Session 2: THE UNBOUND BOOK
Gary Hall (UK) - Liquid, Living Books
Conference Day 1, May 20, Den Haag, 13.30 – 14.30
Thanks to open access and the likes of AAAAARG.org and Issuu, it’s possible to publish a book today in a matter of minutes. What’s interesting about electronic publishing, however, is not so much the way bringing about a book is becoming more like blogging–with certification provided by the times a text is downloaded, linked to, tagged or ‘liked’ as much as by traditional means of quality control – but that certain developments in electronic publishing contain the potential to conceive ofbooksasnotbeingfixedandunified,with clear material edges, but as liquid and living: open to being continually revised, refreshed and reimagined. Yet as examples such as the Bible and Shakespeare’s First Folio show, books have always been liquid and living – and, throughout modernity, have always been subject to forces striving to repress this fact. Electronic publishing has simply helped to make us aware of it.