'Altered books tap into our collective heightened interest in books as objects. Physical books, as differentiated from digital versions, tend to trigger memories, both visual and tactile.' (Kuhn, 2013: 11). The question of what will be left behind of the digital is a curious one here, perhaps. While we know what film and a physical book leave behind, the traces of their existence are still present (film strip, video tape, paper), what will be left behind of digital works (books)? What traces do digital forms leave behind?

See the idea of 'altered books', or bookworks, as defined by Doug Beube, as presented in 'Art Made From Books' by Alyson Kuhn, which looks at the conceptual underpinnings of artists books but also art made form books whereby the physical material of the book functions as a material and a platform to exercise ideas.

For the changing guises and forms of a book, see The Book Is Alive blog, which displays book 'as an evolving, open and visual medium' that is curated and alive, thus its shape and content can change.

It is this idea of critically thinking through making, working through the ideas by employing both critical thinking and making practices and all the processes that are involved in it.

Here the notion of a design as a political tool is also crucial. From the Constructivist practices onwards, the question of how design comments on and engages with contemporary life is definitely manifested in this project as well as in corresponding practices such as Photomediations: An Open Book.. How does the content one wants to present/communicate to the audiences fit the format in which this information is presented/accessed seem to be the key questions.

See for example an experiment concerning gestures of reading and writing, 'unruly gestures.' 'unruly gestures: seven cine-paragraphs on reading/writing practices in our post-digital condition' is a performative essay for 'Shifting Layers. New Perspectives in Media Archaeology Across Digital Media and Audiovisual Arts' edited by Miriam De Rosa and Ludovica Fales (Mimesis International, 2016). In it we aspire to break down preconceptions about gestures of reading/writing that relate to their agency, media-specificity, (linear) historicity and humanism. Informed by Tristan Tzara’s cut-up techniques, where through the gesture of cutting the Dadaists tried to subvert established traditions of authorship, intentionality and linearity, this visual essay has been cut-up into seven semi-autonomous cine-paragraphs, accompanied by text.

A number of recently curated sources explore this idea in a similar manner. See for example Photomediations: An Open Book.

For the changing guises and forms of a book, see The Book Is Alive blog, which displays book 'as an evolving, open and visual medium' that is curated and alive, thus its shape and content can change.