The resurrection of forgotten or hard-to-find materials from the past stems from a widespread need to reconstruct, to reassemble, even to somehow re-enact the original publishing gesture; a need which obviously goes much deeper than the mere thrill of exploiting new technological possibilities. Nevertheless, the tools and methods used in this process of resurrection are in themselves significant.
In contrast to an abstraction of the text, which reduces it to its semantic structure, it demonstrates that the status and
the interpretations
of a work depend upon its successive forms; in contrast to the death of the author, according to Roland
Barthes’s expression, it emphasizes the role that the author can play, along with others (the publisher, the printer,
the typesetters, the editors) in the always collective process that gives texts their materiality; in contrast to an absence
of readers, it reminds us that the meaning given to a text is a historical production, located at the crossroads of the abilities
or expectations of the readers and of the designs, both graphic and discursive, that organize the objects being read.
“In this context
we view the act
of publishing as
a gesture that accommodates the political, the artistic,
and in some cases, the defiant...
A gesture is something preceding the action, and therefore signifies motion and agency of the most expressive and potent kind,
precisely because
it is so wrought
with intentionality.”
O livro impresso exibe uma assimetria de poder entre autor e leitor. A partir do momento em que o livro ultrapassa as
barreiras de legitimação, impostas pela publicação e distribuição, adquire o
sentido de permanência da “palavra impressa” que assim se torna tendencialmente isolada
e soberana.
O livro digital transforma a “ilha” em "rede". Como consequência e devido à
disponibilidade, acessibilidade da informação e facilidade de construção de dados,
o valor do autor cai dramaticamente. No entanto, a asfixia adquirida pela extensão da informação,
obriga-nos à procura de outros filtros de legitimação do conhecimento. Valoriza-se a escolha face
à totalidade e encontram-se novas instâncias de legitimação. Nos novos processos de “
leitura”, coloca-se a prioridade na “escolha do que se quer conhecer” e não “no que
se
conhece”.
If print increasingly becomes a valuable or collectable object, and digital publishing indeed continues to grow
as
expected, the two will nevertheless cross paths frequently, potentially generating new hybrid forms.
When we are no longer able to categorise publications as either a ‘print publication’ or an ‘e-publication’
(or a print publication with some electronic enhancement), then the first true hybrids will have arrived. It may be worth envisioning
a kind of ‘print sampling’, com- parable to sampling in music and video, where customised content (either anthologies
or new works) can be created from past works. Such a ‘remix’ publishing strategy could create new cultural opportunities,
and open
up new ‘processual’ publishing practices.
Electronic books, newspapers and magazines would have been poor alternatives to paper, had they not been updatable and cross-connectable through networks. Paradoxically, the network also offers print publishing its best opportunities for survival: making it possible for publishers to team up with like-minded colleagues, to connect with potential customers, to foster a collective understanding of the unique and complementary role of paper within the new digital reality, and to implement new and sustainable ‘hybrid’ publishing models.
Culture filters things, telling us what we should retain and what we must forget. In this way it gives us some common ground, with regard to mistakes as well as truths.
The internet gives us everything and forces us to filter it not by the workings of culture, but with our own brains. This risks creating six billion separate encyclopaedias, which would prevent any common understanding whatsoever.
A publicação própria é também o espaço por excelência para acolher as novas
direcções do design gráfico contemporâneo. Artistas plásticos, curadores, designers gráficos
e outros, reconhecem na publicação o território ideal para uma prática experimental, especulativa,
de reflexão crítica com carácter ensaísta.
The undeniable impact of digital publishing on the print publishing economy is a key factor in this process,
as the established trade mechanisms and money flows which have sustained publishing for centuries are increasingly
being called into question.
At this turning point, with many long-established publishing enterprises facing bankruptcy, publishers both large and small
struggle to (re)invent, experiment, hybridise, and exploit (some might say squeeze the last drops out of)the unique characteristics
of print, while integrating new ‘digital’ features
– or at least some essence of these features
–
into the printed page. Furthermore, the rapidly maturing ‘print on demand’ model, besides predictably revolutionising
the traditional ‘vanity press’ and self-publishing markets, has also made possible the publication of many experimental,
historical, collaborative, updateable, and otherwise non-commercial materials.
The reader constructs the meaning of any article by relating it, even unconsciously, to what precedes it, accompanies it,
or follows it, and from his
or her perception of the editorial intent and of the intellectual or political design that
governs the publication. In an electronic form,
a reading of the “same” article is organized out of the
logical architecture that structures the domains, the themes, the headings, and the keywords.
There is no such thing as a copy.
In the world of digitalized images, we are dealing only with originals
—only
with original presentations of the absent, invisible digital original. The exhibition makes copying reversible:
It transforms a copy into an original. But this original remains partially invisible and non-identical.
Now it becomes clear why it makes sense to apply both cures to the image—to digitalize it and to curate it,
to exhibit it.