an-idea/

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 58 forces people to really think why they are printing a book in a physical form, which can only be

a good thing. People should print books only if they’re relevant, rather than having a stock full of books that don’t sell. Before making a print book you really have to think about what your ambi-

tion is for it and also what you can do with it, because if you want you can just have it on screen. So, self-publishing forces you to think about the making of a book from a commercial point of view, dealing with the resources that you have, as well as with more general thinking from a practical point of view.”49 Anna and Britt, Visual Editions.

“On one hand we have the traditional publishing market that is now really slowing down the developments. They already have a very important share and they want to make profits. The

traditional process is also very clear, books get printed, stacks of books are stored and in this way

itʼs quite clear to see how many books are sold. It works, so why change it? Publishers are usually not very keen on trying different things.

On the other hand we see that the market is changing and there are very innovative publish-

ers who have digitally born products, and that are not selling a book physically or digitally as

two different products, they are rather selling different experiences. In addition, some printing

companies are really innovative in the sense that they are slowly changing into content aggregators and embracing new concepts of on-demand publishing. Considering that the focus is slowly shifting into the digital market, where does the traditional printing company feed? How can

printing companies survive? […] To summarize, in the age of self publishing and DIY practices I

think that one of the things that we really stress is that yes, there are self publishing practices and indeed the role of the author in self publishing is argued often, because there could be various

authors collaborating in an editorial product, or everyone could make a living by publishing himself, but what does it all really mean? The idea of what an author is simply gets expanded. Self

publishers also do a lot of events and they become like rockstars, but that is not the point. We do have a very professional publishing market, and it will be interesting to see how these publishers will embrace that idea of self publishing and use it professionally.”50 Raoul Boers.

“I think institutions are not very responsive, they are still very stuck in a managerially way of

thinking and stuck in bureaucracy, so they are not able to adapt and respond quickly: they’d like to respond immediately, but everything has to go through so many people before the decision is

made and then the response is too late and too slow. Smaller scale publishing adapts very quickly and in an extremely responsive way to many situations and I hope that larger scale publishing 49 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/08/interview-with-anna-and-brittvisual-editions-london/ 50 Not published yet.

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 59 will catch up with that. I think they might be catching up with them online and with tablets,

because their focus will turn more into things like iPads, in order to have more flexibility and agility in short time production.”51 Will Holder.

“There is total freedom and democratization in publishing but you see that when you still want

to have a presence on the market, both with the e-book and the paper book, it all comes down to publicity and distribution. But now there are also many pioneers, and they are increasing the opportunities and possibilities in publishing. […] They live in unison with one another: one is like

the “big mama” and there are all of these angry kids that are trying to kick down the big mama. I think it’s a very healthy confrontation.

But then, for the small independent self-publishers, the publishing of both paper books and e-

books are just ways to express themselves and the most important thing is showcasing. In many

cases, it is not something they do to earn money. On the other side you have big companies that are only trying to make money, they need to pay their employees, and that’s a totally different thing.”52 Erik Kessels.

“I think that there is place for both open source and not.”53 Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen. “Web 2.0 and open-source are an opportunity to open up to un-expected voices and ideas. But, as we know there is tension in the emerging interests generated by all these changes and existing economic models. Lawrence Lessig talks about a hybrid economy of art and commerce.”54 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

“Usually the open source concept comes with the idea of free culture, so that books should be accessible for free. But if you compare this to the economic models of freedom proposed by

Amazon, I think that here there is a very strong culture clash. Some of the actors of the industries have the capacity to take over the open source techniques and technologies and to make

them proprietary techniques. So I think that it’s fantastic that designers, artists, programmers are investing in open source culture but I think that this is something which is still invaluable.

The economy of the book and of the e-book is also a very important question: is it free as it gets 51 Not published yet.

