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Cursor, Haptic and Mirror

Cursor, Haptic and Mirror: Working Interfaces of the Book

A Talk at Center for Book Arts New York City November, 16th, 2004

Let’s consider some working interfaces of the book; the cursor, the haptic and the mirror. We will adventure with the reader, the physical codex and the content. Let’s also consider these domains of the book with reference to initiatives out in Iowa. Many different topics all suggesting the fun of book studies.

Cursor

For millions of years primate dexterity preceded increasing brain size in the hominid genealogy. This circumstance engendered a learning path based on discovery by manipulation and tactile observation. The perceptive channel of dexterity and tactile discovery then prompted the mind toward conceptual thought. It is even contended that the pointing finger engendered language by indicating one thing in terms of another.

So the first cursor to navigate symbolic content was the pointed finger. You will see pointed fingers drawn in manuscripts or see “fists” in period printing, or today see the pointing hand to signal a live link. The cursor is also represented by the Yad, the small silver hand used to track recital from Judaic scriptures. And the same function is presented by the cursor in the teleprompter screen which prompts recitation on TV. From the papyrus scroll to the teleprompter to computer text display, the need to impose tracking with a cursor appears timeless.

The cursor points to legibility as a fundamental quality of the book. This legibility is not just an issue of resolution, but of immediacy of the content. Transmission delays, screen drawing errors, unwanted pop-ups and navigational and collation difficulties all add to the illegibity of on-line text. The navigational act of fanning through a paper book seems insignificant until we desire the same immediacy in other modes of reading.

The cursor points to reflexive actions. The book reader is motivated to read and write, read and write and read and write. Writing and printing, printing and publishing, collecting and arrangement of books, arrangement of books and librarianship; these are all reflexive actions of the reader. There are many more.

Have we ever seen book art that projects the role of the cursor? Have we ever seen cursor book art? Pop-up and movable books come to mind as exemplars of the cursor prompt to content while Susan Joy Share’s choreographed performances of book structures dances the reader through book experiences. Another possible example of the cursor prompt to books is our Zine Machine in Iowa or the classroom book kit prompts of the Iowa Book Works .

Haptic

Now let's look at the object of cursive regard. The practiced manipulation of codex reading conveys conceptual patterns to the mind. Just as the cursor tracks recitation and text display, the physical paper book enables the manual understanding of print concepts. Does the action and physicality of a book impose a particular receptivity to the content of a book? Is there a haptics of comprehension? Is haptic assimilation of conceptual works an unappreciated function of the physical book?

Acts of manipulation in book reading involve the vertical page, moving in position with a previous and next page and in recto/verso relationship and these pages handled in a mobile, bound structure which provides the mechanism for delivering and timing concepts. Fingers tend to start the lift of a leaf during the page read and tend to concluding motions at the page turn. Paper grain, paper thickness and other tactile features such as book weight are continually mapped against an emergent meaning. An embedded learning path of hands prompting the mind is at work as we read a book. The meaning is delivered and exemplified by a manipulated physical object.

Another way to appreciate the haptic efficiency of the codex is to consider the haptic inefficiency of the e-book. Screen display compared with paper display deprives reading of corollary physical possession and manipulation of the concepts conveyed. This desperation is indicated by the surprise emergence of the cell phone, not the dedicated e-book, as the incubation niche for screen text. The established personal physical possession of a cell phone begins to compensate for the transience of electronic screen display.

What haptic adventures are embedded in books? How is the haptic richness of the codex conveyed to art? A recent item in the Bonefolder starts a critical path for evaluation of haptical book art, but I will also offer some Iowa activities including the restoration of readability of older books and the engineering of haptic efficiency in digital book production. The Iowa examples are the application of sewn board binding technique to the practice of book conservation and the innovation of fold bound books for xerographic book production .

Mirror

Now let's consider the story or content; a defining component of books in all formats and situations. This is the mirror in the book. The computer screen connected to all other computers is a mirror. The first computer screen was the night sky. High resolution, wide field. Electronic screens still work best in the dark. Pages in the daytime and screens in the nighttime. Its timeless. Reading the screen of the night sky societies began to connect the dots. Mythologies, news omens and astrophysics have all been imposed on the screen of the night sky. The night sky is also like the internet. It dwarfs the individual reader and so the reader wants to see a portion of the mirror and not the whole universe. Enclave blogs, live journals, Wikis, and Google searches are all smaller mirrors. The smaller mirror puts the person in front of the universe. Connected reading devices should not mimic print books: they should convey intelligent physical positioning for the reader. Global positioning systems (GPS) integrated with geographic intelligence systems (GIS) could extend the haptic efficiency of electronic books by providing live position of the physical reader in strange cultural and geophysical environments.

