WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BOOK?

◼️Being in this enormous library surrounded by books from the very beginning until basically today made me realize books are made for the future. The unchangeable or frozen information is the key to understanding the past and the future. This is especially important now, because making books is no longer self-evident. One of the most important debates of our time concerns whether books can survive.

◼️◼️I don't think the book needs to be defended, by the way, it's been one of the most stable media for over 600 years. Are books nostalgia, relics from another time? The answer lies in the hands of the new generation. It is precisely young students who are mainly active in the digital world who are discovering the book as a source of exclusive information today. The ‘no screen' is a new dimension to them and reading is literally a rediscovery of the materiality, tactility, the smell of paper and ink.

◼️◼️◼️My main focus is the study of the earliest printed books in relation to the book now. If you look at the oldest manuscripts, from AD 500 and 850, and the earliest printed books, from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, these are of unprecedented modernity, you would now call it experimental. It is an exciting time, anything was possible – you see text as wide as the page, there are no headings, no paragraphs, no page numbers.

◼️◼️◼️◼️I find the innocence you see in that earliest book super fascinating and inspiring. Bookmaking was not yet hindered by conventions or marketing rules. The printed book, as we know it today, still had to be developed and invented in all its facets. The printed book was a medium in development. When the demand for the printed book grew and it became widely distributed, there was a need to make rules for how a book should work. I follow the quest: ‘What happened to the book?'

◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️At a time when information is increasingly being distributed digitally, the book seems to be under threat, but nothing could be further from the truth. The immutability of the printed world in relation to the Aux of the Internet is only one of the values of the book: the printed word as a reference for the future. Therefore, I can, or must, articulate my work as a bookmaker and study the intrinsic characteristics of the printed book intensively and propagate them in my book designs and apply those characteristics. The making, the focus and concentration, and the ambitions I have, can keep the book vital and I want to continue to develop this.
It is an unstoppable process.

Printing Revolution From the Internet Johannes Gutenberg's (ca. 1397–1468) revolutionary printing method, first commercially exploited in the 1460s, had many political, economic and cultural implications. First of all, it helped to spread ideas and information faster and in greater quantity and, secondly, accelerated the production process, which in time made it more affordable to buy books. Prior to this invention, spreading information was limited to handwritten texts and oral messages. The tise of the printing press changed the same for literature, politics, religion, science and many more. Ideas became more easily accessible but at the same time more vulnerable to criticism. The art of printing enabled people to choose their own right from wrong, or even to develop and spread their own ideas around the world.

Replacement by the Codex The Romans invented the codex form of the book, folding the scroll into pages which made reading and handling the document much easier. Scrolls were awkward to read if a reader wished to consult material at opposite ends of the document. Also, only one side of a scroll was written on, while both sides of the codex page were used. Eventually, the folds were cut into sheets ‘or leaves', and bound together along one edge. The bound pages were protected by stiff covers. The codex was not only easier to handle than the scroll, but it also fit conveniently on library shelves. The spine generally held the book's title, facing out, affording easier organization of the collection. From the fourth century onwards, the codex became the standard format for books, and scrolls were no longer generally used. After the contents of a parchment scroll were copied in codex format, the scroll was seldom preserved.