52 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/13/interview-with-erik-kessels-kesselskramer-amsterdam-2/ 53 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/09/interview-with-dimitri-nieuwenhuizen-lust-the-hague/ 54 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 60 frequently proposed by most of the artists? In the Internet we can easily find books that are PDF that you can download for free, but which model will we take over? So, is it custom design for apps? Is it other technologies that we don’t know yet?”55 Delphine Bedel.

“Iʼm not sure that we have open source in publishing now because it’s mostly still a few big Companies producing most of the books. But I also think that it’s impossible for them to sell as many books in the Internet era and even as many e-books, because publishing became easier and in a

certain way because not only the paper but the information in general become cheaper and more accessible.

So I think that the publishing industries will divide the cheaper and the more popular part of

their production from the other part, which will be very exclusive. Perhaps this part will be made of, I’d not say art books, but rather well designed books, printed as objects and not only as infor-

mation containers, very well designed and carefully edited by an authority opinion.”56 Waldemar Węgrzyn, Elektrobiblioteka.

“Possibly it’s more a question of the economics of distribution that has changed massively. Indeed I also think that the exchange of second hand books online is itself a sort of economic model. I

never buy a brand new book anymore, I always buy my books second hand and you don’t really know where this money goes, if it goes to the author or to the publisher. I think this is a market in itself with its own economic situation.”57 Will Holder.

Comment on the answers: The question about self publishing, open source culture and economics in the publishing realm was one of the most compound and so, interesting, because of the many sub-issues arisen from the answers. To sum up the most insightful ideas which came from the interviews, firstly it is good to bring into focus what I see as the two main ongoing transformations: the re-engage the public sphere and the change of the role of the editor. So far companies have been producing most of the books and e-books, but now not only publishing but the information in general became easier, 55 Not published yet.

56 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/01/interview-with-waldemar-wegrzynelektrobiblioteka/ 57 Not published yet.

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cheaper and more accessible. As a response to the shift to the digital language in communication the book started to be seen more than before as a container for information and that’s why creating your own book became so popular: people now want not only to read but also to write. Thinking about the absolute proliferation of platforms where to self-express, like websites and social media, and how they are easily usable, the step to take from the production and dissemination of content online to the delivering of that content in a book was not so big, last but not least because creating a book nowadays seems extremely easy and not so expensive, especially digitally. What we see now is a re-appropriation of the production tools because of their accessibility, both in terms of usability and in terms of supply. The progressive disappearance of traditional publishing and of the usual economic strain runs together with the emergence of the self publishing movement and what is really interesting is in particular the re-emergence of the artistsʼ book. As a matter of fact, this democracy of publishing, even if it has much more impact digitally, has no cons in print, yet it simply emphasizes the more distinctive and intimate qualities of the paper book and makes the production of it an extremely democratic and practical process, which art and design practices are responding to with a great enthusiasm. Publishing and printed matter are supposed to be in a depression but the so much hyped up ‛Great Book Death’ actually hasn’t happened and we ask ourselves whether it’s the death of print or maybe a just movement of print. What happened is rather that the production of digital books has passed the paper book one and that could just increase more, as long as the e-book will is cheap enough to justify its value in the mind of people, given that it’s not a matter of cognitive experience yet. However, we can see something like a great paper response to all these transformations in publishing.

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 62

Of course, there is really a huge difference between the conditions of big and traditional publishing companies and independent niche publishing or self publishing. In the field of smaller scale publishing this accessibility that we have in the making of print books just forces people to really think why they are printing a book in a physical form and to think about that from a commercial point of view. That is really activating and enabling for self publishers who can in a certain way compete with companies. On the other hand, the traditional publishing market still is aware of profits and so it’s not so willing to change and experiment, since this system is definitely in difficulty, but is still working. What is changing mostly in the market realm comes from the fact that the idea of what an author got expanded. Yet it is interesting to observe how small scale innovative publishers have understood this completely disruptive situation very well and so they are now changing more into content aggregators, using to their own advantage all the on-demand publishing opportunities and services, whereas the big companies and institutions are not very responsive yet. Thus, it will be interesting to see whether larger scale publishing will catch up with that, embracing the whole idea of self publishing and use it professionally, in order to survive. For both the modes, to have a presence on the market it is still a matter of publicity and distribution. But, while independent self-publishers are kind of pioneers, testing all the new possibilities in publishing and their aim is mainly to just express themselves, big companies want and need to make money. However, such a confrontation can only be healthy for both. Getting more into the issue of the open source economic model – which is of course collateral to the issue of self publishing in terms of economics of distribution – many of those interviewed stated that there is place for both, either the open source model and the not open one, in a kind of system that embraces the idea of hybrid economy.