Just as our own embodiment facilitates the person, the persistence of the materiality of the book embodies concepts and stories. The materiality of the book is the displaced embodiment of the person. Even the on-line name has a real person with a real story somewhere in the background. The stories that people represent are reflected in the mirrors of their books.

What are the mirror arts of the book? These must include the “distant mirrors” reflecting the past of book production and the mirrors of on-line book arts, book imaging and remote book studies that defy their own in-built contradictions. The Iowa examples here are joint projects in the recreation of historical book production and an on-line commentary on issues of paper vs. screen based reading .

endnotes

The popularity of Zines, comics graphic novels like the scrapbook craze are all enthusiasms for paper publications in a context of digital production and computer arts. The digital revolution has empowered the individual to be their own author and publisher. Authors can decide to print to paper, can decide to publish via print-on-demand technologies and can decide to define the future with traditional books.

In Iowa we promote Zines and creative writing with a SnackShop vending machine. Located in a print alcove of the Main Library, the Zine Machine offers students off-line discoveries.

Gary Frost and Joyce Miller have teamed up to create Iowa Book Works. The IBW workshop produces classroom support materials for book studies programs and home schooling. Iowa Book Works produces a ten model Historical Bookbinding Set that introduces the codex mechanism across time and cultures. This set is designed to support book studies at universities. A range of other craft kits provides hands-on experience of heritage book making for book enthusiasts. The Amana School Book and Nauvoo Trail Journal introduce themes of book use in 19th century America. The ever popular Ethiopian Book with Mahdar introduces the early codex and the legacy of the sewn board binding structure. For a more complete description, visit Iowa.Book.Works.com.

Frost, Gary, “Reading by Hand: the haptic evaluation of artists’ books”, Bonefolder, 2/1, fall 2005.

The application of sewn board methods to book conservation practice offers an Iowan example adaptation of ancient structure to modern needs. The distinctive features of unsupported, thread only sewing and its adaptability to pre-exiting sewing stations suggests wide, wide application to book conservation methods. The exemplar of the sewn cartonnage from the era of the papyrus book also converges with sewn card folios adapted as book boards. Finally docile opening actions without compromise to mechanical strength of the cover to text attachment all recommend sewn board technique to the reinforcement of damaged books.

The digital revolution has advanced print reading as much as it has advanced screen based reading. No where is this more apparent than in the book production sector based on high-speed copying. Printing on demand, book publishing on demand and on demand book binding are moving to the center of their respective industries.

New generations of materials and structures are emerging. As an example, high speed copiers can print to impositions not seen since the fold impositions of papyrus letters. Fold bound configurations featuring four page gatherings produce graceful adhesive bindings. Such applications are developed at Library Binding Service in Des Moines Iowa.

While book studies programs continue to surge in scope and distribution, the collegiate transition from fine printing to historical printing is still in an early stage. The “Historical Printing Studio” and the “Amana Print Shop & Bindery” are University of Iowa Center for the Book facilities that provide an exceptional environment for the study of the history of the book, its evolution, and its future. Here student learn to operate The Reliance iron press that represents the early centuries of letterpress printing and the Star Kelsey and C & P jobber that recall the work of innumerable small town trades people who printed everything from flour sacks to wedding announcements.

Students also come to appreciate our two Model 31 Linotype line setting and casting machines. By 1916 over 39,000 Linotype machines were at work with numerous machines in every large newspaper office composing room. A Linotype operator could set copy in one hour that would take a full day to set by hand… and the machine then automatically distributed the mats while type had to be distributed piece by piece. In motion the Linotype is a mechanical acrobat of tumbling cams, maneuvering elevators, dancing type mats and revolving mold wheel. It was the syncopation of the Linotype composing room, not just the whirl of the rotary presses that produced the revolutionary new commodity of latest, up to the minute, News.

Gary Frost’s <futureofthebook> went live at the dot com domain in January 2000. Dedicated to the “preservation and persistence of the changing book”, this site comments on developments in the interaction of paper and screen based reading and on the prospects for the print library collections. The <futureofthebook> at the dot org is a more recent blog of an Institute project of the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California. Gary is a frequent participant on this lively blog as well.