Exploring new ways of digital reading

September 22, 2014

Week 1

We are the northern group settling down in the beautiful Sasso Residency for the next four weeks. Our project explores new ways of digital reading. We consist of the initiators Matilde and Hanna and our collaborators Katrin and Solveig.

Matilde Maria Rasmussen (DK) is a part of the multi-disciplinary design studio All the Way to Paris based in Copenhagen. The studio practice explores an open-ended visual language within the fields of graphic design and large scale commissions.

Hanna Bergman (SE) is one half of the graphic design studio Bergman & Wibroe in Copenhagen. Hanna also initiated the project Incomplete Readings, working with a translation of a book structure from physical to a digital one. Her practice contains an ongoing investigation of reading.

We want to describe our project as a study in new ways of reading the digital book. We’ll be working on this digital book in an open-form and audio in this case will be in extension of reading. Many computer programs and user interfaces are using skeuomorphism to explain the function of reading and flipping through the book as we know it (Gutenbergs codex book). A bit differently but in the same manner we would like to explore audio to accompany a story told in still images or parts of a chosen text.

Adding dimensional values seems important for our ability to perceive the language-image-text that otherwise figures only as pure information (non-dimensional; declared through Flusser’s theory) on the digital screen. According to Nicholas G. Carr and his observations in the book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains he claims that we are sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply in the digital age. He explains how the printed book served to focus our attention, promoting deep and creative thought. In stark contrast, the Internet encourages the rapid, distracted sampling of small bits of information from many sources.

We want to emphasize the importance of these remarks through our study.