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Free culture in general makes it possible for unexpected voices and ideas to be involved and this is obviously a good thing. But, we have to be aware of the models of freedom proposed by such big companies like for example Amazon. There is something like a culture clash here and indeed a lot of tension in the emerging interests generated in the traditional proprietary economic models by all these changes towards openness: Corporates have the capacity to take over the open source concept and the technology and to make them proprietary. Thus, I believe that people form the arts, and also design and research worlds have a great liability for which model will take over in the future. B3. OBSOLESCENCE, LONGEVITY AND VIRTUALITY OF DIGITAL FORMATS. Question 12. What do you think about the virtuality of the digital? Is putting the content back onto paper the only choice that we have to overtake it? What do you think about the supposed obsolescence of digital formats? “Limited Language are interested in how we might move between the connected and immersive

digital world and the bound world of paper, which still seems like the proper space for reflection

and longevity: which is something it seems important not to lose.”58 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

“I think it’s just that some people prefer to have books that they can keep and some people are happy with the content only as an experience and don’t need to have physical books on paper

as proof of what they read or produce. Moreover, it’s not a one-size-fits-all model, some content should be archived and some content is meant to be dispersal. Different contents need different

ways of living and being safeguarded too. For example, some things need to be filed for cultural or for educational purposes, but other things can happily live, from a journalistic point of view, in a short time span.”59 Anna and Britt, Visual Editions.

58 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/ 59 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/01/08/interview-with-anna-and-brittvisual-editions-london/

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 64 “I’m sitting here in a room of a residency at the moment and there are only few books on the

shelf and I know that they are dead: they have been produced and they have been important to

someone at some point of his life but most of them have died because they’ll never be looked at

again. That idea really upsets me because I know how much time and energy people usually put into books and a lot of them die, but they are just as obsolete as the digital realm, I don’t think there is much difference.

[…] But yes, on the other hand it’s like there is so much that is unreal out there on the web, and even there, it’s all dead until someone finds that page, it’s exactly the same for books.”60 Will Holder.

“What I find interesting is all the stories, myths and core narratives that have been around for

thousands of years, whether it’s the creation of the world or all the typical archetypes of characters that come up even in Hollywood movies, I think these will stay.

So yes, it’s a more ephemeral medium, but I also think that we’ve always told stories with such mediums. With oral storytelling for example, things are over as soon as you say them, there is no exact record but in any case, it was the vehicle for all of these stories to travel through the centuries. I think that maybe we are actually coming back to that in a sense.

Turning this around, now everything is also constantly archived, so the problem is more

about limiting than about keeping and recording, or in making sense of a huge number of

archives where every photo or every line of Tweets get recorded: how to make sense of all this information?”61 David Benqué, The Infinite Adventure Machine.

Comment on the answers: This question refers to the viewpoint which sets the difference between digital and analogue media in the field of publishing in terms of one being a connected and immersive world and the other, as bound as it is, being the proper space for reflection and longevity. However, from a different perspective the contrast could be also seen more easily between those who prefer to have books that they can keep and those who are happy with a content only as an experience, thus looking at their physical nature and presence. 60 Not published yet.

