And So On and So Forth

Thesis V

The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized

only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be

recognized and is never seen again. "The truth will not run away

from us": in the historical outlook of historicism these words of

Gottfried Keller mark the exact point where historical materialism

cuts through historicism. For every image of the past that is

not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens

to disappear irretrievably. 

-from Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History 

---

It is this excerpt from Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History that struck me the most. Thinking about it in terms of my own research on the past, present and future of language, the past is almost always referenced in the present. If only for a second, we can see a glimpse of the past in the present. This is almost always the case in regards to any subject, isn't it? How can there even be a present of something without its past? If something had no past tense, there wouldn't be a present tense of it either; it would just be. In order to have these distinct tenses, one tense must come before another tense. This is the logic of history; recedings and proceedings. All of Language, now and forever in the future, is based on the past and the established system that was created for language at that one point in history. From the moment the first sound was spoken. Then the first word. Then the first sentence. Then the moment an alphabet was created. Then the first written language. And so on and so forth. Without the past, there is no present. It's as simple as that. We only know of the past by which we see of it in the present and what we can foresee of it in the future.

The Promise of Digital Books

The first thing that Mod says at the beginning of his discussion is that in order to think about the future of the book, we have to think about the future of all content and the connections between the platforms where the content is published.

Two features of the future book defined by Mod, which I found most intriguing, were the authorial shift and the artificiality that takes place in the digital format.

Mod explains that digital books can be constantly updated in real-time. Time itself becomes an active ingredient in authorship, he says. Mod uses Wikipedia as an example of this. Wikipedia is a collaborative form of authorship and it is continuously evolving.

Books on the other hand, have more of a sense of permanence. The words are embedded in the paper, unchangeable once the book is printed. What exists on the pages today will remain there tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Books are reliable.

Does this mean that digital books are unreliable? Mod says once the format changes from print to digital, the books become artificial. Books in the digital format may only exist that way for an instance because they can constantly be updated.

The most memorable claim that Mod makes towards the end is that Digital has more of a promise of shared experiences. This is not to say that printed books do not allow for shared experiences, but the possibilities are greater with digital.

6,909+

Limited Edition for only $9.32. Can't beat that!

>> 6,909+

The Invisibility of Print

In what sense might we say that the medium of print becomes visible just at the moment it is “superseded” by the internet?

I’m sitting here, trying to find an answer to this question. As I repeat it over and over in my head, I feel as though maybe the medium of print will always be superseded by the internet, thus it never can become visible before it is visible on the internet. Since the invention of the internet, print has become second nature. The internet lessens the distance between the time it takes us to receive information while the medium of print is a much longer process. For example, by the time it takes for newspapers to be printed, the news has already changed and one can already access it on the internet, even as it is happening. I’m not trying to say print has become extinct, but in some aspects it has become invisible.
The only visibility of both mediums is the way they structure our interaction with the world around us. Printed books, for example, have structured how we tell stories spatially and how we read. We have even transferred this structure of storytelling into the digital medium with the idea of ebooks. They still have the same structure as printed books do. I suppose, this is an example of how the medium of print could be seen visible still in the digital world. I guess the bigger question I think we need to think about in terms of these two mediums is what does it do to us(in terms of our interactions with them) and how does it change us?

Demand with Caution

Print On Demand undoubtedly revolutionized the world of publishing. Not only has this new platform transformed the printing process, it has also made publishing a more accessible commodity. POD has democratized publishing. Now, it is possible for anyone to be his or her own author. Well, anyone that can generate a PDF, according to Ludovico. In the excerpt Print On Demand from Alessandro Ludovico’s book Post-Digital Print, he discusses the history of Print On Demand as well as the pros and cons that exist within it.

One of the most powerful things that I think POD offers is this notion of democracy. With this format, publishing is no longer just for the elite, but for everyone. This idea does have its downfalls though, described in Ludovico’s passage as “mass amateurization.” Before books were printed, editors carefully proofed them, but by the means of POD, publishing becomes an instantaneous process.

“The Gutenberg revolution is over… It’s going from a world of ‘filter, then publish’ … to ‘publish, then filter.’”

Yes, it is amazing that now it is possible to publish pretty much anything. As Ludovico points out, experimental and innovative books can now be published at a more affordable rate. This is an exciting new platform! But one thing I think we have to be careful of, as designers and as a people, is authenticity and authorship.

Role Reversal

For years, people predicted that paper would go extinct, but in all honesty, I do not think that day will ever come. It is human nature for us to want to assume that when some new technology comes into our existence, we should abandon an old one. Out with the old, in with the new as they say. What Alessandro Ludovico points out in The death of paper (which never happened) from his book Post-Digital Print is that we have been predicting the future of paper for years, especially against threats like the telegraph and audio. There will always be some threat to the printed medium with the rise of technology, but paper will always be around. At least that is what I think…

“And yet, despite its widespread use and incontestably tremendous potential, the hypertext has not yet succeeded in supplanting the ‘traditional’ text. The development of various ‘wiki’ platforms has dramatically expanded the hypertext’s possibilities for collective authorship and the compilation of resources. It’s clear that the hyperlink is now definitely embedded in our culture.” (pg. 28)

In this passage from the text, Ludovico describes hypertext as a new language. Hypertext allows for something paper can never be, he says. With the advent of this new language, we should not fear the extinction of paper but embrace the new possibilities that hypertext allows for, which is access to numerous material. On the contrary, what Ludovico says we should be aware of is the role reversal of the medium of paper and the medium of the Web. The Web has become more preferred over printed material in terms of archival purposes. The medium of print has become secondhand.

The Immortality of Books

William Gass proclaims, “We shall not understand what a book is, and why a book has the value many persons have, and is even less replaceable than a person, if we forget how important to it is its body, the building that has been built to hold its lines of language safely together through many adventures and a long time.” 

In the statement above from Gass' article In Defense of the Book, he makes his argument between print and digital becomes clear when he compares books to people. It is this statement and comparison that struck me the most when I read the article. While it is true that people come and go, books, along with the content within them, remain according to Gass. Although it seems that books have more of a sense of permanence than human beings, both people and books age with time. And unlike people, books cannot talk back. Books can be held, carried, marked up. And more importantly, books age. It is this exact quality of humanity that I believe Gass is arguing for and in which digital reproductions do not achieve. 

Gass makes a vital discrepancy between words on a screen and words on the pages of a book when he says, off the screen, words do not exist as words. They do not wait to be reseen, reread like in a book, they only wait to be remade, relit. I started thinking about how I read on a screen compared to how I read in actual books. I am more likely to read such things like articles, news, etc. rather than novels on screen. When I read physical books, I feel like I can return to it more easily spend more time with it. The tangible qualities of books are more inviting to me. Like Gass says, books have sentimentality and nostalgia embedded in them. Books act as records around us, acting as physical and symbolic building blocks. Unlike books reproduced on screen, books carry histories of sorts with them. Not only the history of the actual words on the page, but history of where the book has been and where it will go next. 

A book that came to mind after reading Gass' article was a book I received a little over a year ago from a resident at my work. I work at a retirement home where I run activities with a small group of residents. There is one resident I am very close with there. Her name is Carol. I talk to her about everything. She has book stacks all over her room, so many you can barely see the floor. Carol lent me a book of hers one day, one that she said has had a significant impact on her life. The title of the memoir is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. When I started reading the book, I noticed specific lines she had highlighted, certain pages that had remained bookmarked, and notes she had written for herself. Although I was not aware of this at the time, these markings changed the way I myself read the book. It's almost as though I was more connected to Carol and her thoughts because of the markings she left behind.