61 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/02/01/interview-with-david-beneque-theinfinite-adventure-machine/

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Another way of conceiving this opposition is related to the concept of the conservation of digital formats: how to ensure that any kind of content will survive in the long term, depending on which kind of media it is put on. Certainly, it depends on the nature of the content and on its aim: different kinds of content need different ways of living and being safeguarded as well, so some content should be archived while others are meant to be dispersed spread. Moreover, in a fast-changing and interconnected environment such the Internet, digital formats need to adapt fast to every new situation and behaviour and so they are of course perceived as more obsolescent than analogue ones. That is because of the nature of the digital itself that facilitates constant updates, although even with analogue media there was always been an element of evolution, it is just that it was far much slower. Afterwards, it is clear that the issue of obsolescence can be seen as a matter of formats but also as a matter of content, and here we come again to the question about the supposed virtuality and brief survival of the digital content. However, I believe that this is only a summary portrayal of such a complex issue. As a matter of fact, if we consider any kind of content dead because it could eventually never be looked at again, though the content on the Web is perceived as more unreal and not existing until someone finds that page, it’s not such a different situation for physical books. Digital content is just more fluid and disappears more quickly. Regardless of its virtuality, it does not mean that it does not have a presence, it is just that is a more ephemeral medium. But that is also the case of those media – like for example the voice – which have been over the history of humanity vehicles of all the core narratives that have been around for thousands of years. Hence, I believe that in terms of physical presence and presence in time for both formats and content, the problem with digital media would be rather again a question of how to make sense of such a huge amount of information.

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 66

B4. TOOLS AND DEVICES. Question 13. Do you know of or use any dedicated software to design a digital book? Which tools are you missing and what do you think is still needed for digital publishing? What do you think about open source software? “eBooks are now designed with the same kind of software that has always been used for the pa-

per book, and thatʼs completely crazy! It’s like using inDesign and force it to do a quite different kind of job.”62 Michele Aquila, U10.

“In all the grass roots movements there are various ways of publishing that are springing up and

slowly growing in that idea of using the Web 2.0 tools to actually do the things that we have very expensive software for, but maybe those software are also not very well implemented, because

you canʼt personalize them, and I think personalization is now the key word, because we all want to personalize our information.”63 Raoul Boers.

“Thinking again, more about the technological aspect, one of the things that we say is that before you publish anything you have to get all your content in a good order and to do that you need

to manage software and they are available and free to some extent. Of course there are also very

high value systems that are quite expensive, but there are also very good free systems like Wordpress, which was originally a blogging software, but now it can be used very effectively with all the plugins, themes and extensions created by all the open source minded communities, so that you can build a very appealing design.”64 Raoul Boers.

“For me an interesting question is also about what form of control we have over the tools we use to publish?”65 Delphine Bedel.

Comment on the answers: This question introduces the more practical issue about tools and devices for digital publishing. The common thought about this topic is that, as well as for the demand for 62 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/11/01/interview-with-michele-aquila-andvaleria-di-rosa-u10-milan/ 63 Not published yet. 64 Not published yet. 65 Not published yet.

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the digital reading experience to be more independent from the analogue one, we need proper tools for publishing digitally, in order not to force the ones that we have for laying out the traditional book layout and last but not least not being limited by them. In order to drive this change, where the shift is not only practical but also cultural, looking at the grass roots movements and the open source communities is for sure one of the most enabling paths. The Web 2.0 provides a lot of good free systems and tools which give an opportunity for personalization and experimentation that more institutional tools can not provide. These kinds of software are accessible to everyone and extremely easy to use. The challenge is only in terms of overcoming the usually common fear of technology and learning always to start anything from the content – what is the goal, what do we need. Besides, free tools and software sometimes require some improvisation, since it is actually the experimentation that comes first and the design of them runs together with this collaboration in experimenting. However, here it is also important to have a political awareness: what form of control do we have over the tools that we are already using and, on the other hand, moreover over those that we as artists, designers and developers create in collaboration? B5. ART AND DESIGN CONTRIBUTION TO RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN PUBLISHING. Question 14. Can art and design practices give a contribution, with a different point of view form Corporates’one, to the development of proper structures, models and devices for digital publishing, and how? In which direction would you like the research on digital book to be developed? As a designer, what do you think is really necessary to explore?

SECTION TWO - PAGE N° 68 “I’ve studied typography so I’m quite aware of the history of design enabling the publishing of

books and I’m sure this will continue in the digital space. I think there is also a space for design

to be used as a tool for exploration and critique of what we want to make of technology and the

possible ways that we could use it. In these stories, scenarios or ideas, design is used as a medium to reflect critically on technology, instead of just a way to make products.”66 David Benqué, The Infinite Adventure Machine.

[…] Artists and designers always expand borders not just with books, but with everything that is design, and I think that their approach can also call into question the more technologically-

inclined publishing experts. From my point of view what I think is very exciting in HTML5 and in CCS3 is that they are really transforming and almost erasing the borders between what is a

website and what is a book or a reading experience. […] Those things were not originally stored

by technologists, they were demanded by designers and that is to me the most interesting innovation, designers are driving a change and technologists are backing it up.”67 Raoul Boers.

“We are interested in technology as a creative catalyst, we enjoy seeing what people actually do

with things. The use of something might well be very different from what companies intend their products for. In our writing, we’ve referred to this as ‘a practice of possibilities’.”68 Monika Parrinder, Limited Language.

“I think essentially that, as artists, we should think about how we use these technologies and

what we can invent for ourselves. I think we should also rethink the economic models beside those proposed by the majors in art and publishing.”69 Delphine Bedel.

“Much of the work on new platforms is driven by the need to monetise them rather than reenergise the reading experience, say. We can’t forget that art and design practices are often inex-

tricable from corporations. But, as we’ve seen with Typography and copyright, and Apps more

generally, it’s probably in the serendipity of creative thinking and the cross-fertilisation of ideas and practices that new structures emerge or older models are re-written.”70 Monika Parrinder,

66 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2013/02/01/interview-with-david-beneque-theinfinite-adventure-machine/ 67 Not published yet.

68 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/ 69 Not published yet.

70 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/19/interview-with-monika-parrinderlimited-language/

OUT OF INK REPORT - PAGE N° 69 Limited Language. “Now I realize that this kind of knowledge, the one that comes from the arts and science perspec-

tive, helps me a lot to identify all the possible needs: which is the right form of technology to find and place in the market; or what could be the right format for a book for a certain audience. It’s a nice synergy.”71 Raoul Boers.

“Basically, design schools and media schools canʼt be separated, because they are both working in the technological field of possibility. If you are a good designer you know how to find the

limits of technology and go beyond them, and only by going beyond them you can get out of the

paradigm of design and expand it, by incorporating new elements and ideas or simply completely disrupting the traditional ones.

[…] The open source community in which these designer usually are, can really invent exciting new ways of expanding our ideas of what publishing and user experience are. So yes, technol-

ogy and design are really two sides of the same coin and they should operate together.”72 Raoul Boers.

“Yes, they absolutely can make a contribution but it’s all a bit disorganized at the moment. That’s also the result of what we were talking about earlier in terms of information overload and dis-

traction that probably generate this inability for artists to organize themselves.”73 Will Holder. “Art and design practice definitely can, is and will contribute in great ways to the evolution of publishing, but the question is to what extent. Until now the development has been very

efficiency-driven, and we keep locking ourselves into certain design patterns when it comes to

interfaces – digital or physical. Much of it has to do with our striving for consensus, and our fear of being unclear. Perhaps itʼs time for the artistic part of creative design practice to get a bigger role, and push for solutions – interfaces, devices – which are blurry, more open-ended. Digital

devices and their interfaces are the new grammatical rules defining the way we communicate, both inter- and intra-personally. And we need to start treating them with the philosophical

respect they deserve. That means not only treating them as a means to a productive end, but as arguments in a discussion about bigger things. And this is the domain of the arts and design.”74 Anthon Astrom, Lines. 71 Not published yet. 72 Not published yet. 73 Not published yet.

74 http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/outofink/2012/12/30/interview-with-anthon-astrom-thecafe-society-astrom-zimmer-lines-interacting-with-an-idea/

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Comment on the answers: This final question has been asked to make those intervieweed talk about their personal idea on the role of art and design in the field of technology, specifically for publishing. The general response that I got has been really positive, willing for these disciplines to set up a dialogue with a more technological and scientific field of practices, and resting on the idea of design to be made as a tool of exploration and critique: a medium to talk about technology, instead of just a way to make products. Design and art practices have always expanded borders, adding to the research on technology the quest for what we want to make of it. Particularly in this field of publishing, for example, design practice has made it possible to erase the borders between what is a website and what is a book or a reading experience, and also expand our ideas of what publishing itself and user experience are. The new exciting thing now is that some of the technologies that we use, especially on the Web, were originally demanded by designers, and so we can truly say that designers are driving a change and technologists are backing it up. As a matter of fact, design and arts can find the limits of technology and go beyond them, as well as they being able to get out of the paradigm of design and arts themselves and expand them, incorporating new elements and ideas and disrupting the traditional ones. All that means that technology is now more than ever a creative catalyst and besides, creativity itself is a very different approach from the one that on the contrary companies intend their products to be for. Hence, design can be seen as the practice of possibilities: looking at how we use these technologies; wondering which one we can invent for ourselves as

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designers and artists; rethinking the economic models besides those proposed by the majors. Even though art and design practices are often inextricable from corporates, the serendipity of creative thinking, the synergy of different approaches and the cross- fertilisation of ideas can really make a big contribution to the field of technology for knowledge. Technology and design are therefore two sides of the same coin and should operate together, as well as arts and science perspectives co-operating in an open source community. Nowadays the problem in the fields of design and visual arts is probably that everything is still a bit too disorganized from the top down because of the information overload and the resulting distraction we have been mentioned before. Another thing that brakes and slows down the design from being really an enabling practice is also that designers sometimes are still too wary and keep locking themselves into certain patterns, especially when it comes to interfaces â&#x20AC;&#x201C; digital or physical, whereas they should provide solutions which are blurry, more open- ended. I believe it is necessary to start giving design and arts a bigger role, more respect and not only treating them as a means to a productive end but as a great source of knowledge through imagination.

The Institute of Network Cultures analyses and shapes the ter-

rain of network cultures from the inside. No innocent bystander, it actively contributes to the field through events, publications and online dialogue. The sphere of new media has huge potential for socio-technological change – the mission of the

Institute of Network Cultures, the INC, is to explore, document and feed this potential.

Established in 2004 the INC takes as its focus the Internet and

other new forms of media.The INC is a framework for the realisation of a diverse array of projects, with a strong emphasis on

content. Its goal is to create an open organisational form where ideas from both individuals and organisations can be given an early institutional context. The Institute of Network Cultures

was founded by Geert Lovink following his appointment as Professor within the School of Interactive Media at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (Amsterdam Polytechnic).

Francesca Coluzzi was born in central Italy (Latina, August

1985), she lives and works in Rome in the field of visual arts

and visual studies, as a designer and independent researcher. In particular, she deals with the development and manage-

ment of editorial projects, including digital ones, as a graphic

designer and curator. Her main interest is the image, in all its possible shapes and forms as well as its use, both as a tool of knowledge and as a cultural subject.

She writes about visual arts and digital media with great

pleasure and passion, and she also publishes online occasion-

ally. She reads, observes, take notes. She studied in the IUAV of Venice – MA in Visual Communication and Multimedia – and

currently she is involved in a research project about the future

of books and publishing practices. In her free time, she collects and stores in an online archive, kitsch images for research purposes.